Corporations
Have a Chokehold
on the U.S. Media
by
Rep. Bernie Sanders
http://bernie.house.gov/documents/opeds/20020612104617.asp
One
of our best-kept secrets is the degree to which a handful
of huge corporations control the flow of information in
the United States.
Whether it is television, radio, newspapers, magazines,
books or the Internet, a few giant conglomerates are determining
what we see, hear and read. And the situation is likely
to become much worse as a result of radical deregulation
efforts by the [unelected] Bush administration and some
horrendous court decisions.
Television is the means by which most Americans get their
“news.” Without exception, every major network
is owned by a huge conglomerate that has enormous conflicts
of interest. Fox News Channel is owned by Rupert Murdoch,
a right-wing Australian who already owns a significant
portion of the world’s media. His network has close
ties to the Republican Party, and among his “fair
and balanced” commentators is Newt Gingrich.
NBC is owned by General Electric, one of the largest corporations
in the world — and one with a long history of anti-union
activity. GE, a major contributor to the Republican Party,
has substantial financial interests in weapons manufacturing,
finance, nuclear power and many other industries. Former
CEO Jack Welch was one of the leaders in shutting down
American plants and moving them to low-wage countries
like China and Mexico.
ABC is owned by the Disney Corp., which produces toys
and products in developing countries where they provide
their workers atrocious wages and working conditions.
CBS is owned by Viacom, another huge media conglomerate
that owns, among other entities, MTV, Showtime, Nickelodeon,
VH1, TNN, CMT, 39 broadcast television stations, 184 radio
stations, Paramount Pictures and Blockbuster Inc.
The essential problem with television is not just a right-wing
bias in news and programming, or the transformation of
politics and government into entertainment and sensationalism.
Nor is it just the constant bombardment of advertising,
much of it directed at children. It’s that the most
important issues facing the middle-class and working people
of our country are rarely discussed. The average American
does not see his or her reality reflected on the television
screen.
The United States is the only industrialized nation on
earth that does not have a national healthcare program.
Yet, despite 41 million people with no health insurance
and millions more underinsured, we spend far more per
capita on healthcare than any other nation. Maybe the
reason is that we are seeing no good programs on television,
in between the prescription drug advertisements, discussing
how we can provide quality healthcare for all at far lower
per capita costs than we presently spend?
Despite the great “economic boom” of the 1990s,
the average American worker is now working longer hours
for lower wages than 30 years ago, and we have lost millions
of decent-paying manufacturing jobs. Where are the TV
programs addressing our $360 billion trade deficit, or
what our disastrous trade policy has done to depress wages
in this country? And while we’re on economics, workers
who are in unions earn 30 percent more than non-union
people doing the same work. There are a lot of programs
on television about how to get rich by investing in the
stock market. But have you seen any “specials”
on how to go about forming a union?
The United States has the most unfair distribution of
wealth and income in the industrialized world, and the
highest rate of childhood poverty. There’s a lot
of television promoting greed and self-interest, but how
many programs speak to the “justice” of the
richest 1 percent owning more wealth than the bottom 95
percent? Or of the CEOs of major corporations earning
500 times what their employees make?
If television largely ignores the reality of life for
the majority of Americans, corporate radio is just plain
overt in its right-wing bias. In a nation that cast a
few million more votes for Al Gore and Ralph Nader than
for George Bush and Pat Buchanan, there are dozens of
right-wing talk show programs. Rush Limbaugh, G. Gordon
Liddy, Bob Grant, Sean Hannity, Alan Keyes, Armstrong
Williams, Howie Carr, Oliver North, Michael Savage, Michael
Reagan, Pat Robertson, Laura Schlessinger — these
are only a few of the voices that day after day pound
a right-wing drumbeat into the heartland of this country.
And from a left perspective there is — well, no one.
The Republican Party, corporate owners and advertisers
have their point of view well represented on radio. Unfortunately,
the rest of America has almost nothing.
As bad as the current media situation is, it is likely
to be made much worse by a recent decision in the District
of Columbia Court of Appeals that responded to a suit
by Fox, AOL Time Warner, NBC and Viacom. That decision
struck down a federal regulation limiting companies from
owning television stations and cable franchises in the
same local markets. The court also ordered that the Federal
Communications Commission either justify or rewrite the
federal rule that limits any one company from owning television
stations that reach more than 35 percent of American households.
The bottom line is that fewer and fewer huge conglomerates
are controlling virtually everything that the ordinary
American sees, hears and reads. This is an issue that
Congress can no longer ignore.
Rep. Bernie Sanders is an Independent Member of the
U.S. Congress from Vermont. In April 2002, U.S. Congressman
Sanders held 2 town meetings in Vermont to discuss the
issue of the growing corporate control over the U.S.
news media — and over 600 Vermonters showed up
to participate in the media forum.
On Thursday, July 11, 2002, many Americans came to the
U.S. Capitol for Congressman Sanders’ Symposium
on Corporate Control of the Media with U.S. Rep. Sherrod
Brown (D-OH), Robert McChesney, author of Rich Media,
Poor Democracy, John Nichols, co-author of It’s
the Media, Stupid and The Nation magazine’s
Washington Correspondent and Linda Foley, President
of The Newspaper Guild.
Related
sites
Who
Owns What
http://www.cjr.org/owners/
From the Columbia Journalism Review:
“Media companies continue to grow, and a shrinking
number of them shape what we view and read. What does
that mean for journalists — and for the nation?”
Project
Censored
http://www.projectcensored.org/
“The
Essential Issue raised by [Project Censored] is the
failure of the mass media to provide the people with
all the information they need to make informed decisions
concerning their own lives and in the voting booth.”
The journalism and films of John Pilger
http://www.johnpilger.com/
“It
is not enough for journalists to see themselves as mere
messengers without understanding the hidden agendas
of the message and the myths that surround it.”
— John Pilger
The U.S. media: a critical component of the conspiracy
against democratic rights — Part 1
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/dec2000/med-d05.shtml
“This
is the first in a series of pieces that will attempt
to answer several questions: Why do the American mass
media play such a foul role? Who are the major personalities?
Who owns the media? What is their modus operandi?”
Part 2: An
evening of television news
Part 3: Television
personnel: money matters
Part 4: Television
personnel: a few profiles
Part
5: Media
ownership and concentration
Part 6: Who
is the Wall Street Journal’s Robert Bartley?
Part 7: Conclusions
about the media in general, the liberal press in particular
Media
Beat
http://www.fair.org/media-beat/
“Media
Beat is the insightful weekly syndicated column on media
and politics written by FAIR associate Norman Solomon.
It runs in newspapers across the country.
“Utne
Reader called Solomon one of ‘the fiercest
and most articulate media critics around.’ A Los
Angeles Times reviewer wrote: ‘The bold, muckraking
tone of these columns offers a welcome respite from
the decerebrated discourse that too often passes for
contemporary journalism.’”
Fairness
& Accuracy In Reporting — FAIR
http://www.fair.org/
“FAIR,
the national media watch group, has been offering well-documented
criticism of media bias and censorship since 1986. We
work to invigorate the First Amendment by advocating
for greater diversity in the press and by scrutinizing
media practices that marginalize public interest, minority
and dissenting viewpoints.
“As
an anti-censorship organization, we expose neglected
news stories and defend working journalists when they
are muzzled. As a progressive group, FAIR believes that
structural reform is ultimately needed to break up the
dominant media conglomerates, establish independent
public broadcasting and promote strong non-profit sources
of information.”
How
the White House and the media package government propaganda
as entertainment
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/jan2000/drug-j24.shtml
US
psychological warfare experts worked at CNN and NPR during
Kosovo War
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2000/apr2000/cnn-a18.shtml
“Cable
News Network (CNN) and National Public Radio (NPR) have
acknowledged that eight members of the US Army 4th Psychological
Operations (PSYOPS) Group served as interns in their
news divisions and other areas during the Kosovo war.
PSYOPS is a highly specialized unit of the military
whose personnel are trained in the production and dissemination
of US government propaganda, including on television
and radio programs.”
“Three
PSYOPS personnel also worked at the Washington DC headquarters
of NPR, a publicly-funded radio network. They worked
for periods ranging from six weeks to four months from
September 1998 through May 1999 on such programs as
All Things Considered and Morning Edition.”
PR
Watch and the Center for Media & Democracy
http://www.prwatch.org/
The
press and US militarism — a lesson from history
http://www.wsws.org/news/1998/aug1998/main-a21.shtml
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Decoding Spin and Lies in Mainstream News
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The Political Economy of the Mass Media
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Media and the Threat to Democracy
by Robert W. McChesney
Censored 2000:
The Year’s Top 25 Censored Stories
by Peter Phillips & Project Censored
War, Lies &
Videotape:
How media monopoly stifles truth
edited by Lenora Foerstel; multiple authors
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and Emperors, Old and New:
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Terrorism in Fact and Propaganda
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What makes us buy, believe – and even vote –
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The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling
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Uncle Sam Really Wants
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The America the Media Don’t Want You to See
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Empire
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American Foreign Policy in the Post-Cold War Era
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Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism
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U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since WWII
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from
http://free.freespeech.org/americanstateterrorism/mediadeception/CorporateChokeholdMedia.html
