Those who feel the effects of media consolidation first – the people who bring you the news everyday – clearly are quite concerned about more consolidation and cross-ownership in this industry.

For example, among my own members of The Newspaper Guild-CWA, the vast majority of whom work in the print media, 74 percent of those we surveyed said allowing one company to own a major newspaper and a major television station in the same city would have negative consequences for news coverage and journalism.  The greatest danger, they said, would be a lack of diversity of coverage and viewpoints.

Anyone who has worked as a reporter knows that good reporting is often defined by what the competition is doing.  The threat of “getting scooped” motivates news staffs to dig deeper and uncover more facts.  Less competition means less risk for letting stories go uncovered.

The survey also shows how morale is declining in newsrooms across this country, as fast, or perhaps faster, than the number of staff devoted to newsgathering and reporting.  Both related trends are alarming.  Both related trends are the result of too much emphasis on the bottom line by large conglomerates that increasingly dominate the media landscape.

In the end, the public’s access to credible news and information also declines.