Describe CorporateMedia here.
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