The day after voters in King County, Washington, had apparently approved a plan to hike the local sales tax by a tenth of a percent to fund a new ballpark for the Seattle Mariners baseball team (9/20/95), the Seattle Times got right to the point with its banner headline: "Stadium Leads by 4,000 Votes." A photo showed exultant baseball fans raising their fists in glee at the early returns. As it turned out, the stadium-tax referendum was defeated by a slim margin. But stadium backers needn't have worried: As has been the case in cities across the country, the Washington [...]
Jul
01
1998
Root, Root, Root for the Home Team
Local Media Push Public Subsidies for Private Stadiums
Jul
01
1996
And End-Run Around the Giants
New technologies provide ways to avoid the media monopoly
Make your own media! I'm what they call a "media critic"—I teach a course called Politics of Media as a journalism professor at the State University of New York's College at Old Westbury, and criticize media plenty, especially in the pages of Extra!. My focus is on concentration of media ownership, especially its impact on coverage of the environment and nuclear power. My work has documented the leverage of corporate polluters on media, and the ownership of much of network TV by the world's biggest nuclear manufacturers: General Electric and Westinghouse. But at the same time, I've been telling students [...]
Jul
01
1996
The Media's Favorite Think Tank
How the Heritage Foundation Turns Money into Media
Based in a spacious brick building a few blocks from the Capitol, the Heritage Foundation is running the most effective media operation in American politics. Heritage has succeeded with a savvy strategy: Raise a lot of money from rich people with a right-wing agenda. Hire writers, commentators and out-of-office politicians who share that agenda, and call them "fellows," "policy analysts" and "distinguished scholars." And, always, back them up with a public-relations juggernaut that's second to none. The big money came easy. Back in 1973, beer baron Joseph Coors contributed a quarter-million dollars to get the project rolling. Since then, some [...]
