The Window Opens: from controlled to free media

We need to grab the moment now, because if the old order begins to reassert itself, it will be a long time before such a moment comes again.

SHOOT: I'm not sure whether the window opening is slightly ajar and there's a deadline involved. I have an idea the future of media will be run by far fewer large corporations, and far more smaller players, mom and pop operations. The internet industries will be cottage industries in a flattening world, but, as economic conditions bite, an increasingly larger and more LOCAL world.

clipped from www.nybooks.com America will never have a BBC. The government funding isn't there. What we do have, though, is a tremendous increase in enthusiasm and initiative that, in the age of the Internet, counts for more than transmitters and printing presses. The retreat of the giant corporations and conglomerates is creating the opportunity for fresh structures to emerge. It remains to be seen whether foundations, wealthy donors, and news consumers will step forward to support them. (Nonprofit Web sites and public broadcasters, it is worth noting, are, in effect, partly subsidized by the public, through the tax deductions taken for the grants and donations made to them.) As the old media monopolies crumbled, a host of smaller players rushed forward, offering a new plurality of voices. Before long, however, the rich and powerful regained control, and those new voices were snuffed out. "There's a historic opportunity to create a noncommercial sector in the media in the United States," Coronel says: