Hollywood conglomerates ripped at hearing

LOS ANGELES, Oct. 4 (UPI) -- Entertainment conglomerates took a drubbing in the first of six U.S. Federal Communications Commission hearings on cross-ownership.

Marshall Herskovitz, president of the Producers Guild of America, said increased consolidation of media ownership endangers free speech and excludes newsworthy stories.

"The purpose of modern media conglomerates is to serve the bottom line," he said. "News editors must now consider what news is the most profitable."

The president of WGA West also argued against loosening ownership limits, Daily Variety reported Wednesday.

"The palpable result of consolidation on TV writers has been to reduce them to only those ideas acceptable to the corporate voice," said Patric Verrone. "Homogenization is good for milk but bad for ideas."

In her testimony, U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., ripped The Los Angeles Times' coverage of problems at King/Drew Medical Center, for which the paper won a Pulitzer Prize earlier this year.