Duncan Frissell wrote:

At 09:23 PM 11/15/96 -0800, Dale Thorn wrote:

...

Progress? Most major cities (when I was a kid) had *several* competing newspapers,

Few realize that NYC today has circa 20 daily newspapers (circa 5 in English and circa 15 in other languages). In addition, I can read a hundred daily newspapers (or more) on the nets.

I'm jealous. And I'm not kidding. The NY Times costs $1.50 or $2.00 for a daily in L.A., and considering the La-La Times is $0.25, paying 6 times as much for the NY paper seems almost reasonable. Out here in Disney Hell, we have 2 (count 'em) papers for 12 million or so people in the L.A. basin, the O.C. Register (same as L.A. Times, but reflavored for the suburban white folk in Orange County), and of course, the (barf) L.A. Times itself. A few years ago, the L.A. Weekly (free) enjoyed both an immense distribution and a pretty good reputation. Gone. Long gone. There's a much smaller free weekly in O.C. (of all places) that has much of the credibility that the L.A. Weekly gave up, but sadly, very limited distribution. But I'm sure that goes to all levels in comparing NY and L.A. If you wanna collect a good stack of independent reading material in NY, I'll bet you don't have to drive through 100 miles of hell to get the stuff. So far NY has been pretty well insulated from what goes on here, and I suppose that's because anyone who values such things as intellectual freedom would prefer to live there as opposed to La-La land. But if you're saying it can't happen there, or that things really are getting better, no. Media consolidation is a public fact, it's been all over the financial pages for some time now. Have you not heard (just to name a couple of examples) of the big weapons manufacturers like GE and Westinghouse buying up NBC, CBS, etc. Most Americans, you should know, get their news from these guys.