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Excerpts
Maier, a business and investigative reporter, has worked for Newsday since 1984.
When Newhouse won the 1995 "best media book" prize from the National Honor Society in Journalism and Mass Communication, my wife Joyce and I traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend the awards dinner.
After the ceremony, a journalism teacher living in New Jersey -- where the Newhouse newspaper chain is dominant -- came up to my table and mentioned that she had never heard of the book.
No wonder. This book, as much a parable about American media power as it is a biography of Si Newhouse's family organization, underlines the deep problem for a democratic society when so few companies, like the Newhouses' Advance Publications, control what we learn about our world. My experiences with this book only served to illustrate the extent of this power.
In effect, the Newhouse company banned any mention of this book in their publications. None of the Newhouse papers ever reviewed it. Undoubtedly, many people living in places like Cleveland, Portland [Oregon], New Orleans, and several other regions where Newhouse newspapers are dominant would be interested in knowing about who runs the only paper in town. Yet the Newhouse newspapers, the fourth largest chain in America, decided that it was best for their readers not to learn anything about the boss. When Liz Smith mentioned the upcoming Newhouse book as the lead item in her nationally syndicated column, none of the subscribing Newhouse newspapers used it, according to a computerized newspaper search.
Several writers confided they had thoughts of writing about Newhouse's power but were too afraid to do so. Most surprisingly, some top editors told me they couldn't express their opinions because they had signed a "gag agreement" not to discuss anything about the Newhouse organization even after they had left. The use of "gag agreements" and other implicit threats for speaking one's mind (similar to the restrictions in the tobacco industry for those who would speak out) seems extraordinary for a company which has reaped a fortune by employing the First Amendment.
