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/* Written  4:46 pm  Sep 25, 1992 by bfrg9732@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu in cdp:alt.activism */
/* ---------- "The Media Monopoly (part 5)" ---------- */

The Media Monopoly

by Ben H. Bagdikian

Part 5 -- Desanctifying the Corporation



"The WORLD has no friends."
	   -- Sign in the newsroom of Joseph Pulitzer's 
              newspaper, the *New York World*

"It is a great paper. But it has one defect."
"What is that?"
"It never stands by its friends."
"A newspaper should have no friends," Pulitzer replied sharply.
"I think it should," the judge answered just as sharply.
"If that is your opinion," Pulitzer said, "I wouldn't make you 
 one of my trustees if you gave me a million dollars."

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"The sacred cows in American newsrooms leave residues common to 
all cows. But no sacred cow has been so protected and has left 
more generous residues in the news than the American 
corporation." Since World War I, the media has by and large 
favored corporate life. "Most of the mass media depicted 
corporate life as benevolent and patriotic."

However, the truth began to break through in the last half of the 
twentieth century. "When industry's ghost of pollution and 
disease materialized in the last half of the twentieth century 
the problems drew attention... to the organizations that owned 
and operated most of industrial civilization -- the great 
corporations."

"Corporate unease became sharper when a president whom 
corporations considered their own, Dwight D. Eisenhower, left 
office in 1961 warning against the bloated power of what he 
called 'the military-industrial complex.'"

The truth had begun to shine through the cracks in corporate 
America. But the corporados fought back. Through their power they 
were able to soften the legal consequences of their actions. They 
were also protected by their special positions in government. 
"After laws are passed or before regulations are designed, 
outside advisory committees sit with government leaders to help 
shape official actions." Because the positions on these advisory 
bodies are largely occupied by corporate hacks, they can defang 
reform before it is implemented.

"In universities, as in government, corporate values have 
steadily and quietly become dominant... Corporate executives are 
the largest single group represented on governing boards of 
colleges and universities."

In the public schools, "Free classroom materials are produced by 
64 percent of the 500 largest American industrial corporations." 
Anyone who imagines that these "free" materials are unbiased is 
in for a shock. "The materials concentrate on nutrition, energy, 
environment, and economics, almost all supplied by industries 
with a stake in their own answer to the problems posed in the 
materials."

So, the "ghosts of pollution and disease" were countered by 
massive corporate PR and undue influence on supposedly 
independent institutions.

Whatever criticism which does survive corporate obfuscation has 
tended to be short lived. Criticism which survives corporate mass 
brainwashing is either not reported at all by the mass media or 
is neutralized by the media's criticism of the critics.

"The standard media... had always been reliable promoters of the 
corporate ethic. Whole sections of newspapers were always devoted 
to unrelieved glorification of business people... in 'news' that 
is assumed to be dispassionate." Corporate causes became 
editorial causes. The most commonly suppressed news items were 
stories "involving corporations... reported in minor publications 
but not given serious attention in the major media. The 
integration of corporate values into the national pieties could 
not have been established without prolonged indoctrination by the 
main body of American news organizations."

In the years after 1970, "mounting public anger at some corporate 
behavior does occasionally find expression in print and on the 
air." More and more chinks in the corporate armour began to 
appear. Still, there was "no significant criticism of the 
corporate system, simply reporting of isolated cases, but for the 
first time there was a breach in the almost uniform litany of 
unremitting praise and promotion of corporate behavior."

The corporate types fought back. One of their counter-strategies 
was that of donating large amounts of money to help elect/re- 
elect candidates favorable to the corporate line. "[In] 1980 they 
elected a national administration dedicated to wiping out half a 
century of social legislation and regulation of business... But 
the corporations reserved their greatest wrath for the news 
media."

Through the use of business connections, through the use of 
massive advertising campaigns, and through the use of threats of 
withdrawal of advertising dollars the giant corporations fought 
back the swelling tide of reality. In addition, "corporate 
leaders could invoke against the media that peculiar American 
belief that to criticize big business is to attack American 
democracy."


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Synopsis/Review by Brian Redman
"Ah yes, Armageddon. I remember it well."
End part 5