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I thought you might be interested in the article from the FAIR web site. The following article will be appended to your message: Corporate Ownership Matters By Jim Naureckas One pundit who had no problem with the summer's media merger marathon was USA Today columnist Michael Gartner. "It makes no difference if media are owned by corporations or families or individuals," he wrote (8/8/95). "What matters are the integrity and intelligence and intrepidness of those owners." Gartner wrote from experience: "For five years, I was president of NBC News, which is owned by General Electric," he said. "Not once did GE boss Jack Welch or anyone else at GE ask me to put something on the air--or not to.... Jack Welch, tough and some say ruthless, does not use NBC to further the gains of GE." Gartner should recall the warning of the dean of American press criticism, George Seldes, who wrote in 1938: "The most stupid boast in the history of present-day journalism is that of the writer who says, 'I have never been given orders; I am free to do as I like.'" Seldes' point was that it is those who are likely to do something the boss doesn't like that get told what to do; those who naturally do what the boss wants need no such direction. Larry Grossman, Gartner's predecessor, was told in no uncertain terms what GE expected from him. "You work for GE!" Welch once shouted at his subordinate, poking a finger at Grossman's chest (Ken Auletta, Three Blind Mice). To read the rest of the article, please click on the link below. http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1334 This article was published on Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting's Website (http://www.fair.org).

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