policy - The Black Vault

THE 8DM CORPORATION
become
2. The Media as a Business/Corporate Concentration
Since World War II, the news
media of the United States have
increasingly concentrated, as publishing families used their enormous
profits to buy out their competition. The result has been a rapid
concentration of power in a highly competitive, localized industry of large
city dailies and their publishers. In 1910, there were 2,200 US dailies
published in 1,200 cities. In 1972, there were 1,750 dailies published,
and only fifty-three percent of urban areas had their own newspapers. 7/
In 1910, most urban areas had competitive newspapers, but by 1945, forty
percent of daily circulation in the US was noncompetitive. By 1961, that
proportion had risen to almost sixty percent. The number of American
cities with competing daily newspapers declined from 552 in 1920 to 55 in
1962. Cities with only one daily newspaper increased from 55 oercent of
the total to 84 percent by 1960. 8/ By 1972, the number of major cities
with competing newspapers had shrunk to less than three percent. 9/
In the early 1960's, deals were struck between the powerful
publishing families that controlled major dailies in cities like Los
Angeles, San Francisco, Washington, and Philadelphia. The Chandlers, with
the Hearsts, Annenbergs and The Washington Post interests, embarked on
deals that increased cooperation among them rather than sharpened competition.
By January 1962, one third of the total circulation of US newspapers
was controlled by just twelve managements. In the early 1960's, the
Chardlers succeeded in killing the last of their competition in the Los
Angeles circulation area (8 million) and stood at the center of a vast
book-publishing, agricultural land, oil lease, urban realr estate
empire. 10/ In the 1960's, The Washington Post expanded its penetration of
the Washington, D.C. market so that it had four levels of coverage includij
ing Newsweek magazine, its own television 3nd radio stations, and the
newspaper itself.
. •The publishing empires that controlled the newspapers in 1962
were overwhelmingly conservative in their political outlook and heavily
dominated by Republicans. The endorsements of candidates by newspapers
indicate the extent of this conservative stance. In 1960, eighty-four
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