I would like to call for a congressional investigation into the behavior of the major media corporations in the recent debate of the over-haul of the nation's health care system. The focus of this investigation should be the inherent massive conflict of interest at the heart of this debate and their involvement in it, an involvement that was never revealed to their audiences.
As most of you know, over the course of the last couple of decades there has been a tremendous amount of media consolidation in this country. Six to eight major corporations control a huge fraction of the discourse now, giving top management of these organization the ability to shape the content of much of what the average American views and reads on a daily basis.
Health Care is a large and growing fraction of the economy. Going forward, it is one of the few projected growth industries. Media corporations feed on advertising. The Health Care industry, including Insurance Pharma etc. spends huge sums on TV and print advertising.
Any effective Health Care reform would squeeze a large fraction of the advertising dollars out of the system. This would result in a loss of significant revenue for the corporations that own the major news organizations. This creates a conflict of interest in the debate that was never revealed to the readers listeners or viewers of these entities. Organizations that presented themselves as impartial players when they stood to lose untold billions of dollars.
It is undeniable that there is no firewall anymore between corporate ownership and the news decision making in these outfits.
Recently Wolf Blitzer admitted in conversation with Rich Sanchez on air that they had polling data for months showing that a majority of the public favored HCR when you included those who favored the bill plus those who favored an even more liberal approach, that it was only about 40% who were opposed to the government being involved in Health Care under any circumstances. Rick was shocked but they had the data. Not telling their viewers this was a corporate decision. Of course Blitzer didn't admit that. But they went with the visuals of the tea party. That is their story. Bullshit. They went with the advertising revenue. They went with corporate. All of these corporate organizations have been putting their thumbs on the scales during this process because they were not objective observers, they were major stakeholders. Yet they never bothered to tell anyone.