Aby The Liberal

Aby April 17th, 2007

A lot of us tend to take our favourite news channels and media at face value, believing that media reports facts. We have trust on democracy and free press, other than a few conpiracies or things of national security media wouldn’t mislead us. But in fact this does not always happen as media is a part of global economy and governed by big corporates who own stocks and control in the flow of news. We don’t always get a balanced view of events and information if that threatens these corporates, government agencies or even the media houses themselves in any way.

In the USA, NBC (which runs most of US news channels and papers) and CBS are owned by General Electric and Westinghouse, two corporations involved in arms manufacture and nuclear weapons development. Rupert Murdoch is the largest owner of television stations in the USA. He was originally an Australian citizen but his affinity to Ronald Regan got him on a fast track to US citizenship. Now he can own any news station or channel in USA. In Australia this man, Murdoch owns most of the newspapers, in Adelaide he owns all the newspapers. In UK Murdoch owns much of The Times, The Sun and publishing agency Harper Collins. Murdoch has been using his power over the news media for his business interests in China, Malaysia and other burgeoning economies.

 Rupert Murdoch in a Fox News commentary (Photo by American Progress)

Rupert Murdoch has been known for backing up Deng Xiaoping who was in charge during the Tiananmen Massacre, he also had BBC removed from television service packages from China (BBC aired more ‘democratic’ views than he liked in China). You can well imagine what kind of news you would be getting when pro-nuclear corporations like GE and narrow agenda capitalists like Murdoch own media houses. This has a negative impact on world view and public opinion which are shaped by propaganda journalism of these media houses.

Compare this to the democratic countries of Europe outside of UK. In Sweden, protection and funds of small independent newspapers are guaranteed by the constitution. Denmark and the Netherlands are one of the most free press and free speech countries in the Western Europe due to which the Muhammad cartoon controversy was a serious issue as supressing it would be violating their rights. In France, the laws prohibit any single organization controlling news media which has more than 30% of national readership/viewership.

 My Lai massacre in Vietnam which caused world outrage 

During the Korean and Vietnam wars by United States of America (USA), media houses in the US (and to some extent in UK) were kept controlled and in line. Military and Government press releases were given out for publication. Investigative journalists were discredited or their story went unpublished in favour of American interests. The uncovering of My Lai massacre in Vietnam, Agent Orange chemical warfare and the massacre of fleeing civilians in North Korea by US backed South Korean forces blew public opinion against the favour of the government.

Most of the news in the western world comes from Associated Press (USA) or Reuters (UK) who have a lot of governmental and corporate influence in their reporting of news. These agencies tend to demonize and try to discredit independant  news channels and agencies in West Asia, East Asia, Africa etc. For example - Al Jazeera, an independant Arab news channel which uncovered the realities of prison torture and abuse in Abu Gharib in Iraq, faced severe repercussion for this reporting. Al-Jazeera financial journalists have lost their acreditaion for the New York Stock Exchange. Their offices were mortar bombed by the US Air Force in  Iraq on the orders of George Bush government after their unbiased reporting of tortures and crimes by US forces in Iraq. Sami Al-Hajj, an Al Jazeera news reporter is detained and tortured by US Administration in Guantanomo Bay prisons without any trial or any respite.

Corporates manipulate media houses from reporting fair and factual news threating to sue them for defamy. They use libel laws and Public Relations (PR) departments to get their views aired across as facts. In other countries like China, West Asia and Russia, reporters courageously air their views in the face of death, imprisonment or torture. These honest and brave journalists can put the western media to shame, where a threat of losing job or a lawsuit works very effectively. The end result is people living in Anglo-US countries like USA, UK and Australia get a flavoured and Americanised news which effectively moulds their public opinion.

Quotes in Media Control by Government and Corporates

• “At a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act.” - [George Orwell, British Author]

• “We paid $3 billion for these television stations. We will decide what the news is. The news is what we tell you it is.” - [David Boylan, Station Manager WTVT, Tampa, Florida (A Fox Network station)]

• “Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark, without any need for an official ban.” - [George Orwell, British Author]

• “There are certain facts and stories from Korea that editors and publishers have printed which were pure fabrication… Many of us who sent the stories knew they were false, but we had to write them because they were official releases from responsible military headquarters and were released for publication even though the people responsible knew they were untrue.” - [Robert C Miller, reporter for United Press during the NATO vs North Korea conflict.]

If don’t want to be on the recieving end of such propaganda and biased news reporting check many sources for news rather than different channels from one primary source. And have some look into foreign language news too like French, German, Arabic, etc. if possible which will broaden your outlook and make you more aware of the world.

• World Politics , Internationalism , Media Control
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