Hoje é o dia em que a FCC - Federal Communications Commission delibera sobre a alteração de regras que facilitarão a concentração dos media nos Estados Unidos, depois de um longo período de audições e debates sobre a matéria. A medida é encarada com enorme preocupação por um elevado número de organizações que consideram que se estreitará significativamente a diversidade da oferta cultural. Outros ligam esta perspectiva ao conjunto de medidas da administração norte-americana de controlar a informação no país, no quadro da luta contra o terrorismo. Uma voz que, nos últimos dias, se juntou aos opositores às medidas que são objecto de deliberação na FCC é a de Ted Turner que, no Washington Post de sexta-feira, escrevia (em "Monopoly or democracy": "On Monday the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is expected to adopt dramatic rule changes that will extend the market dominance of the five media corporations that control most of what Americans read, see and hear. I am a major shareholder in the largest of those five corporations, yet -- speaking only for myself, and not for AOL Time Warner -- I oppose these rules. They will stifle debate, inhibit new ideas and shut out smaller businesses trying to compete. If these rules had been in place in 1970, it would have been virtually impossible for me to start Turner Broadcasting or, 10 years later, to launch CNN. (...) Why should the country care? When you lose small businesses, you lose big ideas. People who own their own businesses are their own bosses. They are independent thinkers. They know they can't compete by imitating the big guys; they have to innovate. So they are less obsessed with earnings than they are with ideas. They're willing to take risks. (...) Large media corporations are far more profit-focused and risk-averse. They sometimes confuse short-term profits and long-term value. They kill local programming because it's expensive, and they push national programming because it's cheap -- even if it runs counter to local interests and community values. "