Corporate Media is Threatening a Free Press - Part 1
The word 'media' can be simply defined as a "means of communication." Today, there are three main sources of media: print media, broadcast media, and the internet (including social media). Sadly, all of these sources are compromised and prone to corruption.
My next two posts will focus on corporate media. Corporate media is mass media production, distribution, ownership, and funding which is dominated by corporations and their CEOs. Corporate media is threatening a free and balanced press.
When I was in 7th grade, I wanted to be a journalist. I was so stoked about going to middle school and taking a journalism elective. Unfortunately, the class was full, and I was forced to take drafting. I was the only girl in the class, and the only thing I remember my teacher telling me after spending an entire semester being wholly ignored by him and all of my classmates (thanks, guys!) was that my all-caps block lettering was very neat 😑(Let me just say, I am certain that my lettering was, in fact, the best in the class 💁) But, I say all this to remind you that there were once kids out there who dreamt of being journalists.
My next two posts will focus on corporate media. Corporate media is mass media production, distribution, ownership, and funding which is dominated by corporations and their CEOs. Corporate media is threatening a free and balanced press.
When I was in 7th grade, I wanted to be a journalist. I was so stoked about going to middle school and taking a journalism elective. Unfortunately, the class was full, and I was forced to take drafting. I was the only girl in the class, and the only thing I remember my teacher telling me after spending an entire semester being wholly ignored by him and all of my classmates (thanks, guys!) was that my all-caps block lettering was very neat 😑(Let me just say, I am certain that my lettering was, in fact, the best in the class 💁) But, I say all this to remind you that there were once kids out there who dreamt of being journalists.
Ethical journalists have one of the most difficult and thankless jobs, and we, as a country, need to demand that their ability to accurately inform the public is preserved. Despite the criticisms you will read here, I sincerely believe that it is critical that we do not demonize true-blue-boots-on-the-ground-reporters and ethical-getting-the-story-journalists. With that said, I am becoming increasingly more mistrustful of corporate media, and this is why.
Around the time I was born (in 1981), there were about 50 corporations that controlled mass media. Because the internet had not made its way into American homes (or pockets) yet, U.S. citizens were consuming information in a wider variety of media formats. I’m talking about some of our good old favorites, like books, magazines, newspapers, and radio. My grandfather used to pay for my mom and me to have a subscription to Reader's Digest that I really loved reading as a kid. (I challenge you to find a kid today who loves reading Reader's Digest.) Obviously all of these things still exist (even Reader's Digest), but the little computers in our pockets have really changed the way we consume information, and the number of major corporations controlling broadcast media has dwindled from 50 to just five.
These are the media "conglomerates" that own most of the print and broadcast media in the United States. All revenue shown below is for 2018 alone.
1) Comcast - $94.5 billion
(NBC, MSNBC, CNBC & Telemundo)
2) Disney - $59.4 billion
(ABC, ESPN)
3) WarnerMedia - $33 billion
(CNN)
4) Viacom - $12.9 billion
(MTV, Comedy Central)
5) Murdoch News Corp - $9 billion
(Fox News, The Wall Street Journal & New York Post)
Collectively, these five "conglomerates" collected revenue of $208.9 billion in 2018. (It's also mind-boggling to note that the CEO of Disney, Bob Iger, earned a total compensation of $65.7 million dollars in 2018. That is $64.3 million dollars more in *one year* than the average American will make over the course of their entire lifetime.)
There are also some other major news sources not owned by these five "conglomerates." They include primarily print media like newspapers or online news articles:
1) Hearst Communications, which owns 23 formerly independent newspapers
$10.8 billion
2) Tribune Media Company
$1.94 billion
3) The New York Times
$1.676 billion
4) The Washington Post
Revenue for 2018 was not listed on The Washington Post's Wikipedia page, nor could I find any solid figures in any other articles or news sources, but it is worth noting that The Washington Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, with a reported net worth of $131 billion. He has recently been named the richest man in the world.
Calling these media companies "conglomerates" is one way word choice is being used to deceive us. These conglomerates should be called what they are in language that everyone understands: they are media monopolies. In all fairness, one could argue that conglomerates are most closely described as oligopolies (which is one step down from a true monopoly), but I think you get the point.
The driving purpose of monopolistic media ownership is to make as much money as possible. These corporations decide the information they want you to know and understand, and they also decide the information they don't want you to know and understand.
In a 1994 article titled “TV sitting on stories to improve ratings,” the author, Karl Idsvoog, said that “the decision on when (or if) to run a piece is no longer determined just by asking is the report concise, clear, and well produced; is it fair, thorough and accurate? There are now more critical questions. What’s the lead-in? Where do we place the promotion? Will it deliver better numbers on Monday or Wednesday?”
He also critically pointed out that “in the long run, adhering to a higher standard of ethics delivers a higher standard of performance,” but here we are 25 years after his article was written and balanced reporting is absolutely becoming an endangered species.
He also critically pointed out that “in the long run, adhering to a higher standard of ethics delivers a higher standard of performance,” but here we are 25 years after his article was written and balanced reporting is absolutely becoming an endangered species.
There was a time in the not-so-distant-past that we could place some measure of trust in media outlets to be socially responsible in their reporting. But now, the interests of corporate media owners, CEOs, and advertisers shape, skew, and sometimes even CENSOR information for profit. All of this is so troubling because corporations now have incredible power to influence social values and U.S. politics.
Generationally speaking, there are many Americans who grew up being able to trust that those delivering the news were doing so in an ethical way. I fear that some of those people (who rightfully trusted journalists like Edward Murrow and Walter Cronkite), are placing the same level of trust in whoever is now speaking “the news” of their preferred network. Younger generations are also having a hard time separating fact from fiction online according to this 2016 study out of the Stanford Graduate School of Education.
Media monopolies are dangerous. I think most people understand that the first amendment of the United States constitution serves the purpose of preventing the government from censoring We-The-People, but when it's working correctly, it also has a secondary purpose of ensuring that the public is accurately informed by the media. All of this safeguards our ability, as citizens, to self-govern.
Corporate media is threatening a free *and balanced* press. We must elect officials who are committed to breaking up media monopolies, and at the same time, protecting ethical journalists. It doesn't matter if you're watching Fox News, MSNBC, or CNN; they are all biased in one direction or the other, and it's critical to seek-out more independent news sources and a variety of opinions before forming our own.
Our forefathers intended for the United States to be a self-governing republic with elected officials who represent the interests of the people. A free press is enshrined in the United States Constitution, yet the press is owned almost entirely by only a handful of media monopolies. So, with all this considered, I would ask you this: Does the United States truly have a free press or do we have a bought press?
~ ~ ~
Wineburg, Sam and McGrew, Sarah and Breakstone, Joel and Ortega, Teresa. (2016). Evaluating Information: The Cornerstone of Civic Online Reasoning. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: http://purl.stanford.edu/
Idsvoog, K. (1994). TV sitting on stories to improve ratings. Nieman Reports, 1, 38.
Trigoboff, D. (2000, August 28). Reporter wins in milk suit. Broadcasting & Cable, 130, 27.
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