Corporate media: not "mainstream"

Big Otis sent me this link from CommonDreams. The article makes what I think is a critical point about the predicament Americans find themselves in today. The lunacy of right wing extremist politicians and insane free-market economic policies could not have dominated the U.S. landscape for a generation without the systematic intervention of corporate mass media. Specifically, there have been two principal corporate interventions: (1) withdrawal of support (in the form of funding and employment) from impartial investigative reporting units, and (2) the staffing of high-profile celebrity journalism positions with corporate apologists and their political fellow-travelers. Reagan Administration officials helped to make this possible by undermining, then revoking, the Fairness Doctrine. Throw in the concentration of media ownership under a handful of transnational corporate logos, and the consequence is that American society today bears little resemblance to the mid-20th century version. Thanks, "liberal media"!

Yes, we should expect to hear from political extremists from either side (or no side) of the spectrum in a liberal democracy, because that comes with the territory where there is freedom of speech. And sometimes we may even expect extremists to hold sway over the discourse, especially in time of national hysteria. But the genius of the system always has been that it self-corrects --- something that many of us have taken for granted, but never should have. The rise of malignant corporate media has just about annihilated this feature of our system, like a virus can do to an organism's immune system.

The first step toward a cure is to recognize the problem. Huge step... and huge problem.