These 15 Billionaires Own America's News Media Companies (2016)
forbes.com
forbes.com
I remember when I moved to another country and was absolutely shocked that they had local restaurant reviews on the news channels. Really appreciated it instead of all the doom and gloom. I visited quite a lot of them!
Of course they don't have to call journalists to tell them what to say, they recruit heads of HR who recruit neoliberal journalists/editorialists.
90% of people haven't seen their wages progressing that much in 20 years, yet they keep voting for the Biden/Trump/Macron/Bolsonaro of the world whom appeal is 100% created by the media.
Deregulation is also responsible for leaders doing nothing about global warming and so many other things that make the world a particularly shitty place right now.
Compared to places where social inequality is much lower (ie some parts of Europe), US has some deep societal issues that I don't see going away soon, in contrary. Marketing has been very effective in branding any other idea as socialism/communism. And here is the media role, be it Hollywood, news etc - resist any change, our way is the best, it was and always will be. Don't think hard if its best for you, or you are not a true American.
Or it could be the opposite - from US conservative viewpoint those leaning left are harming themselves and US society in the long run (not that I agree with this, but I can understand why certain people would hold this opinion).
(I don't have a personal stake at this, just presenting an outsider's, potentially flawed view. When deciding where to settle around the globe US went quickly off the list for quite a few reasons, overall not a place I wanted to raise my kids in but that's another topic. That was despite obvious strengths of US society and location, as strengths don't cancel out weaknesses in my opinion).
"It's ok to fuck the lives, communities, job prospects, etc. of blacks, latinos, gays, lesbians, whites, fill billionaires' pockets, and bomb foreign countries, but we care for correct pronouns, and are in favor of same-sex marriage and stuff. Oh, and yay for ACA [as if that solves anything]".
vs
"It's ok to fuck the lives, communities, job prospects, etc. of blacks, latinos, gays, lesbians, whites, fill billionaires' pockets, and bomb foreign countries, but we don't care for political correctness and we are pro-life and stuff. Oh, and yay for more tax-decuctions to the rich [as if that solves anything]".
(given the lack of an actual socialist party to vote for),
it's basically voting Democrats - a party complicit in the same neo-liberal policies, Wall Street bailouts and deregulation, warmongering, corporatism, looking down upon the "unwashed masses" (aka "deplorables"), and rampant corporate globalism (i.e. job outsourcing hitting the working classes) with the Republicans, that can't even stand a "soft" "socialist" like Bernie Sanders to be given a chance?
One study found that local stations bought by Sinclair reduce coverage of local events, increase coverage of national politics, and shift rightward in tone compared to other stations of the same area. http://joshuamccrain.com/localnews.pdf
To be honest, I'm not sure this shows lack of diversity of opinion - but it does show how consolidation of news media allows a handful of people to use local stations as sockpuppets for their beliefs in a way that hides the origin of the message.
Is there?
I was really hoping someone was actually checking beyond quotes, sentiment, and their own topics not getting enough airtime.
When expanding the graph you could basically see that the same 30 or 40 people where in the boards of major companies, from Pepi to Johnson&Johnson to Microsoft to Fox and other communication companies.
It showed a really interesting picture of how really consolidated the control was at the top.
EDIT: I tried to run the SWF file on Ruffle but there is no data. I can imagine that the SWF contacted some backend server to load data which is no longer available.
I’m kinda sad that theyrule didn’t live on and become an institution, honestly
http://web.archive.org/web/20080901010712/http://www.theyrul...
Hence, they've devolved into entertainment while the public at large still perceives them as news sources. I am sure this has been going on to some degree for centuries. More than consolidation, the unprecedented reach to now 5 billion humans actually should be concerning enough to raise a hue and cry for oversight.
Did he call the neo-Nazi's and white supremacists fine people? Did Biden launch his campaign on that claim? How can our news sources call themselves news when a few seconds of research (literally) can show such an inflammatory claim as false?
This has to stop.
Unregulated social media and the traditional consolidation of media are resulting in not much different than what occurred right after the US civil war.
Not only did “unchecked” freedom of the press and speech result in the US Spanish War between countries but it also resulted in white terrorism against black, brown, and Asian people in the US throughout the period of Reconstruction from 1860’s-1930.
- https://history.state.gov/milestones/1866-1898/yellow-journa...
- https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/historyrawleyconference/31/
It’s no different than what happens now except it’s truly global and even more centralized.
- https://www.salon.com/2021/01/16/despite-parler-backlash-fac...
Compared to German standards, substantial parts of journalism in the US is a joke (an unfunny one, watching Fox News feels like a fever dream for instance). Too much bias and pollution with opinion and entertainment (opinions are fine, but only if clearly demarcated and from someone who has skin in the game and knows what's up, not random shrill plastic lady), too little self-reflection/introspection, too much clickbait, too short memory, blatant disregard for journalistic best practices. That said, the harsh financial environment there is at odds with sober, analytical (=boring) reporting.
Too bad "öffentlich-rechtlicher Rundfunk" (or information about it for that matter) basically isn't available in English, it would do well to lead by example (I've seen dw mentioned but that's a drop in the ocean really).
That said current US societal problems have a more complex etiology than just media consolidation, but it really doesn't help to have the "mirror of society" blunted as much.
How do the viewers of CNN, Fox, MSNBC not recognize that the guests cannot make substantial points about policies when their discussion is interrupted every 5 Minutes for commercial breaks?
Also, the USA has PBS, which is for a large part financed through a public fund (taxes). I don't know whats wrong with it but I assume by now most of the tv-watching audience is "trained" to watch opinion pieces on Fox&CNN instead of actual news.
And those who'd watch Fox and it's even more biased ilk will view PBS as purely liberal propaganda.
Assuming every news source tends to have some degree of bias, do you imagine they would tilt towards bigger government or smaller government?
So once they do get elected, they must somehow make laws which benefit (as quietly as possible in the past, but very openly nowadays) the wealthy interests which fund them.
> Here’s a look at some of the billionaires who own news media in the United States
Many news outlets are instead owned by publicly traded companies: News Corp, Disney, the New York Times. Plenty more are small businesses.
Yes, there have been mergers and acquisitions, but I would say it's more fragmented than many other healthy industries. If you just read the headline and thought "it's unconscionable that these 15 people should own 50% (or whatever) of US news media assets", what number would you think reasonable? 30? 100? 1000?
I think we should favor more news outlets than fewer (a specific threshold is a loaded question) that have outsized influence at the local level. These large media companies are living off clickbait and pandering to echo chambers and not on 4th estate accountability, or providing real value to peoples lives.
Funnily enough most of them are friends, have regular "dinners" &co with politicians and other people of the "elite": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Siècle_(think_tank)
People have been calling these things forever but we somehow "rediscover" it every now and then.
> Private capital tends to become concentrated in few hands, partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society.
> Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed in most cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.
Albert Einstein, Why socialism ? 1949
Innovation comes from many players in actual competition.
Sure some innovation can come from subdepartments in megacorps, but if you've spent any time in large corporations and witnessed the empire building and other structural behaviors more in common with single party rule governments, you know that innovation is suppressed.
Employment likely is suppressed. You'd need more people doing the various roles of companies, and while that seems less efficient that what large companies are doing overall, I'd argue the reduced middle management pyramids and increased amounts of people trying different management and software approaches will lead to a net gain in efficiency, more fluidity, more GDP, and more local employment.
Large cartels/monopoly megacorps also are better able an to lobby the government to entrench themselves. Possibly their greatest advantage. And highly incented to do so, which increases the overall corruption in the system of government.
How much of the perceived corruption increase in American government, despite the transparency that the internet allows, is due to the monopoly/cartel consolidation throughout the economy?
Simply delete the things you disagree with to control the narrative.
It's barely different then writing it yourself.
NPR - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NPR
CSMonitor - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Christian_Science_Monitor
???
That's not how power works. The point is that people will write in a particular way if they believe it 's what the owner wants.
Apart from Sheldon and Rupert not a single name strikes me as significantly non-progressive. Sheldon has passed away, Rupert is going to be not to far in the future and his heir is decidedly in the opposite camp (maxed out his legal spending cap for donations to Biden's campaign).
Abolish IP laws and I could build a worthy competitor to CNN or NYTimes in a year
If we got rid of #ImaginaryProperty laws, we would compete on a level playing field, and innovate like crazy. Everyone would benefit (except for the current .1% who sits back and profits from #ImaginaryProperty royalties)
Has it? How do you measure that?
As an example of uniformity of thought in media. Have you considered why we aren’t having debates about open sourcing the vaccine? We just take for granted that the right thing to do is lock it up behind a couple companies and never consider the lives we could be saving by making its production immediately accessible to the entire world.
Because historically speaking that's not really something that really has come up at all? Like how do you measure that not being discussed as some sort of uniformity of thought?
There's so much "issue important to me isn't being discussed, it's the media" that I don't see any evidence that it would otherwise come up ....
Perhaps there is room in the US for a national media company like we have here in the UK, but even here most successful media companies are still owned by successful businessmen.
The star system (one star takes the pickings over thousands of local artists) started then, and probably won't get stopped unless we get punted back to sticks and stones.
Example: I have lots of money. Media is a profitable business. I buy some media companies because 'more profit'.
I accept and welcome the above. BUT.. I have lots of money, I made it selling heroin, and now the media are on to me, so I will 'buy a couple of media companies to counter the noise', is completely different game.
I am thinking of Italy's Berlusconi. He had sex parties, some had minor(s) [0][1], but it's all good. He owned media companies, ad companies, he was the prime minister, he was untouchable. He used all this power and control to have sex with minors? He wasn't Epstein-grade, but he wasn't a clean guy either.
So.. media consolidation helps or not the 'evils'?
[0]: https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=195272...
[1]: https://www.smh.com.au/world/second-minor-at-berlusconi-part...
Perhaps the article should be titled, "These 15 [bad people] Own America's News Media Companies", because as you point out, it's okay for rich people to own successful media companies, but that sometimes people with bad motives who are rich enough to own a media company do so.
I was being critical of the framing of the article – I understand why people are critical of the individuals and the motivations of those who own media companies.