The news
Come in.
Shut the door.
Here, sit beside me.
Let’s watch the news.
The news…
Now there’s something interesting.
“The news?”
Yes.
“And what’s that?”
This:
Every single item of news you hear or see is something someone wants you to hear or see.
“Are you seeing a doctor?”
Ha. Very funny. But doctors can’t help me now.
Leonard Cohen
Someone once sang, ‘The rich have got their channels in the bedrooms of the poor.’
“Leonard Cohen, I think.”
Ah, yes – I remember now.
Well, here’s how it pans out:
– In the United States six corporations control 90% of all media: ATT, CBS, Comcast, Disney, News Corp (Murdoch) and Viacom.
– In the Philippines two media networks GMA and ABS-CBN dominate the media, taking 79.44% of the market. GMA is owned by the Gozon, Duavit and Jimenez families while ABS-CBN is owned by the Lopez brothers.
– In Brazil the media is dominated twenty-six corporate groups, many of which run other types of business or are financially connected to serving politicians. The largest of these, Globo, has a net revenue of $2.5b USD, reflecting its audience reach.
– India suffers a ‘state monopoly in radio news and highly concentrated regional newspaper markets…. controlled by a small number of powerful owners, some with strong political affiliations.’
– In the UK just five companies dominate 80% of the news publishers: News Corp UK (Murdoch), DMG (Jonathan Harmsworth, aka Viscount Rothermere), Reach (owned mainly by a small number of investors), Guardian (Scott Trust Ltd) and Telegraph (the Barclay family), while broadcast news is dominated by five networks, with state broadcaster, the BBC, powerfully outflanking its nearest rival, Sky.
– Media ownership in Russia makes for sobering reading, with the state controlling directly or indirectly much of the news content in both the broadcasting media and the newspapers. In China the state’s grip on the news is complete.
– Meanwhile, in Australia, the news media is almost a family business, with Murdoch controlling over 53% of the newspapers, over 27% of free-to-air TV and over 26% of radio. In each of these areas four companies dominate between 75% and 85% of the market.
See the pattern?
I’ve just described a group of nations totalling over 3,500,000,000 in population – and their media is controlled either by a scattering of corporations and individuals or by central government. And the pattern is much the same across the rest of the world.
Now ask yourself: Why would the powerful or the wealthy wish to control the news media to this degree? Is it so they can undertake charitable good deeds?
Politics
Politics is a conversation we have with ourselves about how society should be.
“I like it. Is it one of yours?”
Sadly not. If you ever discover who said it first, please let me know.
“Ok. And?”
The news media is the medium of that conversation.
“Ok.”
Control the news media…
“I think I can see where this is leading us…”
Control the news media and you control the conversation. Control the conversation and you control us.
“Do you still take the pills?”
Only the red ones, but I don’t think they help.
So, might that be the answer to our question?
“The pill question?”
No, the question of why the rich and the powerful choose to own the media?
You pause for a moment. It’s a good sign. “Well, I can’t see why else…”
The Quintuple D Manoeuvre
There are other reasons.
We know the rich want to convince us all of the desirability and justifiability of wealth.
We know that corporations are desperate to protect their own interests, even if their interests are highly divergent from ours.
It’s plain to see how the powerful become addicted to power, hungry for an ever-increasing grip. We know ‘power corrupts.’
And we know how the evangelists of our economic model use the media to perpetuate a hierarchy of values which preserves the system they so fervently support.
These are all compelling reasons for why the wealthy and powerful would choose to control our news media. It allows them to tell us the news they want us to hear. Then, for good measure, they can throw in a little:
Distraction
Dissimulation
Disinformation
Denial
&
Deceit.
It’s a winning ticket.
By controlling the media they control the soundscape of our society and our minds.
They use the media to tell us the story of our lives.
But they’re telling us the wrong story.
Omission
The owners of our media lie about reality. And where it’s not in-your-face lying, it’s lying by omission.
They’re not telling us about the nine ways in which the economy harms us all.
They’re not talking about the breakdown of our democracies and how they could so easily be repaired.
They’re not telling us about the asset-stripping of our corporations, their bribery and corruption, their appalling environmental impacts.
They’re not telling us about the animal holocaust behind our food economy.
They’re not telling us how they themselves are failing – becoming no more than the mouthpiece of the powerful and the rich.
These broadcasters and publishers, who are meant to be our news media, are really our myth media.
And they’re not telling us the most important news of all.
They’re not telling us that if we continue as we are, our children’s children may find themselves in a life and death struggle for existence.
They are not telling us that if we continue as we are the human race may no longer be around in two hundred years’ time.
They are not telling us how close we are to losing it all.
And if we aren’t told these things, and if we don’t know these things, why would we act to prevent them?
Luke Andreski
Luke Andreski is co-founder of the @EthicalRenewal and EthicalIntelligence.Org cooperatives. He is author of Short Conversations: During the Plague (2020), Intelligent Ethics (2019), Ethical Intelligence (2019) and How To Be Happy (2017).
You can connect with Luke on LinkedIn, https://uk.linkedin.com/in/luke-andreski-ethics, on WordPress, https://lukeandreski.wordpress.com/, or via the EthicalRenewal co-op on Twitter https://twitter.com/EthicalRenewal.
With thanks for newspaper image to Jack Weir (1928-2005). Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org.
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