Here's a link to a page where you can download the complete text of the 2002 World Development Report, which includes the chapter on the media:

http://tinyurl.com/5nh2o9

(I've never used Tinyurl before so let me know if this works!)

That page also has links to the consultations and background papers, which are also very useful. There's also a lot of media-related stuff on the WB site, incl things about media law and regulation, media role in development, etc. The top level page for the search I did on media ownership is:

http://extsearch.worldbank.org/servlet/SiteSearchServlet?qUrl=&ed=&q=media+ownership

If you're in a position to put your research in front of anybody, be warned that in DC they will roll their eyes when you mention the world bank ... but once you know what you're looking for, you can find corroborating reports on USAID's site (in addition to media, you might want to search on Internews and IREX, two groups that do a lot of USAID-funded media work ... and whose program reports are available there).

Hope that helps!

You left out the bombing step

But that's just my opinion.

Opinions are like assholes.

Everybody's got one, no one thinks their stinks.

Can we move on now?

sort of post-traumatic-stress-disorder-like reaction

Tough book tour, eh?

You kind of get used to the snakes after awhile.

sabotaging each other's lines or truckers compete by burning their competitor's trucks, and killing rival drivers

Plus, the contracting opportunities would provide a more authentic means for us ex-military types to be involved with the media

H.K. went to a ER to fix a sacrum

I thought it was 'to scratch a rectum'.

But hey, your ears are probably better than mine.

Now THAT was a really good post.

Thanks!

anyone who would emigrate below the Mason-Dixon line ...would be exposed to such feelings daily ... This is, after all, a region where lynching is still considered a favorite pasttime.

Fortunately the rest of us are a little more evolved.

But not evolved beyond stupid, archaic stereotypes, obviously.

Unless you have some poll data to show that 'lynching is considered a favorite pasttime' here.

How about we stick to the point and not go out of our way to offend a bunch of people who might otherwise agree with you, shall we?

I agree that it's hard to give cred and authority to someone who didn't finish college, but I disagree about the importance of a college education to good journalism. Go back two generations of reporters, especially in print, and you'll find most of the shining examples of good reporting done by reporters with high school educations. Intelligence, attitude and persistence (as well as a willingness to take instruction from your editors, and also to outsmart them when necessary) had a lot more to do with it than credit hours. Skepticism, a willingness to confront, and dogged efforts to get at the truth of something (often imperfectly) accomplished what we would want 'critical thinking' to accomplish now.

The Committee for Concerned Journalists put out a book a few years ago that points in the opposite direction. As the profession has matured, more journos have advanced degrees, sometimes several of them. With the advanced education comes higher expectations about salaries, attainment, standard of living. They tend to get farther out into the suburbs and away from what they are supposed to be covering. They're less likely to take a late meeting with a disgruntled potential source, for example. Because they have mortgages, private school tuition fees, higher consumption, they also have more to lose if conflictual reporting causes their sources to dry up on them.

Expectations also exert a subtle influence on your thinking about your own social role. You're more likely to think of yourself as, say, a public intellectual, or at least as someone important. You want to talk to other important people and get more satisfaction from doing so. You're less likely to take the 'kids and whores' approach, and its equivalent in the beltway bureaucracy, and when you do you're less likely to have what you need to establish the necessary rapport with them. (There are counter-examples to this. Think Sy Hersh)

A further speculation: I've got a lot of education myself, but it came later in life (and kept on comin'). I have always valued it, and it certainly opened up a whole new world for me. But it's also more likely to give you a gift for abstraction, and to encourage you to view other people as abstractions. It can be hard work to correct for that and stay on top of it. That is more damaging in some professions ... say, journalism ... than others.

exemplifies American post-literacy. Snide, made-up observations, heavily larded with both prejudice and inanity, strung together in incomplete sentences and eight-grade vocabulary.

Had I written such a thing in high school I would have been rightly ridiculed and received an F.

Are you ever pushing my buttons! This is exactly how I evaluate 90% of what I read and see, and not just in the MSM. Snark triumphs over substance, a pseudo-point with no substantiation takes the place of thoughtful attention, entertainment substitutes for analysis. It's fun at first. Then it's not.

I walk around going 'WTF?' so often, people think I have Tourette's.