Speakers discuss corporate media

The University will welcome journalists, media executives, activists and other scholars to Foellinger Auditorium Tuesday night for a public discussion about the effects of corporate ownership in the media and how it possibly jeopardizes the public's right to know honest and significant information.

The conference, called "Can Freedom of the Press Survive Media Consolidation?", will start at 5 p.m. with keynote speaker Seymour Hersh, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who first reported the 2004 prison torture in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. The conference will continue on Wednesday and different programs take place throughout the day at the Krannert Center. Prominent figures such as former talk show host Phil Donahue and Bernie Sanders, U.S. House of Representatives advocate for reform, will be participating in the conference, as well.

The conference takes a look at the state of the media system today and the way profit affects it. Victor Pickard, one of the coordinators for the event and graduate student working with the University's Illinois Initiative for Media Policy Research, said there are numerous corporations that are buying media forms, such as newspapers, radio stations, television, which means they control what should be called news.

Pickard said the growing commercial influence on journalists and editors could limit those who report the news to give unbiased and accurate information by constraining journalists on what they are allowed to report on. He said the forum will address how the increase in concentrated media ownership threatens the freedom of the press, which is a constitutional right, Pickford said.

The conference will also "highlight the policy of profit," said Zach Sehy, senior in LAS and volunteer for the conference. He said advertising plays an important role in what is reported to the public because newspapers and stations depend on the advertisers to fund them.

Common news programs are mostly anti-democratic and this does not properly educate the public, Sehy said. He also said that the coverage on governmental issues disregards the interests of the lower class because they are not the targeted demographic for advertisers.

Sehy said that people inherently do care how politics affect our lives, but added that when the media constantly covers insignificant issues that have no effect on our lives, like the Scott Peterson case and Michael Jackson trial, the media promotes apathy among viewers when more vital issues are covered.

"It causes us to be entertained and uninformed," Sehy said.

Sehy said that he hopes students will come out and show their interest in politics and express how much they care about the way politics is covered. He said he hopes the event encourages students to be more socially and politically active.

Pickard said he hopes that the conference will allow leading scholars and the audience to critically discuss the media and develop ways to make it more beneficial for the general public.

"We're really trying to connect media scholars with activists, concerned citizens and policy makers to help encourage a network between these various groups," Pickard said. "They are all stake holders in the way our media system is designed."

"There is always the assumption that our media system is natural or God-given ... (but) it is something that is created through explicit policies," Pickard said.

Pickard said there needs to be closer scrutiny of this country's power structures, whether it be corporations, Democrats, or Republicans, and that he hopes this media reform opens this idea with the audience and gets the conversation started.

"I would like to see a greater variety of voices and a more aggressive coverage of those in power," Pickard said.