*/Today's Crime Against Democracy:/*
*Corporate Media Control*
Between media consolidation and the loss of the Fairness Doctrine,
corporate "mainstream news" media can no longer be trusted to serve the
public interest. Instead, mainstream media newsrooms are subservient to
the profit and political motives of their corporate owners and
advertisers. No longer can Americans rely on mainstream news to devote
airtime to controversial matters. Deregulation has allowed the so-called
"liberal media" to transform into an almost purely "for-profit"
enterprise. "News" programs now lack real journalism and feature instead
infotainment, meaningless celebrity fanfare, and spectacles designed to
sell products not to inform the public. Worse, instead of providing
checks and balances on our government by doing investigative journalism
and truthful reporting, mainstream news media simply spew the talking
points and infomercials given to them by government communications
operations.
Recent election coverage demonstrates why Americans cannot rely on the
controlled corporate news media for the truth. For example, at 2:20 AM
the morning after the night of the 2000 Presidential election, Fox News
(www.commondreams.org/views06/1026-27.htm
<
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1026-27.htm>) declared George W.
Bush the winner in Florida by mistake. If true, Bush would win the
Presidency. Like lemmings, without any basis for confidence, all of the
other news networks echoed the erroneous Fox claim that Bush won Florida.
In fact, the vote count at the time of the projection showed the
election was too close to call, and all the networks eventually
rescinded their calls. But this did not happen in time. Al Gore had
called Bush and conceded. A post-election analysis by a consortium of
media outlets showed that if the Supreme Court had allowed Gore's
request for a recount to be conducted, Gore would have won Florida--and
the presidency--by anywhere from 42 to 171 votes.