Complaints about the traditional mainstream media are a constant. However, complaints simply aren't enough. Many believe that competition forces good behavior. The problem is that a semblance of competition is all that there is in the mainstream media. As it turns out,
six corporations control 90 percent of our media.
On September 21, a story broke exposing the fact that Martin Shkreli, the immature 32-year-old CEO of Turing Pharmaceuticals, raised the price of the drug Daraprim from $13.50 to $750.00 per pill—overnight. It amounted to a price hike of over 5555 percent. Under our current system, it is completely legal to do this (even if it's clearly immoral). It's also the definition of unfettered and unregulated capitalism. It is the practice of maximizing profits, even if such maximization causes death by neglect or inability to pay. Of course this is not a practice that is good for America.
While this story hit the airwaves with a vengeance, this happened only after it got traction in the alternative media. What is the alternative media, exactly? The alternative media is you. The alternative media is comprised of YouTube channels, Tumblr, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and every form of communication that has eyeballs on it. The alternative media is made up of bloggers, sites like Daily Kos, and substantive email blasts. Most importantly, the alternative media includes community radio stations not funded by corporations but by those that comprise the body politic—the community, el pueblo, nuestra comunidad.
Big drug manufacturers and financial sharks have been buying up generic drug companies and/or the rights to drugs that are way past their patent life for some time now. This was never done in secret. Secrecy, however, was implicitly provided by much of the traditional mainstream media. Yes, one could find much of this information inside the bowels of many publications. It may even have been touched on here and there on radio or television. But the gravity of this practice and the harm that it causes were never given the importance they deserved. Keep reading for more.
FierceBiotech explains the reason why the rights to Daraprim were purchased:
Since founding Turing last year, Shkreli has taken a page from what made Retrophin a high-profile–and controversial–player among small biotech companies. Retrophin’s stated goal was ferreting out value in biopharma by acquiring assets with potential in rare and neglected diseases, a process that can mean acquiring an underused drug and jacking up its cost to take advantage of rare disease pricing.
Read in context of the effect it has on us all, it's clear that this drug story is a huge one. Yet it somehow morphed into a two-day, hyperbolic story that concentrated more on a snotty, precocious 32-year-old trying to make a sleazy buck. It didn't expose the major problem at the heart of this practice.
Watch any of the major networks and you'll see a seemingly continuous parade of drugs being marketed like candy. Many of the drugs have no business being advertised on TV, as the average citizen without a medical degree cannot discern whether said drugs should even be considered.
The drug ads serve a dual purpose. First, they create a false market as patients request a specific drug, instead of doctors deciding if said drug is best. Second, these ads serve as crack to the corporate media: Mainstream media channels get addicted to the high profits from drug advertising. Does anyone believe the traditional media will run any stories or investigative report on an industry it is beholden to? That's very unlikely.
This week, the alternative media exposed the immoral behavior occurring in just one company that comprises Big Pharma. But these shenanigans can be found in industry after industry. The behavior has a material economic effect on every American, although most of the time it's hidden.
The angst felt by Americans is real. But the angst won't be relieved until corporations and government come clean. The traditional mainstream media won't force that. Alternative media is our only salvation, lest we continue our slide to serfdom.
It is essential that we all become the media. We have the tools. It's on us to do the work, and it's on us to fund the work. They have Koch: We have us.
