BACK IN 1983, journalist Ben Bagdikian published a book called The Media Monopoly. Fifty companies, he reported, owned the majority of US newspapers, magazines, radio, and television. It made quite a stir: So few entities had such control of the news Americans relied on?
Like so many things that once were shocking, his critique now seems quaint. Fifty major media companies? We could only hope for such diversified ownership. By 2004, Bagdikian released an updated edition showing that the number of mega–media companies had
