To what extent is the Main Stream Media completely controlled by Repugs?

[Stuart G]

Are we going to get another 3 or 4 days on the death of a right wing media person? To what extent do these people completely control all the news.?..Looks like the First Amendment, as far as national news is concerned, has died too?

Pretty sad. How far has it gotten?

[Benhurst]

1. Almost beyond redemption.

That's why all the celebration around here about our winning in November is premature. There is a good chance we are headed for our third stolen presidential election in a row.

Why didn't our "leaders," including Pelosi, Reid, Clinton and Obama, address this problem when we took Congress back in 2006?

[KharmaTrain]

2. The First Problem...

It's far from being "Main Stream"...the large media conglomerates are elite...large corporate entities that serve a small board of directors and investors. It's been through their financial clout that they've been able to take public airwaves and turn them into their own plantation and to dominate the cable and satellites putting profits ahead of public service and any real connection with the "main stream".

It's the golden rule...in 1996 the Congress all but turned the airwaves over to the largest corporation via deregulation and then made it all but impossible for an outsider not only to challenge a license but to price it so high that only other rich corporations could play the game. The main stream was long shut out as the airwaves went from main street to wall street.

The corporate media lives within its own cult of personality...building up its own personalities and "realities" that they can and do control...and more for their own profit than for any other reason. They want a "horserace" thus will spin how close things are or play up gaffes and "gotchas" that draw eyeballs thus ratings thus revenues. They want partisanship as the "hotter" things get the higher the ratings as well.

News is only controlled if you allow it to be. Fortunately there are many sources of information now and the domination and controls of the corporates is being eroded.

[KurtNYC]

4. Profit is not the key motivator of MSM

owning news media is just part of the mix for the large corporation that do. The news channels have a very small audience compared to entertainment channels. For instance Lou Dobbs averages around 800,000 viewers and the demographic profile of these viewers falls largely outside of what gets top advertising money (eg it is NOT young people who's buying habits are not firmly established). Compare that to American Idol which can pull as many as 25,000,000 viewers, most of whom are in the soft-brained key advertising demo (18 to 34YO).

MSNBC reaches so few Neilsen households that the numbers are not considered statistically valid so they set their ad rates based on Arbitron numbers. So in general, cable news is not any kind of money maker compared to pure entertainment programming, and sports. Sorry to go off but I really wish people would let go of the idea that the MSM is about money.

Owning MSM isn't about money, it is about the POWER to control what people think.

[jazzjunkysue]

5. Yep. And the same people who own the media own the military industrial complex, and energy.

So, if it suits the oil industry to make you think the prices are due to peak oil, then guess what? They own the TV station and the "news", too. So, how long will you keep your beloved anchor job if you blurt out that the current gas prices are inflated due to wall street?

It was the same with the gulf wars. They fomented all kinds of patriotic support for it because they also own halliburton, and all the compainies that are reeling in tremendous war profits.

They own nuclear and oil and natural gas and electric.

People, they've got you coming and going. And they also own the "media."

That's why, when you trash Randi Rhodes, you're shooting yourself in the foot. That's why they drummed her off the regular airwaves. She was derailing their propaganda machine.

This experiment in democracy is over. Your vote doesn't count and your news is hijacked.

The sooner you accept that fact, the sooner we can attempt a return to representative government.

Right now, the government represents multi-national corporations and they're picking your pocket. They're not even american corporations, people. They're saudi and asian and anything else you can imagine.

[KurtNYC]

6. It is also a way to evade campaign contribution limits and to move

legislation.

They keep talking about how much the candidates have raised for TV time while they own all the TV time. TV is for McCain Bush all the time.

[KharmaTrain]

14. It All Boils Down To A Profit

By "controlling" the media, the power that eminates allows these companies to manipulate politicians to enact laws that enhance their profit. A good news story or positive coverage can make the difference between an up or down vote on yet another piece of deregulation. The result of DeReg '96 was the large corporations making billions in revenues and preventing any new competition...and through that dereg they were able to extend tentacles into many areas...all serving the larger corporate body.

Yes, the cable channels have a small percentage of the overall viewership. I'd submit the 11pm news in New York City outdraws the best on cable. Plus we don't see the ratings of the cable news outlets compared to channels like ESPN or MTV...both who enjoy far larger audiences...but then both those networks are subsidiaries of the same corporate entities that operate network and cable news divisions (ABC & CBS).

Of course it's about the money...that's the "American Way". Look at how Jack Welch saw NBC as a PR arm for GE...and how the company uses this and other networks to show their "concern" about the environment. Or count the number of American Petroleum Institute ads that have popped on recently to offset and all stories about oil speculation (the few that are out there...has Lou Doobies reported on that yet???) A classic example was last year's mine disaster in Utah...the coverage sure got very "cushy" with our new buddy Murray who got plenty of face time...and then commercials funded by the coal industry.

Without the political clout, the entertainment programming and other big profit products would face a lot more regulation and competition.

As the old saying goes...when they say it's not about the money...it's about the money.

Cheers...

[KurtNYC]

16. I think we disagree on something

Yes money (profit) is power but owning minds is pure power.

The Chicago Seven said that (paraphrase): The control of us that Big Brother will have will not come through government directly but through control of entertainment because that is where people's attention is'

[Stuart G]

13. You sure are right here..outstanding post, thanks for this one.

ABC - Disney,...NBC - GE, CBS- Summer Redstone, CNN -?.. Fox..:puke: etc..


These companies are no longer controlled by by people who have any interest in presenting accurate and fair news. One sided crap,,
"Corporate media is for its own profit.." ...that says it all..screw objective reporting..

[JustAnotherGen]

3. Totally

Aside from the death of Tony Snow . . . I believe they are the ones who are creating the 'false' division in the Democratic Party.

[malaise]

7. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

http://www.uwm.edu/People/woodsa/chart.html

[KurtNYC]

8. To the same extent that MY boss is controlled by me

the media (owners) control the Republicans (and most Democrats)-- not the other way around.

Why is Bloomberg (media billionaire) the mayor on NYC? Because you just can't get good help these days.

[stillcool]

10. good point..

It's not only media control that is corporate but political control as well.

The Politics of News Media
from the book
False Hope
by Norman Solomon, 1994
The USA's major news media pose no threat to what the late writer Walter Karp called the fact of oligarchy. In the United States, he pointed out, "the fact of oligarchy is the most dreaded knowledge of all, and our news keeps that knowledge from us. By their subjugation of the press, the political powers in America have conferred on themselves the greatest of political blessings-Gyges' ring of invisibility. And they have left the American people more deeply baffled by their own country's politics than any people on earth. Our public realm lies steeped in twilight, and we call that twilight news."
Journalists are neither more nor less courageous than people in other professions; we can hardly expect corporate-paid reporters and pundits to make careers out of biting the hands that sign their paychecks. Those who pay the piper, as the saying goes, call the tune-not every note, but the overarching score-orchestration that may seem to be nowhere in particular because it is now almost everywhere, with an insistent drumbeat that after a while gets confused with the human heart. The political muzak keeps functioning as white noise, constant and familiar, with little variation, and loud enough to prevent us from hearing much of other sounds. To question the divine right of large corporations to occupy America's political throne is a lack of fealty that demands exclusion from the roundtables of mega-media discourse, where political "realities" are framed and re-framed every day.
For people on corporate payrolls, more than a little parental company discretion is advised. Mainstream journalists are cases in point: Criticisms of government-and disparagements of the public sector overall-are far more acceptable than condemnations of corporate power. Yet the facts are cold and hard. "It is beyond doubt that the -) large corporation has always governed, most importantly by deciding whether untold numbers of people will live or die, will be injured, or will sicken," _ comments Morton Mintz, who left the Washington Post in 1988 after twenty-nine years as a reporter there; his attitude was rare in the newsroom. Media professionals are almost uniformly unwilling to voice anything that smacks of a systemic critique of the private-industry juggernaut.

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Media_control_propaganda/False_Hope.html

[nancyr]

9. Media=propaganda.

[ensho]

11. 90%

nt

[blm]

12. BushInc's fascist allies bought control of the newsmedia in the 80s and 90s, knowing

that was the key to political control. And they had a few powerful Dems playing along with their diversionary dog and pony shows every step of the way.

Bush2 getting into office in 2001 was no accident of the ballot box. Even the vote counts were controlled by the newsmedia and its chosen narrative.

[Stuart G]

15. They seem to control everything, headlines, order of importance..

language used, and other minor details. I get the feeling that almost everything on TV is biased and untrue. (they way Gibson ran the debate between Clinton and Obama an obvious example)

And as has been said..profit and fear of losing what profit they have is the only motive.
,,If Obama were to open up ownership and availability through the actions of a different FCC, the current crop would lose profit. The media is going to slam Obama in October,and it will get real ugly.