ABSTRACT
The romantic image may be an ink-stained local news person fighting the forces of small-town evil, but the reality is that newspeople making six- and seven-figure salaries are frequently corporations themselves. In fact, the economics no longer justify stand-alone broadcast networks, whose profitability has declined as viewers zap around to a wide assortment of cable offerings. Networks and their news organizations are part of companies worth tens of billions of dollars. Journalists themselves may have more indirect clout with a very large publicity-conscious corporate parent. Huge corporate parents and their news divisions appear to be entering into a mutually supportive bargain, in which newspeople will deliver accurate stories and receive the support of corporations that understand the status and intangible benefits of owning a news organization. The news fraternity is the best protection for news operations within new and ongoing corporate ownership structures.
