Local Ownership

I really enjoying hunting down who owns the media that I consume every day. I am always surprised by certain outlets that are still qausi-independent.

Of my favorite media, here's who owns what:

Food Network-- E. W. Scripps
ESPN -- Walt Disney Co.
The New York Times -- The New York Times Company
The Star Tribune -- The McClatchy Co.
Discovery Channel -- Liberty Media/Cox/Advance -- Newhouse
CNN -- TimeWarner
Comedy Central -- Viacom/TimeWarner/AT&T
Cable TV -- Comcast
Internet -- Comcast
City Pages -- Village Voice Media
89.3 The Current -- Minnesota Public Radio
TPT -- publicly Funded

I definitely notice content changes when getting my news from different sources. The biggest difference I see is between The News Hour with Jim Lehrer on PBS and CNN. I often hear about certain aspects of a story on CNN, but it is often surface/shock info about a story. I can then see the same story on NewsHour and get much more full coverage. It strikes me as very strange that a 24 hour news station doesn't seem to cover anything in depth. Especially when then have news scrolling across the bottom of the screen at all times.

I also notice a difference when reading news from the City Pages and the Star Tribune. The depth doesn't seem to be much of an issue, both papers cover certain stories in a great deal of depth. There is an obvious slant, however, to the news in the City Pages. It seems to try and be a much more aggresive, no-holds-barred, source. Unfortunately, it often comes off as mere snobbery and trying too hard.

As for my other soureces for media... I know that content for ESPN is chosen very carefully by the Disney Co. There is often cross promotion for ABC television and Miramax or Dimension films. This has recently risen to a new level of obnoxiousness on Monday Night Football. They have a guest in the booth everyweek that is part of another Disney Owned Venture.