These 15 Billionaires Own America's News Media Companies (2016)

Re:These 15 Billionaires Own America's News Media Companies ... by dmurray on Sunday February 14, 2021 @06:52PM (#26137461)

The headline is misleading. The article body doesn't claim that these 15 billionaires (actually it lists 20+, but focuses on the majority partners) own all, or any overwhelming majority, of US news media. It describes itself more accurately as

> Here’s a look at some of the billionaires who own news media in the United States

Many news outlets are instead owned by publicly traded companies: News Corp, Disney, the New York Times. Plenty more are small businesses.

Yes, there have been mergers and acquisitions, but I would say it's more fragmented than many other healthy industries. If you just read the headline and thought "it's unconscionable that these 15 people should own 50% (or whatever) of US news media assets", what number would you think reasonable? 30? 100? 1000?

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Re:These 15 Billionaires Own America's News Media Companies ... by meowkit on Sunday February 14, 2021 @07:04PM (#26137522)

This is really an argument between big corps operating on scale + M&As vs. small local businesses.

I think we should favor more news outlets than fewer (a specific threshold is a loaded question) that have outsized influence at the local level. These large media companies are living off clickbait and pandering to echo chambers and not on 4th estate accountability, or providing real value to peoples lives.

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