Friday, March 22, 2013

Ganging Up On The Little Guy

In the spring of 2007, Time Warner proposed a deal the to the US Postal Service that would increase the cost of mailing periodicals. The problem with that is that the big companies, such as Time Warner, won't see much of an increase in the percentage of revenue it takes to pay mailing costs; smaller publications are stuck with a huge spike in the cost of sending out their magazines/newspapers, etc.

The Postal Service even came up with a plan to spread the increase in costs more evenly so the smaller companies wouldn't take such a devastating hit to their profits. Time Warner would absorb more of the total hit than any of the smaller, independent publications just so they could survive. The plan was overlooked in loo of Time Warner's proposal for an equal spike across the board, which was anything but equal.

Independent media is looked down upon so severely by the mainstream media. The issue with that is that the mainstream media outlets are most often owned by the big players in the industry who hold most of the power, enough power to put an independent outlet out of business if they choose to.

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