Members of the School of Communications Advisory Board discussed the issues surrounding the rapid consolidation of media ownership in the United States during a panel discussion Thursday, April 1. Details...
Panelists, who were on campus for the advisory board’s annual spring meeting, included:
- Jim Hefner, vice president and general manager at WRAL-TV in Raleigh, N.C.
- Bill Warren, vice president of public affairs, Walt Disney World
- Jim Winston, executive director of the National Association of Black Owned Broadcasters in Washington
- Debora Wilson, chief operating office of The Weather Channel in Atlanta
- Graham Woodlief, president of the Publishing Division, Media General Inc., in Richmond, Va.
Warren and Hefner said they opposed mergers because they destroy competition.
“At the end of the day, we’re talking about a few people owning the media,” said Hefner, who works for a rare family-owned media enterprise and the nation’s first digital broadcast station in WRAL.
Warren said takeovers of the local media by large companies also have a negative impact on local news coverage.
“When it’s all local, it’s all personal,” said Warren. He said major media conglomerates have trouble reaching local communities through their news divisions.
He shared Hefner’s view that competition is important. “I don’t know how to gauge the public unless we try something new,” Warren said.
Wilson discussed the advantages The Weather Channel enjoys by being an independent player in the media arena.
“There are advantages to being a small organization,” Wilson said, noting that The Weather Channel does not have to bow to pressure from powerful corporate media executives. But Wilson also noted that The Weather Channel is subject to the whims of major cable corporations, which could decide to keep its programming off their systems.
Woodlief was the lone voice in favor of media convergence, arguing it improves the quality of programming because more resources are available to the TV station or newspaper.
“Everybody has all the information,” Woodlief said, saying that companies such as Media General share their resources to improve news coverage.
“We did not practice convergence to save money or to control the media,” but to make news reporting better, Woodlief said.