How did it get THIS BAD? RE: Corporate media bias

[Toucano]

Does anyone have a hypothesis?

I look at the corporate news broadcasts and there is so much Bush propoganda that I truly am boggled!

Every single one of them simply repeats the admin's BS over and over and over. It's not even subtle anymore!! Every dissenting voice is instantly dismissed.

Was it simply the anthrax? Are all the consolidated media outlets directly invested in the military industrial complex?

Yesterday, Russert pressed Cheney more than usual (still pretty soft) but it just gave him a chance to repeat and repeat and repeat his lies!

"Iraq central front...Saddam was a threat...9/11...War on terror...Iraq central front...weapons of mass destruction...freedom haters...9/11"

I'm hittin' the button before my head explodes.

[SoCalDem]

1. No fairness Doctrine & right wing takeover of media

It took them 30 years, but they did it:(

[wurzel]

3. You got it right.

Another example of "deregulation".

[Avalux]

4. You got it.

Revenge for Nixon. x(

[Toucano]

10. Right and that's the point.

For thirty years it was happening, but subtle. There was a struggle, but you could hear other voices.

Now - I swear it seems like all of a sudden - they don't even fake it.

Did the left all migrate to the net and that action give them the green light to close the door completely?
Or did public education get so bad over the last thirty years that Joe Public doesn't see what has happened?

It feels like it's been different since the 2004 election, actually.

[ClassWarrior]

2. You weren't paying attention through the 80's and 90's...

I wasn't either.

I vaguely remember some GOP-TV infomercial on late night, which I dismissed. But in retrospect, I see they were building.

NGU.

[sandnsea]

14. I saw, I laughed

haha, ain't Limbaugh so funny. Well, everybody has a right to a point of view, even idiots.

They were building all right, and blind-sided us. Watch some old Murphy Brown's around the Gingrich take-over, some real eye openers there.

[leftofthedial]

5. the owners of this country

have spent a generation and trillions of dollars (mostly looted from the treasury) buying lawmakers, changing the laws that govern media ownership and buying media outlets and the corporations that own them.

the soame people who own bush own the media. period.

[Toucano]

8. But they're still publicly traded companies, aren't they?

One might propose that these Bush policies that are bad for the dollar, trade, and the economy would be bad news for these companies. Sure, they've got tax cuts but how long can they milk that? At some point, they've got to recognize they need educated workers and customers with a little money in the pockets.

Are the media companies profiting directly from the "war" on terror? Or is it merely that their boards and management (Bushbots that they are) also are invested in the military and terror business? Or are they afraid of something?

The lack of any alternative voice seems bad for business. It seems the public doesn't agree with the media and the administration yet they keep feeding us more of the same. I thought their credo was to "give 'em what they want" but they appear to be "giving 'em what we want them to think".

[leftofthedial]

11. major shareholders and senior management like the repukes just fine

they get personal tax breaks worth zillions

the companies get media deregulation and tax breaks

[OrangeCountyDemocrat]

6. Reason #596 That Watching Corporate Media Is WASTE Of Time!

I spend 1 hour watching Keith Olbermann. Anything else is GARBAGE, and diminishes my brain cells by watching, even more than smoking 1,000 joints would.

[Bake]

7. Example: NBC owned by GE

GE is a huge defense contractor. Pretty easy to connect those dots.

Bake

[Toucano]

9. Right on. But that's one.

We knoe Fox is idealogically motivated, so we can skip them.
MSNBC is Microsoft married to GE, both have defense contracts.

CBS is Viacom, no?
ABC is Disney.
CNN is Time Warner

What are their dots?

[Bake]

15. CBS is no longer Viacom, strictly speaking

In January 2006, Viacom split into two separate entities, CBS Corporation and "new" Viacom, Inc. "New" Viacom owns a number of networks including MTV, CMT, Nick at Nite, Comedy Central, etc.

CBS Corp. is comprised of CBS Television Network, UPN, CBS Radio, Viacom Outdoor, Viacom Television Stations Group, Paramount Television, King World, Simon & Schuster, Showtime and Paramount Parks.

For the full press release, see:

http://www.viacom.com/view_release.jhtml?inID=10000040&inReleaseID=126683

Here's a snip of it:

NEW YORK, January 1, 2006 —Viacom Inc. has completed the transaction to separate the Company into two publicly traded entities: CBS Corporation and “New” Viacom Inc. Shares of the two new companies will commence trading on the New York Stock Exchange on January 3, 2006, under the symbols: “CBS.A’’ (CBS Corporation Class A Common Stock) and ‘‘CBS’’ (CBS Corporation Class B Common Stock) and ‘‘VIA’’ (Viacom Inc. Class A Common Stock) and ‘‘VIA.B’’ (Viacom Inc. Class B Common Stock). The transaction to separate Viacom’s businesses was announced in June 2005.

Bake

[Armstead]

12. That's what happens with "free market" monopolies

We have only ourselves to blame.

When all regulation that promotes competition, diversity and responsibility to the public interests are removed, that's what you get. Power hungry, greedy elitists who operate institutionxs that become more arrogent and insulated as they exercise that power.

It's just a law of nature. It requires the collective will of the population to keep that under control.

It was a BI-PARTISAN movement over the last 30 years to replace the balance provided by liberalism with rampant right-wing "free market fundamentalism" in all spheres, including the media. GOP initiated it. Centrist Democrats supported it. It was made possible by our collective stupidity as a nation as we allowed our standards for social responsibility decline.


The corporate media is just the face and voice of the results.

[TreasonousBastard]

13. No big secret...

Having worked for subsidiaries of such things as American Express, ITT, and others, I've noticed that the larger a company gets, the more risk-aversive it gets.

So, as media becomes more consolidated and owned by larger companies, it tends to take the safe route and goes with the flow. Taking on the White House is dangerous at any time, and taking it on now is very dangerous.

Aside from that, the media has NEVER been as Simon-pure as many like to think it may have been in the good ol' days. Back in the thirties every city had newspapers catering to rich conservatives, socialists, labor agitators, Communists, and whatever else was out there. You bought the news that you liked. Radio and TV news had to be less partisan, but the Cronkites and Murrows were still the exception, not the rule.

How would anyone today feel about the agreement that the press corps had to avoid talking about Roosevelt's declining health during WWII? Keeping American spirits up while the war wasn't going so well was considered more important than the small fact that FDR was obviously dying and most likely wouldn't be around to oversee the end of it.

And, perhaps more importantly, we liberals certainly aren't free of blame ourselves, nor is the rest of the country. Solid news reporting is usually dead in the ratings on TV and radio, and we are too cheap or pissed off at some alleged impurity to support our own newspapers, magazines, and broadcast media.

Scaife, Murdock, and others have millions to shove their views down our throats and none of their cohorts mind that an occasional bit of left-leaning truth gets out as long as the mesage is still there and someone has 40 million bucks to fund an ABC version of "Triumph of Will."

Us, we sit back and whine and cry and hold back our 20 bucks when NPR has on 10 minutes of something we don't like, throw Air America to the winds when they get rid of Malloy, and let Truthout and other webzines beg for nickels. And God forbid any true progressive should ever get the filthy ink of the New York Times or Washington Post on his pristine hands. Or watch the local news to see if the potholes on Rte 3 are being fixed or they caught the latest serial rapist.

[otohara]

16. They Want More Deregulation & Know The Republicans

will give it to them, not the democrats.

I love Bill Clinton, but man he should have vetoed the disasterous Telecommunications Act of 96. They are gearing up to request AGAIN from the FCC the go ahead to buy more stations, newspapers and TV stations.

[Marr]

17. The big media outlets are quickly marginalizing themselves.

They've simply overplayed their hand. They've helped install and support an actual fascist regime that does not care about the citizens of the country. We've rapidly reached a point where vast numbers of people are directly harmed by the government or it's indifference, yet the media keeps telling them everything is ok.

You can do that when people are fat and happy. You can't do that when they're suffering. That's why Pravda was a joke among citizens of the Soviet Union.