August 1, 2024
We often hear that we are more divided than we have been since the Civil War. There are a myriad of ways we have reached that divisive level, and we should not ignore them. That is especially true if we want to keep our Democratic Republic. Some guardrails have been unraveled since the Carter Administration in the name of growth economics, Reaganomics, or a fictitious Ayn Rand Raw Capitalist belief.
A myriad of guardrails were inserted into our free capitalist markets following the New Deal. One was a rule preventing any entity from owning too many media companies in a geographic area. Media entities mean print, TV, and Radio. This made sense because the media needs to be diversified among ownership to have an actual free press. If the media is too consolidated, you get the same news and Op-Eds across a major swath of America.
We have already seen this with local TV stations nationwide They used different broadcasters to deliver identical opinion editorials. The opinion they were broadcasting was the identical one the TV station put together to broadcast all across the country—an identical Op-Ed word for word, no matter the person broadcasting it. In other words, it was not the broadcasters’ Op-Ed but the TV Station’s owners’ Op-Ed. They always were the Station management’s editorial they just did not own so many stations across the country. One station was even doing a type of subliminal messages for Biden’s age.
Pay someone enough money, and they will give you anything you want. We know about Kellyanne Conway’s alternative facts! I’m not sure how much of it is ‘Fake’ news. Still, those kinds of editorials are nothing more than puppet broadcasters repeating the corporation’s opinion, most likely for the corporation’s benefit but certainly not the voters.
This is very dangerous for a Democratic Republic. This is so because many people think they are getting local independent news when they get corporate opinionated news. In this type of system, the consolidation can sway elections. It severely increases the risk side of the risk/reward of fascist government. It increases the possibility that the private sector has more power than the Democratic State. When giant media companies become tools of political parties, more or less providing free advertising for one political party, it is dangerous. You can see the danger when politicians only show up on one TV Station because the others will call out their inconsistencies.
When broadcasters and politicians tell you we are so divided, they rarely explain how we got divided or how to solve it. A myriad of variables created the increased division. It is like wars; it is almost always over money.
The consolidation or monopolization of the media is one way we got so divided. Should we allow media companies to have this much influence across the country? Remember, they legally bribed through campaign finance and lobbying to change the rules to acquire those empires. They will continue to do so to keep their empires. There is no question that both political parties sell influence to the media companies. It seems President’s are among them with some of the greatest damage done to our country.
However, only one party wants to break up these giant companies. The bulk of the other party is in bed with those media companies. It is not about tribalism but how you want information delivered in this country, by a handful of giant companies influencing legislators or by an abundance of media companies across the country that are not in bed with one political party or the other. You would think the internet would increase the awareness of the citizenry but no conclusion on that. Not much difference here as who controls it and the information you get is vital.
One thing that would help is eliminating political party labels in the General elections. One of our political parties is scared to death of this. They have already passed laws in their States that make rank voting illegal. That is another can of worms for another time.
Do U think it’s healthy for one corporation to own all the following;
Politicians say they believe in free enterprise and then take money from donors to keep monopolies in place. It’s no accident its difficult to break them up.
Tom Flash