I’m pretty sure most of us realize on some level just how much the corporate funded media influences public opinion. It generally presents the news which the dominating corporate interests want you to be aware of, and rarely present information it doesn’t want you to know. And with a slant or corporate perspective as well. In recent years, internet news has proliferated all sorts of biased and conspiracy related reporting, much of it right-wing oriented and many outlets can be also linked to corporate money and super wealthy individuals. The bottom line is that information reporting is universally understood in politics as commensurate with the exercise of power, influence, and control of the masses.
Crisis Coverage Politics and the Media
Corporate Media has mostly ignored the planetary crisis posed by global warming and fossil fuels.
At any given time, our country and the world are beset by numerous crisis level issues and events. But only the ones that are of interest to the corporate owned media will be allowed coverage time. EG1: Global warming is a crisis that merits constant, daily coverage, and threatens planetary destruction, as well as its causes and potential remedies. But the power exercised by the fossil fuel industry virtual monopoly pushes such coverage off the front page, if not completely eliminating it. And developing enough pressure to move our Congress to action is directly dependent on public awareness.
EG2: Another national crisis which is covered poorly and infrequently is the crisis of generational poverty experienced disproportionally by people of color. What is often covered instead are the violent crimes poverty this extreme tends to create. Also never covered is the extent to which there are also millions of poor whites perpetually living under similar conditions with similar problems. The result is a distorted and racially divisive image of poverty presented to the white population. Nor are the systemic causes of poverty and street crime ever tackled by the media, either on a news level or in their T.V. or cable programming. Instead we hear from corporate-biased economists who argue that inflation results from progressive and reform legislation and liberal policies. Manchin’s right-wing argument against Biden’s proposed BBB legislation took a page right from this argument.
The consequences in America of a corporate dominated media is a dumbed down population that is out of touch with social and political reality and predisposed to believe all sorts of irrational and pseudo-science nonsense. This also will have serious consequences for the present Democratic leadership and President Biden, whom have been deprived of objective and even-handed coverage in relation to the Republicans. The reasons for biased coverage are a bit complex. The corporate run media leans Republican these days because it does not want to alienate Trump supporters by taking sides with the Democrats, which the latter have correctly emphasized that our democratic government is grave danger. And that January 6th was a Trump-led coup attempt. They also have no interest in refuting all the various conspiracy theories being promoted, many of which aide Republican goals.
The Corporate Media Leans Right
Part of this bias is strictly economic — it could cost them listenership from those that lean Republican, especially if they appear to be taking a pro-Democratic Party position. This motive traces back to the days when the media made an effort to at least appear to report both sides equally on many of the political issues battled out between the two parties. A second reason is that they get more viewers or readers if they can criticize a president or elicit controversy than if they report more objectively. Trump sold papers and got people to watch the news, which was good for generating their commercial ad income. Biden is boring in comparison and gets more viewers if trashed and made to look like a weak aging leader.
The other media motive for favoring the Republicans is more sinister and involves corporate economic politics. As the Democrats in recent years have recruited more voting support which favors a more progressive national agenda that has also compelled them to commit to reform legislation that could take on an anti-corporate stance on some important issues. Even though the Democrats are corporate friendly under the current centrist leadership, that could change, as demonstrated by some of the legislation Biden has tried to get through Congress.
Even when they are not trying to lean Republican, the corporate media may feel pressured not to report certain issues as factual or report them at all. Their positions on non-coverage of certain damaging facts that support Republican efforts to establish a fascistic autocratic government under corporate control being one of them, whether deliberate or not.
What This Means for Democrats
Given the direction and nature of media coverage of January 6th and related events, the Democrats are left with no reliable way to communicate with the country or the millions who voted for Biden and a Democratic Congress, and no media network other than MSNBC to assist with do the job. Which is just not conceived or programmed in a way to compete with or reach the millions of apolitical, poorly informed and/or racist white Americans that are easily influenced by backward internet and Republican media and information sources. The latter being the primary Republican tool to achieve their goals.
The people Must be Called to Action.
Massive one million march in New York in 1982.
But all may not be lost. There is a long history of progressive protest movements which have had a significant impact on politics and culture and involved millions of Americans from every state in the Union. But what is lacking is a national plan that is formulated to reach and unite them to defend our democracy. Unfortunately, our Constitutional form of government was not designed for functioning under 21st Century conditions to empower the under classes.
The Democratic Party of today needs to realize this and make fundamental structural changes and has a chance to lead a broader struggle. And develop both a short and long-term plan to survive and grow. Many in the party already see this need, but not apparently the top echelons of party power, who have yet to fully realize how poorly they are faring in the information wars. Or act like they realize that bipartisanship is mostly dead and buried. I was frankly shocked, but not surprised, when speaker Pelosi opined in response to the idea of banning members from buying and trading stocks while in office: “We’re a free market economy. They should be able to participate in that.” Evidence, I submit, of corporate and Wall Street money’s influence in Congress and how it relates to politics and policy.
Democracy Cannot Survive Without Economic Equality
On a deeper level, our overwhelmingly capitalism system has not only built itself into a superpower, but also given birth to social and economic conditions which are becoming unstable and could lead to the destruction of our way of life as well as for the entire planet, the latter which is now governed almost exclusively by either competing authoritarian or capitalist control.
A corporate financed voice for planetary destruction. Has a bad hair piece too.
Evidence in both the social and scientific realm support the existence of this world-wide trend and the dangerous planetary conditions it has produced. The purpose of any society that wants to endure has to be for the social benefit and economic security for ALL. And should promote equality and human rights and not represent forces that advocate the violence of dictatorship and corporate dominance of the few over the many. Democratic ideals of freedom and justice are more than paper promises and cannot survive in an economically polarized society, where the wealthy and powerful rule and make the laws. Sharp economic/class polarization gives rise inevitably to political polarization and class-based conflict.