Corporate Media

An oft-repeated charge that:

The media outlets in the US (henceforth TheMedia?) are owned and operated mostly by large corporations;
Said corporations use ownership of said media to suppress reporting that might expose corporate wrongdoing; and otherwise exercise editorial control in order to advance conservative causes;
There is a wide-ranging conspiracy (explicit or one of convenience) to do so.

This is often charged when a particular story is not covered, or a particular analysis is not explored, by the mainstream media outlets. In many cases, there is a legitimate reason--namely that the story that is allegedly being suppressed is one that has no evidence to support it; and to report it would be tantamount to YellowJournalism?.

In other cases, you start to wonder....

There are many mechanisms by which corporations filter the news. Some of these include:

appointing only arch-conservatives and/or libertarians as editors
promoting only right-wing journalists
demoting left-wing journalists
controlling ad revenue (try to find an anti-car ad in the corporate press)
suing muckraking journalists for libel
paying celebrity journalists 6 figure salaries, making them sympathize with the rich and turning them into economic conservatives
Hiring complete and utter idiots like GeraldoRivera? to represent "the left" in order to claim balanced coverage (see FoxNewsChannel?). If TheManWhoGotKickedOutOfIraq? were representative of liberalism; I'd want to be a conservative, too--ScottJohnson

Of course, much of the above assumes that media outlets (independent, corporate, or government-sponsored) have an overriding duty to TheTruth?, and that placing any other concern (whether ideology or profit) over TheTruth? is inherently and unequivocably a BadThing. TheLaw?, of course, doesn't see it that way--if you own a newspaper, you can pretty much print whatever you want for whatever reason.

The other problem is that too many people assume that what THEY think is TheTruth?. I know lots of "liberals" who believe that MotherJones? and its ilk is the only place TheTruth? may be found; and lots of conservatives who feel the same way about AmericanSpectator?. When in fact no publication or ideology has a monopoly on truth, no matter how hard they try to convince themselves (or you) otherwise.--ScottJohnson

CategoryCorporate