One-sided and influential commercial broadcasting.
Society is pretty messed up with business and consumer greed running rampant, human injustices, poverty and starvation. There are high and low end criminals and very much waste and pollution. Prevalent unhealthy lifestyles exist for so many who should be mentally and physically fit but for the daily persuasions towards harmful habits.
Why does this trend in the same direction for so long and with so little resistance?
Corporate profit would seem to be the main determinant in how we are 'progressing' as a society. The need to increase these profits keeps pushing negative social trends forward, promoting and selling still more excessive, unneeded and even useless and harmful stuff.
But why is there practically no backlash? Criticism is stifled!
The information that citizens absorb in their daily lives influences their future actions and developing lifestyles. World and local social topics from the media and the NEWS are a main source. Friends and acquaintances are another source but most of their information has come from media, perhaps indirectly.NEWS broadcasting is almost totally dominated by private commercial broadcasting and they are in business for profit. They do not exist to improve society or to make their audiences healthier and happier. What are the chances of seeing on your local news a negative report on a local company's wrong doings when the business is a regular advertiser on the station? Or will a network seek to expose a company's bad ethic if it is a large shareholder?
Government interference is unlikely where wealthy politicians are part owners in these companies or industries, or feel indebted to them in other ways.
And so we get biased reports, excessive and questionable advertising and what ever business chooses to dish out. Public broadcasting is so much more useful but lacks the corporate funding to take any kind of prominence in our daily lives. The chances for future positive social trends looks grim.
What's Wrong With the News?
Independent, aggressive and critical media are essential to an informed democracy. But mainstream media are increasingly cozy with the economic and political powers they should be watchdogging. Mergers in the news industry have accelerated, further limiting the spectrum of viewpoints available to us. With U.S. media outlets overwhelmingly owned by for-profit conglomerates and supported by corporate advertisers, independent journalism is compromised.
Ultimately, FAIR believes that structural reform is needed to break up the dominant media conglomerates, establish independent public broadcasting, and promote strong, non-profit alternative sources of information.
Corporate Ownership
"Almost all media that reach a large audience in the United States are owned by for-profit corporations - institutions that by law are obligated to put the profits of their investors ahead of all other considerations. The goal of maximizing profits is often in conflict with the practice of responsible journalism.
Not only are most major media owned by corporations, these companies are becoming larger and fewer in number as the biggest ones absorb their rivals. This concentration of ownership tends to reduce the diversity of media voices and puts great power in the hands of a few companies. As news outlets fall into the hands of large conglomerates with holdings in many industries, conflicts of interest inevitably interfere with newsgathering.
FAIR believes that independent media are essential to a democratic society, and that aggressive antitrust action must be taken to break up monopolistic media conglomerates. At the same time, non-corporate, alternative media outlets need to be promoted by both the government and the non-profit sector."
Read What's Wrong With the News? at FAIR including advertiser influence, official agendas, telecommunications policy, the PR industry, pressure groups, and more.
Corporate Media Ownership: "The Project Censored team researched the board members of 10 major media organizations from newspaper to television to radio. Of these ten organizations, we found there are 118 people who sit on 288 different American and international corporate boards proving a close on-going interlock between big media and corporate America. We found media directors who also were former Senators or Representatives in the House . . ."
Read more from Project Censored.
Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership - is a report from Global Issues, an interesting source for detailed coverage of social concerns.
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