“Freedom of the press—the right to report news or circulate opinion without censorship from the government—was considered
“one of the great bulwarks of liberty.” / The Founding Fathers of the United States
Myth: We have a free press in the United States.
Fact: 90% of the media companies are owned by six giant conglomerates, which mostly lean left. and are now coerced by the federal government to censor news that does not promote their leftist agenda.
Overview:
A Free Press was enshrined in the Constitution to be a Watchdog on Government
Our nation’s founders set up three equal branches of government along with periodic elections and the rights for the people to assemble and seek change when we think things go astray. But, how do we know what our government is doing, how well it is operating or whether our elected officials are up to the job?
The only profession mentioned in the Constitution is “a free press,” which is protected by the First Amendment. With this protection a free press is allowed to report without government interference, including using its watchdog role to investigate and report on government overreach and corruption. Only with this knowledge can the American people hold those in power accountable for their actions. You can’t have democracy without a free press. A free and indepen
90% of the media companies are controlled by six media conglomerates.
Unfortunately, the free press envisioned by our founders has over the centuries morphed into a small club of mostly leftist billionaires who control the flow of most of our news and information.
Media consolidation had been an extremely pressing concern, and in 1983 Ben Bagdikian published a groundbreaking book, “The Media Monopoly,” which revealed that just 50 corporations owned 90 percent of the media. Unfortunately, the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which was signed into law on February 8, 1996 by President Bill Clinton, further accelerated the media consolidation. More/Less...
The Act was “essentially bought and paid for by corporate media lobbies” and radically “opened the floodgates on mergers” according to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). It dramatically reduced important Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations on cross ownership, and allowed giant corporations to buy up thousands of media outlets across the country, increasing their monopoly on the flow of information in the United States and around the world. This has led us to a crisis where more than 90 percent of the media is owned by just six companies.
Democracy in Peril: Twenty Years of Media Consolidation Under the Telecommunications Act
The 6 Companies That Own (Almost) All Media [INFOGRAPHIC]
Looking at the political donations and political party leaning of these six giant conglomerates using data from “Goods Unite Us” and “2nd Vote,” the following table shows the percentage of donations to Democrats vs. Republicans and the political leaning where 1 = Left and 5 = Right.
Company Democrat Republican Leaning: 1 (left) - 5 (right)
----------------------------- ------------- --------------- ----------------------------------
Time Warner 90% 10% 1
Disney 87% 12% 1
Sony 84% 16% 1.85
News Corp 72% 28% 3
National Amusements 66% 34% 2.2
Comcast 49% 51% 1.15
This averages to 75% of donations to Democrats with an average leaning of 1.7, which is quite far to the left. In addition, media ownership is heavily left-leaning and only a miniscule percentage of journalists identify as conservative, resulting in overwhelmingly slanted news and information.
From a free press to a propaganda press.
This Brief History of Media Bias it explains that while the media has always had political bias to one side or the other, it has over time shifted more and more to the left.
“As late as the 1970s, most of the veterans in the newsroom lacked college degrees. They had worked their way up from being a copy-kid or a writer of obituaries, earning by experience the job of reporter.”
“Once reporters started coming out of colleges and universities, however, they were shaped by the leftist perspective of those institutions. These perspectives, once marginal in American public discourse, became increasingly prominent in the press and television news shows. Now the old progressive view that the press should not just report facts, but mold public opinion to achieve certain political ends, served an ideology fundamentally adverse to the free-market, liberal-democratic foundations of the American Republic.”
In the last few years, media bias and censorship has become so obvious that the term “fake news” is a standard phrase in the American lexicon. And it is not undeserved. The sub-topics below demonstrate how the “mainstream” media has not only lost almost all objectivity, but have become a threat to the American way of life.
Call to Action:
Compare and contrast to get a more balanced take on the news. If you get your information from a mainstream source such as the NY Times or Washington Post, find some independent sources to balance out the information. See the sub-topic “Recommended Alternate News Sites”
Read the subtopic “Search Engines Bias” to learn how to thwart the big-corporate leftist political bias of your search results.
Once you see how the mainstream media manipulates and distorts information, help educate your family, friends and neighbors by sharing this website.
Additional Links:
The Biggest Source Of ‘Misinformation,’ Lies, And Delusion Is Leftist Corporate Media
MAINSTREAM - How Hollywood Movies and the New York Media Are Promoting the Globalist Agenda (3:28:33) Full-length movie that exposes the biased mainstream media.
Inside Operation Mockingbird — The CIA’s Plan to Infiltrate the Media
Mockingbird Media (3:47) News programs across America are spoon-fed their leftist talking points.
Mainstream Media Memes: