An objective free press?

Single-Payer & Interlocking Directorates

A recent FAIR study of nine major media corporations and their major outlets, Disney (ABC), General Electric (NBC), CBS, Time Warner (CNN, Time), News Corporation (Fox), New York Times Co., Washington Post Co. (Newsweek), Tribune Co. (Chicago Tribune, L.A. Times) and Gannett (USA Today) found connections to six different insurance companies. Five out of the nine media corporations studied shared a director with an insurance company; two insurance companies—Chubb and Berkshire Hathaway—were represented by more than one media corporation director.

The study also found crossover between these media corporations and several large pharmaceutical companies, such as Eli Lilly, Merck and Novartis, whose profits would also likely be negatively impacted by a single-payer system. Out of the nine media corporations studied, six had directors who also represented the interests of at least one pharmaceutical company. In fact, save for CBS, every media corporation had board connections to either an insurance or pharmaceutical company.

Via Lambert

In his May 1, 2007 edition of Entitled Opinions, a conversation with Josiah Ober on the ancient Athenian Democracy, Robert Pogue Harrison opined (as he is entitled to) that, more than the vote, the most important aspect of a democracy is the right to free public speech.

The problem with a corporate news media is, it seems to me, that the news itself becomes an instrument for suppressing speech. It does this by trivializing certain points of view, by making “fair and balanced” a question of “he said, she said.”

If, as Vico says, the trope of irony is ““fashioned of falsehood by dint of a reflection that wears the mask of truth,” then our major news media are a major source of irony.

Or sometimes they just outright lie. Consider, for example, this: Important Editorial: If Stephen Hawking Lived In The U.K., He Would Be Dead, which refers to an editorial in Investors Business Daily (now corrected):

You know where Stephen Hawking has lived for 67 years? England. Again: England. England.

See also here and here.

Via The Sideshow.