EOTO Sherman Antitrust/Media Consolidation

The Sherman Antitrust Act is a piece of legislation that was passed by the United States Congress in 1890. Named after Ohio Senator John Sherman, the Act aimed to curtail state-to-state trade interference and prohibit the formation of corporate monopolies. Passing the Senate by a 51-1 vote and the House by a completely unanimous 242-0 vote, President Benjamin Harrison signed the Act into law on July 2nd, 1890.

The main imperative of the Sherman Antitrust Act was to curb the power of large trusts. In Layman's terms, a trust is an arrangement between two parties by which one side (the trustor), sets up a board of trustees who hold and oversee the use of the trustor's assets. The trustor then chooses beneficiaries who will eventually receive the assets being overlooked by the trustees in the trust. Large trusts often lead to monopolization of industries which can kill market competition. 

For several years after the Sherman Antitrust Act's codification, it was only rarely used against industrial monopolies. The Act was first strongly enforced by Teddy Roosevelt during his time as President from 1901-1909. Later, in 1914, two important measures related to the Sherman Antitrust Act were put into place. The first was the passing of the Clayton Antitrust Act which took what the Sherman Act had started and elaborated on it. It created more detailed specifications about what practices were illegal as the result of monopolization.

The second measure was the formation of the Federal Trade Commission, more commonly known as the FTC. This agency was granted the power to investigate potential violations of antitrust laws and create mandates against unfair business practices. According to the FTC's official website, the agency has a 2024 budget of over 400 million dollars. 

To recap, antitrust legislation was created with the intent of restraining the power of monopolies. One such monopolistic industry is the media.

Media consolidation is an issue affecting all Americans that has gotten vastly out of hand. Oxford English Dictionaries defines consolidation as "Combination into a compact mass, single body, or coherent whole." This means that American media companies have combined into large conglomerates, leaving little-to-no room for independent voices. According to Business Insider, 90% of all news comes from the same 6 sources. Back in 1983, that number was 50. This shows the frightening reality that Americans are being spoon-fed information from the same handful of massive, multi-billion dollar monopolies. These six companies are National Amusements, Disney, AT&T, Comcast, NewsCorp, and Sony. The total value across these conglomerates comes out to 430 billion dollars. If these companies were a country, that country would have the 26th highest GDP in the world. 

This is terrifying. The U.S., a country of over 330 million people, is handed information from 6 men who run some of the biggest monopolies in the world. Huge companies like these are the reason the number of small media sources is dwindling. Americans are largely uninformed about this issue and will continue to live in ignorant bliss until this problem gains more coverage. The problem is the coverage of this topic is extremely limited due to the small number of independent media sources. Obviously companies that are owned by the big 6 corporations would never cover this issue because doing so would hurt their owners.

The Sherman Antitrust Act was created to combat issues like media consolidation. Unfortunately, it seems as if these companies hold too much power and are too far gone for any real change to be made. Hopefully one day something will be done, but at this moment in American history, it is likely nothing will change for the foreseeable future.