When you turn on the news, or look at your paper, or turn on your favorite talk radio, what are you really getting??? Do you know who owns your favorite outlet?
(originally this was going to become a more in-depth break down of what companies own which news outlets, but there are several websites that have documented this and I don't want to spend 3 hours reinventing the wheel, you can easily do a basic websearch and find the facts for your self or I will just include a few links on the bottom of the post if you are too lazy to type)
Basically, all your major news sources are controlled by a few multinational enormous corporations. Media giants (Disney, Time-Warner, Comcast, News Corp) and defense contractors(GE, Westinghouse) which profit handsomely when we are in wars or when we have some latest craze to be scared of (Y2K, bird flu, killer bees, terrorists......). Man, it really isn't hard to come up with these things, in the spirit of Halloween I will throw in razor blade apples and LSD/arsenic laced candy. If I turn on MSNBC they are screaming about the right-wing elitists that are trying to ruin our country. If I turn on, maybe I should say flipping through and happen to catch a glance of, Fox News they are calling our president a ___________ (fill in blank with whatever seems the worst) Muslim, Communist, Socialist, Nazi, Marxist.... or make up something else up. Do they even stop to consider that most of the ideologies are diametrically opposed to one another? Nazi vs Communist have you ever heard of WW2? Communist vs Islam wasn't it the Soviet-Afghan War which led to the rise of Bin-Laden? A man that America armed and trained because at the time the politicians thought they could control him and it led to........... lets get back on topic. The point is these people profit from you and I listening to them and mindlessly repeating what they say. The greater the crisis the more we turn on our radios and tv's and listen to the pundits.
Ok, parting example, and I don't mean to pick on Fox but it really is just too easy.
Fox News can't seem to go 10 mins without talking about the ground zero mosque and saying what a travesty it is and that Muslim's are rubbing it in America's face. Did you know that News Corp's second largest share holder is a Saudi Prince? He is a member of the board and he happens to be giving hundreds of thousands of dollars to build the ground zero mosque. Why would Fox's owners be against the mosque publicly but be building it privately? Because its a win-win for them. Money pours in to the mosque from those who want to show support or disgust for the hate mongering. Money also pours in to Republican campaigners who promise to rid America of Islamic extremists and terrorists. They win, we lose.
I'm not saying you have to spend all your time searching the internet to try and find out about whats going on, but you need to know who its coming from so you can read between the lines. Most of it isn't even important or real, so don't stress yourself out over it. Think for yourself, if it sounds silly when you say it out loud, it usually is.
Have a happy Halloween, thanks for the read.
http://www.whoownsthenews.com/
http://www.mediaowners.com/
http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2010/media-ownership/dashboard.php
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