Like most things in life, there is both a good and a bad side to media. That means the responsibility lays on each and every one of us to gather the requisite knowledge needed to cut through the clutter, and make informed decisions of our own. Whatever your opinion may be of the modern media industry, we didn't get where we are today in a vacuum. Over the course of the last century many key moments have contributed to the creation of the current situation. Below are FIVE important milestones from the past century that helped shape the modern American media landscape.
The Birth of "Yellow Journalism" (A Milestone in the Newspaper Industry)
Yellow journalism is a breed of journalism that downplays legitimate news in favor of eye-catching, sensational -- and outright untruthful - stories designed to sell more papers. The term actually originated in the late 19th century and was used to describe the circulation battles between media heavyweights Joseph Pulitzer (publisher of the New York World) and William Randolph Hearst (publisher of The New York Journal.
The "war" between the two men (and their papers) reached its height between 1895 and 1898, and many historians blame the World and Journal's sensationalist stories with stoking the fires that eventually erupted into the Spanish-American War. Hearst and Pulitzer would ultimately abandoned the Yellow Journalism but other newspapers like the New York Daily News (founded in 1919) would later adopt the editorial style, which remains with us today in print, on TV, on radio and increasingly on the internet.
Birth of the Internet (late 1960s)
Prior to the Internet, computer-to-computer information sharing was only possible if the machines were connected to a centralized local mainframe network. In the 1960s a group of scientist at the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) set out to create a system that would allow computers to communicate with one another using a system of decentralized servers. In 1969 DARPA scientists Robert Taylor Larry Roberts, created the first ARPANET connection (as it came to be called) when they successfully connected computer networks at UCLA and Stanford University. And thus, the early Internet was born ...
But the Internet didn't really take off until the 1970s when a scientist named Steve Crocker created the TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol /Internet Protocol) suite, which serves as the common language that all computer networks use to talk with one another. Through the 70s and 80s the Internet was primarily used to connect universities. It really got a "lift off" in 1990 when Tim Berners-Lee, a scientist at a European physics research institute created the World Wide Web. Berners-Lee conceived of the World Wide Web as means for automatic information sharing between of scientists working in around the world. Researchers soon created web sites to take advantage of the new network and this ultimately led to the creation of Mosaic, the first web browser, in 1993. Internet use grew rapidly and a phenomenon was born. The rest is a history that's still being written.
Repeal of the "Fairness Doctrine" (1987)
The Fairness Doctrine was a policy of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that was adopted in 1949 and that required the holders of broadcast licenses (i.e. TV stations) to present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was honest, equitable, and balanced. The FCC viewed this as especially necessary given how few broadcast outlets there were at the time. By the 1980s the number of TV channels had exploded as a result of the dawn of cable TV among other reasons. Opponents of the Fairness Doctrine began arguing that the abundance of channels had eliminated the need for the doctrine. In 1985 the FCC issued a "Fairness Report," which asserted that the doctrine might actually be in violation of the First Amendment. The FCC abandoned the doctrine altogether in 1987. So when you watch MSNBC, FOX News or another far-left or far right news program and wonder why the opposition viewpoint hasn't been given equal airtime ... you'll know the answer.
Telecommunications Act of 1996
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was a major overhaul to the Communications Act of 1934 and many believe, it opened the door to the era of mass media consolidation that we're experiencing today. Signed into the law by Bill Clinton, proponents of the act said it would bring about an era of greater competition -- both in the markets for the various elements that comprise the telecommunications network, as well as for the services created as a result of the establishment of the network. The act remains controversial to this day with opponents insisting that it's had the complete opposite effect. In fact, according to the watchdog group Stop Big Media, ten of the largest TV-station owners went from owning 104 stations (with $5.9 billion in revenue) to owning 299 stations (with $11.8 billion in revenue). Not only that, according to a recent Federal Trade Commission study, the act has led to a drastic decline in the number of radio station owners even though there's been a marked increase in the total number of commercial stations.
Amending the Dual Television Network Rule
The FCC's Dual Network Rule dates back to 1946 and was originally adopted to prevent TV networks from owning more than one TV stations in any given media market. The Telecommunications act of 1996 altered the rule so that a network could operate two stations within a market, as long as the ownership of the two stations did not come as a result of the merger of two major companies. Putting that in layman's terms it meant that CBS could own two TV stations in Atlanta (for example) as long as the ownership of the second station did not come as a result of CBS merging with another network (the UPN network for instance). The amended rule lasted a mere five years and the FCC amended the rule again in 2001 allowing the "Big Four" (CBS, ABC, NBC and FOX) to takeover and operate two networks in the same market.
The FCC would later justify its decision by contending that, given the huge expense associated with the broadcasting, this move would actually benefit advertisers and viewers by reducing costs and promoting diversity at both the local and national level. This decision paved the way for CBS' purchase of the UPN Network. A few years later CBS would partner with Warner Bros. and merge the UPN network with the WB resulting in the creation of the CW network. CBS now owns and operates both CBS and CW affiliates in some of the nation's largest markets, including San Francisco, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Seattle and Detroit.
