Sanders: "Congress Cannot Ignore Corporate
Control of the Media"
(Op-ed column from The Hill newspaper on Friday,
06/14/02) (960)
(This byliner by Bernie Sanders, U.S. Representative
from Vermont in the House of Representatives, first appeared in
The Hill June 14 and is in the public domain. No republication
restrictions.)
Congress Can No Longer Ignore Corporate
Control of the Media
Bernie Sanders
June 14, 2002
One of our best-kept secrets is the degree
to which a handful of huge corporations control the flow of information
in the United States. Whether it is television, radio, newspapers,
magazines, books or the Internet, a few giant conglomerates are
determining what we see, hear and read. And the situation is likely
to become much worse as a result of radical deregulation efforts
by the Bush administration and some horrendous court decisions.
Television is the means by which most Americans
get their "news." Without exception, every major network
is owned by a huge conglomerate that has enormous conflicts of
interest. Fox News Channel is owned by Rupert Murdoch, a right-wing
Australian who already owns a significant portion of the world's
media. His network has close ties to the Republican Party, and
among his "fair and balanced" commentators is Newt Gingrich.
NBC is owned by General Electric, one of
the largest corporations in the world -- and one with a long history
of anti-union activity. GE, a major contributor to the Republican
Party, has substantial financial interests in weapons manufacturing,
finance, nuclear power and many other industries. Former CEO Jack
Welch was one of the leaders in shutting down American plants
and moving them to low-wage countries like China and Mexico.
ABC is owned by the Disney Corp., which produces
toys and products in developing countries where they provide their
workers atrocious wages and working conditions.
CBS is owned by Viacom, another huge media
conglomerate that owns, among other entities, MTV, Showtime, Nickelodeon,
VH1, TNN, CMT, 39 broadcast television stations, 184 radio stations,
Paramount Pictures and Blockbuster Inc.
The essential problem with television is
not just a right-wing bias in news and programming, or the transformation
of politics and government into entertainment and sensationalism.
Nor is it just the constant bombardment of advertising, much of
it directed at children. It's that the most important issues facing
the middle-class and working people of our country are rarely
discussed. The average American does not see his or her reality
reflected on the television screen.
The United States is the only industrialized
nation on earth that does not have a national healthcare program.
Yet, despite 41 million people with no health insurance and millions
more underinsured, we spend far more per capita on healthcare
than any other nation. Maybe the reason is that we are seeing
no good programs on television, in between the prescription drug
advertisements, discussing how we can provide quality healthcare
for all at far lower per capita costs than we presently spend?
Despite the great "economic boom"
of the 1990s, the average American worker is now working longer
hours for lower wages than 30 years ago, and we have lost millions
of decent-paying manufacturing jobs. Where are the TV programs
addressing our $360 billion trade deficit, or what our disastrous
trade policy has done to depress wages in this country? And while
we're on economics, workers who are in unions earn 30 percent
more than non-union people doing the same work. There are a lot
of programs on television about how to get rich by investing in
the stock market. But have you seen any "specials" on
how to go about forming a union?
The United States has the most unfair distribution
of wealth and income in the industrialized world, and the highest
rate of childhood poverty. There's a lot of television promoting
greed and self-interest, but how many programs speak to the "justice"
of the richest 1 percent owning more wealth than the bottom 95
percent? Or of the CEOs of major corporations earning 500 times
what their employees make?
If television largely ignores the reality
of life for the majority of Americans, corporate radio is just
plain overt in its right-wing bias. In a nation that cast a few
million more votes for Al Gore and Ralph Nader than for George
Bush and Pat Buchanan, there are dozens of right-wing talk show
programs. Rush Limbaugh, G. Gordon Liddy, Bob Grant, Sean Hannity,
Alan Keyes, Armstrong Williams, Howie Carr, Oliver North, Michael
Savage, Michael Reagan, Pat Robertson, Laura Schlessinger -- these
are only a few of the voices that day after day pound a right-wing
drumbeat into the heartland of this country.
And from a left perspective there is -- well,
no one. The Republican Party, corporate owners and advertisers
have their point of view well represented on radio. Unfortunately,
the rest of America has almost nothing As bad as the current media
situation is, it is likely to be made much worse by a recent decision
in the District of Columbia Court of Appeals that responded to
a suit by Fox, AOL Time Warner, NBC and Viacom. That decision
struck down a federal regulation limiting companies from owning
television stations and cable franchises in the same local markets.
The court also ordered that the Federal Communications Commission
either justify or rewrite the federal rule that limits any one
company from owning television stations that reach more than 35
percent of American households.
The bottom line is that fewer and fewer huge
conglomerates are controlling virtually everything that the ordinary
American sees, hears and reads. This is an issue that Congress
can no longer ignore.
(Rep. Bernie Sanders is an Independent from
Vermont.)
(end text)
(Distributed by the Office of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
article posted here at Washington
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