"The Golden Age of Media Bias"

"Big business equals bad journalism as corporations control the info flow."

Half a century ago, fifty corporations ran the major networks and newspapers. Since then, a rapid concentration of media ownership has resulted in a near media monopoly spearheaded by a lucky few.

“The danger of this kind of media concentration is that it robs democracy of diversity, it robs viewers of being exposed to a wider range of views,” said media critic Danny Schechter.

The purpose of existence for corporations is profit. Meaning, investors interests are placed ahead of anything else that would matter in journalism. Advertiser revenue unduly influences the direction media stories proceed in and truth finds itself left standing at the station while the propaganda train whizzes on by.

“Good business is bad journalism. Good journalism is bad business.”

Broadcaster Laura Flanders says counting on getting facts from the corporate media is simply naïve:

“We can’t be reliant on military contractors GE to bring us our news about the war, any more than we can be reliant upon television networks that are run by Disney to bring us the truth about what’s happening in our economy,” she explained.

As media are increasingly monopolized, the number of voices interested in bringing US viewers a little something called “truth” has decreased. As a result, instead of representing journalism, media have turned into loud mouthpieces for corporations.

They tell us what they want us to know and have gotten very good at the art of deception and filtering the facts. This leaves viewers with a real conundrum: How do we get the truth out of corporate media?

Answer: With increasingly great difficulty.

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