The 26th April 1937 saw Hitler’s Condor Legion bomb the Northern Spanish Basque town of Guernica. It was seen as a proving ground for the Nazi party’s new Luftwaffe and much experience was to be garnered from the Spanish Civil War. The Condor Legion was led by Oberstleutnant Wolfram Freiherr Von Richthofen(The Red Baron’s cousin) and under Nationalist control. Guernica was behind the front lines and was a town of about 7000 population. The bombing was in waves and exact casualty reports are unknown, but probably numbered around 1000. The Legion was a mix of Fighters and Medium Bombers, all names we know: 109s(B not Es), HE 51s (biplanes), DO 17s, JU52s and HE111s. There were also some Italian Fiat Fighters and the versatile SM79.
The outcome of the bombing was to demoralise the townsfolk and lead to its falling to Franco’s Nationalists on the 29th April.
This bombing raid was to be a preview of what was to happen between 39-45 to larger cities like Warsaw, London,Berlin, Dresden and finally Tokyo.
Will Media Mergers Corrupt the News?
-
See…
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0603/p02s02-usgn.htmlWhen all we had was NBC, ABC and CBS was all we had we weren’t corrupted. Yet they were very corrupted even 20+years ago. Listen to Walter Cronkite today or take a look at the political coverage from the early 1980’s if you need proof.
Everyone’s afraid of one company(Clear Channel) or person(Rupert Murdoch) controlling ALL or the majority of the media in any market. Let’s see, Mr. Murdoch controls less than 3% of the radip stations in the US, yet there are fears that he will control the whole market. It is true that you can reach 85% of the US population if you control the right stations in 20 major markets in the US. However, as there are over 12,000 stations in America from which to chose and new radios that can improve reception of distant stations by 95%…what’s to stop the listeners from changing the channel.
They can change the channel today on TV and get The Discovery Channel, NBC, MSNBC, The SciFi Channel, ESPN(I and II), Court TV, The Senate, ABC The Disney Channel(but I repeat myself, or do we begin to see monopolies everywhere?) On the radio people support(with there ears, wallets and purses) NPR, country music, rap, talk radio, sports, Jazz, and other varieties of music from the 1930’s to today. These markets will always be there. If only Talk Radio’s Rush Limbaugh is offered on every station, soon there would be no radio. People like variety … and advertisers needs variety to reach different segments of the population.
Other people besides Rupert Murdoch will want to buy radio and TV stations to make money as well as have a say in what is on the air.
Clear Channel began its rise to the #3 media power(That’s right! #3, not #1! nearby in Cincinnati, OH. They bought a number of radio stations and started juggling what was where. One station became talk, another became sports, another… Oldies & Moldies, and another covered the last 20 years of music. There were more, but each covered a different audience and used various news networks. They didn’t and they don’t all say the same thing.
Content will make or break these radio and TV stations. See what happened to CBS, NBC and ABC when FOX came along. They laughed, but now they struggle to keep ahead and don’t always succeed. Some of this is due to cable, UPN and/or WB. What a great variety of choices we have today.
Give mergers a chance. The FCC is…
-
As long as FOX News doesn’t get “liberalized” it’s all kosher… :wink:
Suggested Topics
