Safire -- One GOP Activist Will Decide The Future Of American Media

We've already seen what happened when the F.C.C. allowed the monopolization of local radio: today three companies own half the stations in America, delivering a homogenized product that neglects local news coverage and dictates music sales.

The overwhelming amount of news and entertainment comes via broadcast and print. Putting those outlets in fewer and bigger hands profits the few at the cost of the many.

Does that sound un-conservative? Not to me. The concentration of power — political, corporate, media, cultural — should be anathema to conservatives. The diffusion of power through local control, thereby encouraging individual participation, is the essence of federalism and the greatest expression of democracy.

Why do we have more channels but fewer real choices today? Because the ownership of our means of communication is shrinking. Moguls glory in amalgamation, but more individuals than they realize resent the loss of local control and community identity.

We opponents of megamergers and cross-ownership are afflicted with what sociologists call "pluralistic ignorance." Libertarians pop off from what we assume to be the fringes of the left and right wings, but do not yet realize that we outnumber the exponents of the new collectivist efficiency.

So much of our lives should not be in the hands of one swing-vote commissioner. Let's debate this out in the open, take polls, get the president on the record and turn up the heat.

Won't happen, this is a done deal. The new golden rule, if it is good for some powerful billionaires it will pass.