Hi Doug H.
Thanks for your perspective. I wasn't referring to "ad content", as much as the editorial content that provides the context for which advertising is placed.
I mean, why do I have to go to www.narconews.com, www.guerrillanews.com, www.counterpunch.org, www.democracynow.org to get editorial content which is not "spun". I would suppose its for the same reason I have to go to "The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory" to get "unspun" analysis about the economy and markets.
You know, I don't recall ever seeing the entity known as the Bilderberg group ever appear in a newspaper editorial or column until perhaps the last year. Conrad Black, Canada's leading media proprietor until his downfall with Hollinger, was probably Canada's leading "Bilderberger" for some 20 years. Both Richard Perle and Henry Kissinger sit on the Hollinger board. I read how the "news" is spun on Argentina, Haiti, Venezuela, Bolivia, dare I say Iraq, and how words like "democracy", "freedom", "free markets", "terrorist", "evil", "draconian", yadda, yadda are bandied about, and its just not honest reporting.
Mainstream media reporting has the same absense of historical memory as investors have about past market behavior. Was it Marc Faber that said institutional memory was an oxymoron?
So I think both vantages points hold some merit, and are not necessarily opposed. On the one hand, corporate advertisers cannot just dictate news and content like say the old Soviet Union used to. On the other hand, as Noam Chomsky writes, Western media does play a very strong role in "manufacturing content". It is a style of propaganda unique to Western democracies/capitalist societies.
JM2C worth.
Best regards,
Glenn |
