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November/December 1999 | Contents
centerfold Mark Crispin Miller
See also Planet Viacom: A visual analysis of the mega-merger
(gif) As a business proposition, the Viacom/CBS merger, once approved, will be a winner. "All in all, it's hard to see a negative in the deal," said How ard Stringer, one-time presi dent of CBS News, now c.e.o. of Sony. While it is surely good news for the shareholders, journalists have reason to be wary, as the centerfold chart suggests. In The Brass Check (1919), Upton Sinclair analyzed the crippling sway of moneyed interests over U.S. newspapers and magazines. As he saw it, the "Empire of Business" had used a number of devices to control the nation's press, including outright purchase and the flow of advertising revenues, to which the Fourth Estate had gradually become addicted. Through such methods, Sinclair ar gued, "there exists in America a control of news and of current comment more absolute than any monopoly in any other industry." Although things later loosened up, our journalistic landscape is strangely reminiscent of those days - the Internet notwithstanding. And yet the situation now is different, since the scale of corporate influence is unprec edented. Today, for reporters working in the new conglomerates, the range of possible taboos has grown im mensely. With its wealth of interests all around the world, the distended Viacom - like The News Corporation (Fox), General Electric (NBC), Disney (ABC), and Time Warner (CNN) - will have so many boats at sea that its most scrupulous reporters may well run the fatal risk of rocking some of them. Others will be less adventurous. Thus does the chill of censorship have less to do with outright interference by the parent company (although that happens) than with editors and reporters learning what it takes to get ahead. Such censorship starts seeming natural, as if automatic — like the cost-cutting that such mergers always mean for journalists. Here are some red flags to watch for: SAFE ZONES. Thus Redstone took up the tune that Rupert Murdoch has been singing for years. With Nickelodeon in Turkey and Indonesia, MTV in India, Russia, and Colombia as well as China, and other TV channels in the Middle East, Viacom has a vested interest in maintaining reportorial tact in places where "offensiveness" may be the proper course.
CUTBACKS. With the merger, "The news division suddenly becomes a very small slice
of a very large corporate pie," says Ken Bode, dean of the Medill School
of Journalism at Northeastern. The merger is expected to achieve a savings of
$100 million by elimination of redundant jobs throughout both companies. Further
cuts in news should come as no surprise. Cost reductions, of course, have journalistic
consequences.
On the local level, the newsrooms at the Tiffany network's premier stations
are already understaffed. "In major markets — New York, Los Angeles, Chicago,
Philadelphia, San Francisco, Boston - CBS has been chronically understaffed
as compared to the other networks over the past several years," says Greg
Hessinger, AFTRA's assistant national executive director for news and broadcast.
In city after city, CBS's local radio news staffs have also been cut back.
HYPE.
SORE SUBJECTS. Will Viacom's ownership of theme parks now pose problems for CBS? As covered
by pre-Viacom CBS this summer, Viacom closed seven rides in its five amusement
parks following fatal accidents at two of its parks.
What about billboards? In many cities, billboards are controversial because
of their promotion of booze and cigarettes in poor neighborhoods. The new Viacom
will be the nation's largest billboard company.
These are just a few of Viacom's potential conflicts. But such conflicts already
plague a news profession dominated by a few immense commercial players. What
ever dividends this system yields, its civic costs must be the subject of a
national debate - which journalists should now begin.
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