"We're Going to Break Up Giant Media Enterprises"

Brian Doherty | December 2, 2003

Democratic presidential candidate Howard Dean says he's going to follow the rules of capitalism, which are, Dean-style, that he gets to decide how big a business enterprise can be.

He tells Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball, according to this transcript via Drudge, that Rupert Murdoch's Fox interests will have to be broken up. He's cagier, though, about whether GE, owner of the network on which he speaks, will specifically be targeted, saying, "Yes, we`re going to break up giant media enterprises. That doesn`t mean we`re going to break up all of GE. What we`re going to do is say that media enterprises can`t be as big as they are today. I don`t think we actually have to break them up, which Teddy Roosevelt had to do with the leftovers from the McKinley administration."

It will be interesting to see how this affects the way these media conglomerates report on him. My suspicion is that it will make no noticable difference.