Media Reform Information Center

Just in case you think I'm just blowing smoke about the news media, here's where the fire smolders..............

"In 1983, 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the U.S. At the time, Ben Bagdikian was called "alarmist" for pointing this out in his book, The Media Monopoly."

"In 2004, Bagdikian's revised and expanded book, The New Media Monopoly, shows that only 5 huge corporations -- Time Warner, Disney, Murdoch's News Corporation, Bertelsmann of Germany, and Viacom (formerly CBS) -- now control most of the media industry in the U.S. General Electric's NBC is a close sixth."

Ok, now how in the world can we expect anything even close to fair and unbiased journalism when only a small handful of mega-corps owns most all of it? When only a few large corporations own most of anything, competition begins to look more like collusion. Instead of competing against a wide variety of "products", which tends to promote boldness and innovation, you end up with products where the only thing that differentiates them, is the brand name.

And brand names arent what they used to be.

When I was younger, I used shortwave radio to pick up news and info that the U.S. media was neglecting.

Now I must rely on the internet.

........But as you read this, governments the world over, are making attempts to control it, and thus control what you can do and say on it. And of course, the main rallying cry is to Save The Children!! .............but don't get me started on those who regularly use children for political causes................sigh