Corporate media
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"Corporate media" is a term of derision used by some media critics in the political discourse in the United States and elsewhere, particularly by leftists and progressives, to imply that the mainstream media is manipulated by large multinational corporations. The critics point out that the main national networks, NBC, CBS, and ABC, as well as most if not all of the smaller cable channels, are owned by large corporations: General Electric, CBS Corporation, and Disney respectively, which they say manipulate and filter out news that does not fit their corporate agenda. They also argue that the programming on Fox News Channel clearly reflects the conservative views of its owner, Rupert Murdoch, who heads FOX parent company News Corp., as well as Roger Ailes, the CEO of FOX News itself.
Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman have established a propaganda model that they claim explains this alleged bias. The common misinterpretation of this model is that all bias is conscious and centralized. The process however is hypothesized to be decentralized and operates as a confluence of factors that includes, of course the overt pressure from owners but also other factors. One is the tendency of journalists to obtain news from the same few sources (Reuters, Associated Press) which themselves tend to cover the same news under the same perspective. Due to the desire to reduce operation costs, the mainstream media favors news pieces that are pre-made by these news agencies instead of conducting their own investigative reporting. This same economic pressure makes media susceptible to manipulation by government and other corporate sources through the widespread use of press releases. The point of view of the military, police, CIA, and political offices are often reported as facts. Quite often, the press releases are published verbatim without any fact checking. Factcheck.org that was created by the Annenberg school of Public Policy at the University of Pennsylvania found hundreds of misrepresentations in political ads that were never corrected by the mainstream media. Studies also show that those who rely on the media for their information have a poor understanding of the issues and are unable to discern misrepresentations in political advertising. It is becoming increasingly common for video news releases (VNR) to be created by government and corporations, mimicking TV news story-format to be used straight into broadcasting in a newscast. Other factors include the cost of litigation. Large corporations tend to sue over any news that are against their interests, causing great expense for the news editors. Even if the litigation is lost, the cost of time and pressure will certainly bias a reporter towards avoiding such possibility.
The term can be contrasted with "liberal media," a term used by many U.S. conservatives which implies that the network media has a liberal bias.
See also
External links
- [FAIR: Corporate Ownership]
- [The Nation: Corporate Media & Consolidation]
- [Fairness Doctrine Vetoed by both Ronald Reagan and G.H.W. Bush]
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