Purchase further consolidates MNG's control of printed news in the area. The L.A. Times and to a lesser degree Orange Country Register also cover parts of the area, but very sparingly. The L.A. Times (or its former parent Times Mirror) helped MNG buy the Times' Valley competitor, the L.A. Daily News, in 1998. The U.S. Justice Dept. started an investigation into the sale's possible antitrust violations but declined to pursue it further. A department spokesperson refused at the time to comment on why the investigation was dropped, but speculation has been that it, like the purchase of the Grunion Gazette, was not seen as a restraint of trade or monopolization because other papers serve the area (albeit nominally) and there are regional TV channels and cable channels (though none covers Long Beach news intensively).

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WHY THIS SITE IS BEING RELAUNCHED

Posted June 1, 2003

Events have outpaced the initial goals of CredibilityWatch.org's website, which had been threefold: 1. to sound an alarm over the ever-increasing concentration of media in the hands of a few major corporations, particularly regarding what that could mean to the free flow of information in a democracy as well as the well-being of the journalism profession if employment is concentrated in fewer and fewer companies; 2. to note certain of those congloms' questionable ethics and believability, and how that in turn could impinge on the integrity of their journalists and other staff; and 3. to ask local journalists and media consumers if they should work for or patronize such entities. Particularly, the collective that runs this site had focused on media outlets in the greater Los Angeles County area at a time when MediaNews Group was devouring almost all outlying daily community newspapers, in one case with the help of the Los Angeles Times and/or its former parent company Times Mirror to assumably weaken the Times' competition in the San Fernando Valley.

CredibilityWatch's goals remain unchanged (as do the questionable actions of various institutions listed on this site), but in the relatively short time since this site was founded, indeed just in the last few months and days:

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) -- WITH VIRTUALLY NO PUBLIC HEARINGS AND NO DISCLOSURE OF ITS PROPOSED RULES -- was poised to vote on unleashing major congloms even further, allowing them to gobble up even more local media. (A vote was scheduled for June 2, although there might be some congressional or legal challenges if the proposals are OK'd).

A bastion of what had been previously generally perceived as objective and principled civic-mindedness -- the New York Times -- is suddenly the center of scandal after it was revealed that a reporter had fabricated stories and plagiarized others' journalism (and perhaps more importantly that editors and others had had their suspicions but that nothing was done to rein in the reporter).

The Village Voice and New Times companies colluded to jointly shut down one of each other's outlets in L.A. and Cleveland so each could have a monopoly on the only regular large "alternative" paper in those respective regions -- apparently knowing the federal government would call such antitrust practices into question (which it did) ... and apparently knowing they would only get slapped on the wrist (which they were): Rather than being told the closed papers would have to be re-established, the companies were merely told they had to sell the leftover "assets" to some other buyer (as if there suddenly are any, and as if the "assets" are in themselves enough to form a new company) --- the bottom line is that the two companies jointly wiped out the competition to leave a monopoly of sorts for each of them in the two respective cities.

Curiously (or not?), the Justice Dept. -- while upbraiding New Times and Village Voice "to terminate their illegal market allocation agreement" in a press release that was headlined in part: "Settlement RESTORES [our caps] Competition In The Alternative News Weeklies Market …" -- quietly dropped its formerly aggressive probe into MediaNews' potentially anticompetitive "clustering" practices of conglomerating various newspapers under one central management. The action -- or non-action -- occurred not long after the former Los Angeles Newspaper Guild (later the Southern California Media Guild and now part of CWA Local 9400) complained about MediaNews and L.A. Times/Times Mirror's colluding to buy up the Los Angeles Daily News -- the L.A. Times' competitor in the San Fernando Valley; Justice subsequently never returned the local guild's calls and emails to offer an explanation regarding the about-face.

And the list goes on.

So where does this leave us?

What of journalistic integrity and media workers' livelihoods in an age of continuing media consolidation by corporations of dubious credibility?

Despite our cries and those of many others, the conglomerating of media continues, the suppression of news and views continues in many major outlets (see our "Links" section), the media congloms' credibility certainly hasn't improved, and in turn their products' integrity has been called into question by media consumers. Members of The Newspaper Guild both in L.A. and elsewhere have reported on a fairly regular basis that rather than have more ability to investigate and speak out, they are increasingly cut back and hemmed in. They know what will fly and what won't with the owners -- i.e., what's politically correct (internally) to report on, and to what degree: what gets on the front page, back page and not at all. (Hint: How often do you see stories in MediaNews' pages about MediaNews' treatment of its workers, let alone how workers at other businesses are treated?)

And so the struggle goes on to show the media congloms the errors of their ways (and by turns to praise when warranted) with the hope the media owners will do what is right, become more credible, truthful and fair to their audience and workers.

In the end, it is up to the consumers and professionals to stand together to demand fairness, openness and honesty and hold the owners accountable.

That is becoming more and more a challenge, however. In a sense the battle for credibility of media-owning corporations has been lost and the domination of congloms has been further solidified with the help of friends in high government places, and it seems that in many quarters, laypeople -- those not in the media, but who consume it -- know it. For example, while the war on Iraq was notable for technological advances in media coverage, actual investigative reporting of the war, its decisionmaking, its aftermath and so forth -- and indeed investigation of a whole raft of other subjects -- not only appears to have waned, but has been ALLOWED to wither, indeed possibly encouraged to do so, by the very congloms that own the various media outlets and would therefore have to invest money in investigative reporting (note the common root word there of "invest" and "investigate"). A number of national organizations and networks have actually DISBANDED their investigative reporting teams, REDUCED the number of reporters they have, and in some cases ABANDONED or ABDICATED any pretense of trying to dig deep into any local or regional stories -- they practice a sort of drive-by reporting. But when you have a virtual monopoly on ad revenue, why bother to "invest" in local reporting staffs other than a bare minimum of a few underpaid reporters/photogs who act as mere (and sometimes unquestioning) conduits for the government line so you can give the ILLUSION of providing comprehensive coverage?

Luckily, there are some entities still fighting the good fight for objectivity, honesty, full disclosure and watchdoggedness; several of them are listed at this site's "Links." CredWatch can't possibly match their comprehensiveness, but we'll continue to do our part to raise awareness of these companies' records on corporate truthfulness toward their workers and the public, their trustworthiness, their corporate civic-mindedness and so forth.

We will also adding at least two components to the site in relation to the above:

1. A series of comparative tables that attempt to list relatively "at a glance" the components listed above (basically what these corporations SAY vs. what they DO) -- and if THEY aren't being trustworthy, one must perforce ask if their MEDIA OUTLETS are credible as well.

2. Occasional looks at the reporting within the congloms' respective outlets and at the journalists themselves. This is a change from the site's initial goals. We started with -- and continue with -- the presumption that by and large the journalists who work for these entities have integrity, are professional and are trustworthy; after all, the site was started by journalists and concerned readers who wished to UPHOLD the integrity of the journalists and their reportage. However, it's become increasingly incumbent upon this site to ALSO address the concerns of numerous site visitors about the credibility of the journalists themselves, especially in the case of "reporters" who are caught lying or who come off more as PR "flaks" and seem to be doing the bidding of their corporate employers. To some degree, a journalist's credibility IS a reflection of the integrity of the entity that hired him or her. ... Which doesn't necessarily follow that if a reporter is credible, his or her employer is likewise; as The Newspaper Guild has often found, media owners are often blatant liars. ... But the Guild and its locals can't legally cast aspersions or doubt on the credibility of the corporations' media products. ... Which is one of several reasons why CredWatch and its Concerned Readers Committee were sectioned off from the local Newspaper Guild.

At the same time, it's become ever more incongruous and arguably disingenuous for this site to NOT discuss in one way or another credibility concerns WITHIN the profession itself. Again, there are other entities that are better able to monitor these things (again, see our "Links" section, for examples). And since conglom domination of the media has become such a huge "open secret" among the public, the collective that runs this site has concluded that we don't need to dwell as much on that point as before. Still we need to keep the public aware at the LOCAL level how this is affecting them, separate and apart from the domination the congloms have on the national and network levels.

3. In the next few days, we also plan to relaunch the site using frames to offer better navigation tools.

4. And as time goes on we hope to look at the credibility of other entities beyond those of media owners. That might be overly ambitious and beyond our scope and abilities, but it's a goal.

We encourage your input, feedback and participation. To join the Concerned Media Consumers Committee (previously the Concerned Readers Committee), contact us at credwatch@gibbin.org for upcoming meetings; keep in mind our current focus is on L.A. County and the counties surrounding it and to a lesser extent San Diego County, but since the ownership of the media in these locals are by and large of a national scale, we invite participation of concerned persons elsewhere as well.

Thank you for visiting us!