More on corporate media consolidation...

Check out David Hirschman, William Douglas and Dan Froomkin on upcoming changes to the White House Press Room; E&P on the "anti-press" policies of the Bush administration; David Neiwert's "open letter" to his fellow journalists; Catherine Komp on the need to restore local media ownership to fight hate radio; and Peter Phillips on the "mainstream" corporate media:

Can we trust the news editors at the Washington Post to be fair and objective regarding news stories about Lockheed-Martin defense contract over-runs? Or can we assuredly believe that ABC will conduct critical investigative reporting on Halliburton's sole-source contracts in Iraq? If we believe the corporate media give us the full un-censored truth about key issues inside the special interests of American capitalism, then we might feel that they are meeting the democratic needs of mainstream America. However if we believe - as increasingly more Americans do- that corporate media serves its own self-interests instead of those of the people, than we can no longer call it mainstream or refer to it as plural. Instead we need to say that corporate media is corporate America, and that we the mainstream people need to be looking at alternative independent sources for our news and information.

Also check out "who own's what" among the "big ten" media conglomerates on interactive pages from The Nation, NOW, and CJR.