Forget Wal-Mart! You Should be Worried About....

[Jeff Stallard]

VIACOM!!! Here's a list of the companies they own:

Simon & Schuster Publishing
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Home Entertainment
Famous Music
Famous Players
Paramount Parks
CBS Television
The Tiffany Network
UPN
Viacom Television Stations Group
Paramount Television
CBS Enterprises
CBS Entertainment
MTV: Music Television
Nickelodeon
VH1
Comedy Central
Spike TV
CMT: Country Music Television
Nick at Nite
TV Land
BET
Showtime
MTV2
NOGGIN
The N
mtvU
Sundance Channel
Infinity Broadcasting.

Wal-Mart might perpetuate third-world poverty, but every single one of these companies affects how we think, how we buy, how we talk, what we wear, who we admire, who we hate. They have a HUGE say in almost every form of media. I firmly believe that Marketing, as an industry, is more powerful than any government or retail giant.

[missy]

yep, between Viacom and Clear Channel........

it's no wonder I watch very little TV!



Missy

[jGilder]

How do you think they were able to fool so many people into voting for Bush?

[bradhurley]

Yeah, but there's hardly a consistent message coming from all those media outlets they own. Sundance, VH1, MTV, CBS..these are not exactly speaking with one voice. Just because they're all owned by one company doesn't mean Viacom has control over what they say and how they say it.

[jGilder]

Yeah, but there's hardly a consistent message coming from all those media outlets they own. Sundance, VH1, MTV, CBS..these are not exactly speaking with one voice. Just because they're all owned by one company doesn't mean Viacom has control over what they say and how they say it.

Then why do they all repeat the same lies? Why do they all omit the same stories? The consolidation of media has only made these matters worse.

[Jeferson]

Then why do they all repeat the same lies? Why do they all omit the same stories? The consolidation of media has only made these matters worse.

I detest all generalizations.

Jef

[bradhurley]

Then why do they all repeat the same lies? Why do they all omit the same stories? The consolidation of media has only made these matters worse.

You mean like the Al Franken show (on Sundance)?

Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" (also on Sundance)?

"How to Expand Love," by the Dalai Lama (published by Simon and Schuster)?

If I had time I'm sure I could come up with 20 or 30 other examples...I just don't see much evidence of a right-wing plot here to brainwash the American public.

[Jeff Stallard]

Please, let's not do the left-right dance yet again.

I was merely pointing out that retail dominance is nothing compared to information dominance. No, I don't think Viacom has an agenda (other than power of course), but they certainly do have the ability to completely change this country should they decide to GET an agenda.

[jGilder]

Then why do they all repeat the same lies? Why do they all omit the same stories? The consolidation of media has only made these matters worse.

You mean like the Al Franken show (on Sundance)?

Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" (also on Sundance)?

"How to Expand Love," by the Dalai Lama (published by Simon and Schuster)?

If I had time I'm sure I could come up with 20 or 30 other examples...I just don't see much evidence of a right-wing plot here to brainwash the American public.

It's much more subtle than that. If they were obvious about it no one would be fooled.

"When we speak of this in regard to totalitarian societies and dictatorships, we call it brainwashing: the conquest of minds. It's a notion we almost never apply to our own societies. Let me give you an example. During the height of the cold war, a group of Soviet journalists were taken on an official tour of the United States. They watched TV; they read the newspapers; they listened to debates in Congress. To their astonishment, everything they heard was more or less the same. The news was the same. The opinions were the same, more or less. "How do you do it?" they asked their hosts. "In our country, to achieve this, we throw people in prison; we tear out their fingernails. Here, there's none of that? What's your secret?"

The secret is that the question is almost never raised. Or if it is raised, it's more than likely dismissed as coming from the margins: from voices far outside the boundaries of what I would call our 'metropolitan conversation', whose terms of reference, and limits, are fixed by the media at one level, and by the discourse or silence of scholarship at another level. Behind both is a presiding corporate and political power." from a UWA Extension Summer School Lecture by John Pilger Winthrop Hall, The University of Western Australia

[bradhurley]

The secret is that the question is almost never raised. Or if it is raised, it's more than likely dismissed as coming from the margins: from voices far outside the boundaries of what I would call our 'metropolitan conversation', whose terms of reference, and limits, are fixed by the media at one level, and by the discourse or silence of scholarship at another level. Behind both is a presiding corporate and political power."

Nah, I think the "secret" is that we have something called "freedom of the press," and an (admittedly eroding) ethic of objectivity in journalism. Nobody can be truly objective, but when objectivity is the aim, different reporters will tend to tell the same story because they're independently reporting the same facts. It's no surprise the Russians heard the same things all over the country. Reporters with a strong political or ideological agenda will spin the story according to their views...just look at the stuff that comes out of Fox News, most of which would be hard to consider "journalism" in any sense of the word.

I guess I see the purported uniformity in reporting to be more of a "bottom-up" phenomenon than a "top-down" one.

When I worked as an environmental journalist for about 10 years, I noticed that European journalists tended to be more activist and partial in their reporting than American journalists were. Many of those journalists seemed to be on some political/social mission that made them see things through a different prism. Their primary motivation was not to report the facts, but to report the news in a way that furthered their agenda. In contrast, most (but by no means all) of the American journalists I encountered were trying to report the facts as best they could, based on their observations and the information they could dig up. Good editors kept them in line...I remember one environmental reporter for the NY Times was transferred to another beat because his editors felt he was too biased, and I agreed with that decision--I had sat next to that guy at a few international meetings and other events, and his reporting of those stories was spun into something rather different from what I witnessed.

I do worry that many newsrooms are no longer well insulated from marketing forces...I know they never were in some cases, but in the more highly regarded media outlets the editors were powerful and independent enough to fend off most attempts at influence from the corporate and marketing types. I'm not so sure that's true anymore, and that's troubling.

But I don't think big government or big business is organized well enough to be able to truly control the media or public perceptions, even if they wanted to. Maybe I'm naive or overly optimistic, but I work with people in government agencies who can't even get the system to work well enough to get them pencils for their desks. They think the idea of Big Brother is hilarious.

[izzarina]

Then why do they all repeat the same lies? Why do they all omit the same stories? The consolidation of media has only made these matters worse.

You mean like the Al Franken show (on Sundance)?

Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" (also on Sundance)?

"How to Expand Love," by the Dalai Lama (published by Simon and Schuster)?

If I had time I'm sure I could come up with 20 or 30 other examples...I just don't see much evidence of a right-wing plot here to brainwash the American public.

Wasn't Dan Rather the anchor on CBS?

[emmline]

I work with people in government agencies who can't even get the system to work well enough to get them pencils for their desks. They think the idea of Big Brother is hilarious.

You think it's easy to outfit each pencil eraser with a lie-detecting micro-processor? Of course they're hard to come by!

[jGilder]

But I don't think big government or big business is organized well enough to be able to truly control the media or public perceptions, even if they wanted to.

It's big business organizing the government that's threatening any semblance of a "free press." If you follow the money and research the people involved the picture becomes very clear. The intention, of course, is to be capable of guiding and manipulating public opinion. What Americans are told is the "official truth" sanctioned by the White House and the corporations they represent. The corporations they represent own the media -- it's a very cozy relationship. If it weren't so then all the major corporate news outlets wouldn't be omitting the same stories at the same time – it’s deliberate controlled censorship by omission. And if the government puts out a lie, the way they did during the build up to the Iraq invasion -- the corporate media serves as an echo chamber. They maintain a facade of being the "free press," but they are a far cry from what that is supposed to be.

[missy]

If you think national "news" is really "news" and not entertainment, it really doesn't matter WHO is doing the behind the scenes manuevering (or even IF).

There is NO balanced, unbiased, news reporting in the media today. It's all "spun" one way or another to win viewers (readers, listeners) and make money. It's all sensationalized 30 second soundbites taken totally out of context.

If one can hunt and critically think, that's fine. If not, it honestly doesn't really matter if the spin is to the left or to the right - it's still spin and biased and not news.

Gotta go and take the "Graduate" to his ceremony.


Missy

[jGilder]

There is NO balanced, unbiased, news reporting in the media today. It's all "spun" one way or another to win viewers (readers, listeners) and make money. It's all sensationalized 30 second soundbites taken totally out of context.

This is true for US corporate media. If you look beyond its’ scope you can find independent sources that have higher standards, a much better track record for truth and aren't trying to just entertain you. Most Americans are being entertained with misinformation, half-truths, and even outright lies by watching and relying on corporate media. But it's alarmingly deliberate.