In a recent blog post, Arianna Huffington asks why the media is ignoring a Karl Rove story that, by all rights, should get him indicted. But that issue is only one small part of a much larger problem — a problem that threatens the very existence of democracy in America.
Originally published 2005
Huffington’s blog postasks an important question. But larger problems result from the fact that :
- Five media conglomerates now control 90% of the media in America — as a result of the repeal of anti-monopoly statutes for communications companies.
- Those mega-corporations are in league with their fellow corporations, and are doing what is good for profits — which means ignoring the Rove story, among other things.
The first sign of the collusion was a recent NewsWeek special issue called “The Future of Health”. In reality, it was about the future of Medicine, which is far removed from the subject of real health. There was no serious discussion of prevention, which would have led to a call to reject dietary ingredients that are already illegal in Canada and Europe.
In other words, NewsWeek is acting as a shill for the medical industry, while avoiding any sort of conflict with the “food” manufacturing industry. They are helping to gull the American public into thinking that “all is right with America” and that “we live in the best democracy, with the highest standard of living on earth” — paying lip service to things that used to be true, while real democracy goes down the tubes, along with our standard of living.
Finally, if there was any lingering doubt on the subject of corporate collusion, it was all but put to rest by Time-Warner’s decision to give up its reporter’s sources. (I don’t know the details of that story, so I can’t say for sure. But it’s scary.)
Then there the attempts to scuttle PBS — the only remaining source of independent news — first by putting a staunch conservative at the helm, and then by attempting to slash its budget by 100 million dollars.
In short, the giant megalithic corporations have played their cards exceedingly well. They’ve influenced government enough to allow giant media conglomerates, and the influence that the media wields is giving the capacity to forestall a public outcry, regardless of the size of the scandal.
In short, most of our media is under corporate control, along with much of our government. The peril for democracy is huge.
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