J386 Researching Media Companies and Organizations

A company may be either publicly owned or privately owned. If publicly owned, the company issues stock (which may be bought or sold by stockholders) on a stock exchange (e.g. New York Stock Exchange). Federal law requires publicly owned companies to issue a number of financial disclosures, including an annual report. Such required information will be extremely useful in doing your company case study.

A privately owned company, on the other hand, does not issue stock and so is under no obligation to publish its financial statements. Examples of privately owned media companies are The Associated Press, The Hearst Corporation, Regal Cinemas, and Rand McNally & Company.

Choosing a Company and Background History

• Choosing a company? Try Hoover's. From their website, click on "Company by Industry" (left column).
• Looking for background history on your company? The International Directory of Company Histories (DOCS REF HD 2721 .I63) has more than 90 volumes of company histories. Check the back of the latest volume for a cumulative index by company name for all volumes. (Documents Center Reference)

Media Ownership

• Need to know if your company is owned by some other megacompany? Mint Global will help you determine if a particular media company is owned by a larger entity. To do this, click on Companies; type the name of the company and click on Search; in the list of results, if the company is owned by a larger parent, that will appear in the far right column, under GUO Name.
• Who Owns What, part of the Columbia Journalism Review's Web site, tracks the sprawling ownership patterns of 45 of the world's largest media companies. It also gives fulltext access to articles from the CJR on media ownership.
• Well Connected (Center for Public Integrity) offers a database, searchable by zip code, of almost every radio station, television station, cable television system, and telephone company in America. Type in "97401" and see, for example, how many radio stations Clear Channel Communications owns in the area.

Company and Industry Information

• Standard & Poor's NetAdvantage gives comprehensive information on companies and the industries that they are a part of.
• Company Information, prepared by the UO Library's Business Librarian, gives an overview of company and industry information, both print and online. For sources for annual reports, see the "Financial Data" section.

Articles on Companies and Organizations

• Need recent articles from trade journals or academic journals? Business Source Premier indexes over 4000 business periodicals and provides the fulltext of 3300 of these.
• Lexis-Nexis Academic is another well-known source for company, industry, and legal information.