TY - JOUR AU - Phillips, Peter PY - 2010/04/26 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - The Importance of Independent News Sources For Freedom and Democracy JF - TRAILS: Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology JA - TRAILS VL - IS - SE - DO - UR - https://trails.asanet.org/article/view/the-importance-of-independent-news-sources-for SP - AB - Since the passage of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, a gold rush of media mergers and takeovers has occurred in the United States. Over half of all radio stations have been sold in the past six years, and the repeatedly merged AOL–Time-Warner (CNN) is the largest media organization in the world. Less then ten major media corporations dominate U.S. news and information systems. Clear Channel owns over 1200 radio stations. Ninety-eight percent of all cities have only one daily newspaper and these are increasingly owned by huge chains like Gannett and Knight-Ridder. In medicine it is called Managed Care—in media it’s Managed News. Corporate media today are in the entertainment business. Market share, advertising dollars and political self-interest drive the corporate media agenda. ER -