51–60 of 146 posts
It's worse in the UK, 3 companies own 70% of the newspaper readership. They have huge political influence, especially Rupert Murdoch, who all prime ministers would try to schmooze https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/21/uk-media-plura...
Isn't facebook already bigger than some of the firms mentioned in the articles? Or is it not counted as media?
If this infographic is to be believed: https://twitter.com/jmalvpal/status/869297376439173121 , then FB ad revenue is greater than all newspaper ad revenue combined.
Facebook will hit near $38 billion in sales this fiscal year.
I know hardly anyone likes the MSM (myself included), however is this stat so bad? Is it anything unusual for any other industry? Mature industries consolidate - its just a fundamental nature of the growth process. How many corporations control packaged chicken? cell phones? cement? No doubt the voices behind such "X mega-corps control Y" are in fact just advocating for legislation changes to mandate that they get a…
It's worse in the UK, 3 companies own 70% of the newspaper readership. They have huge political influence, especially Rupert Murdoch, who all prime ministers would try to schmooze https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/oct/21/uk-media-plura...
Good you still have the BBC.
"If you don't believe ownership matters, you're not playing capitalism anymore."
Really, you shouldn't need to go to such a reductionist extreme to find stats like these troubling. "Tone at the top" is a real enough phenomenon, and you're not going to have much variety of tone at the top if there are only a few tops.
Some might ask why this matters. The problem with these six mega-corporations is that they are controlled by a handful of billionaires and a few distasteful foreign governments that do not have the best interests of Americans in mind. These corporations own the US legacy media outlets (e.g., CNN, MSNBC, FOX, etc) and most of the larger online US news sites. They have, in my opinion, been quite effective at brainwashi…
Isn't facebook already bigger than some of the firms mentioned in the articles? Or is it not counted as media?
Their primary differentiator in the US is that, unlike TV outlets, they're not really accountable to specific law. As we've seen in the last election, it's very likely groups used targeted Facebook ad buys to violate various state laws in the types and targeting of messaging they used (and before anyone gets their hackles raised, this is a quadpartisan phenomenon).
So yeah they funnel content but they have no editorial process.
A big difference between the US media and the rest of the developed world seems to be a complete absence of state-owned/subsidized/run media. To me, this seems much more problematic than the limited competition between corporate media. In the US, it seems that news/stories/investigative reporting without some commercial interest to some company tends to go underreported. There is no money in being critical towards bu…
PBS and NPR, both modern day liberal, fascist, so called, news hacks, loyal to the Democrats to a fault.
> To me, this seems much more problematic than the limited competition between corporate media.
The US is not China, that is a very, very good thing.
Some might ask why this matters. The problem with these six mega-corporations is that they are controlled by a handful of billionaires and a few distasteful foreign governments that do not have the best interests of Americans in mind. These corporations own the US legacy media outlets (e.g., CNN, MSNBC, FOX, etc) and most of the larger online US news sites. They have, in my opinion, been quite effective at brainwashi…
There's certainly something to be said for giving people the sort of news coverage that's good for them instead of the sort they want. Not reporting on disasters until all the facts are in. Never mentioning the names of mass murderers who are after fame. More statistics and less anecdote. But if given a choice the bad media will drive out the good (mostly).
You could solve the problem if you had a reliable source of philosopher kings we could set to rule over us. Until we find one I think we'll have to do with giving the people what they want. It's far from optimal but at least it corrects quickly when things go badly which is a lot more than you can say for most other things people have attempted.