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Media Titans Paint Another Guernica
by Ahmed Amr
This last election season, the
candidates from the Republican and Democratic parties spent over
three billion dollars to get the attention of the American voter, a
50% increase over the 1996 campaign. Most Americans are aware that
corporations and special interest groups pick up most of the tab for
both parties. No doubt, much of this money is spent in the hope of
acquiring a degree of influence and access over the men and women
who are charged with formulating domestic and foreign policy.
I recall when a reporter asked
Keating, the fall man in the Savings and Loans scandal, if he had
intended to effect the "Keating Five" Senators with his
generous campaign donations. His answer was "I certainly hope
so."
You can bet every pilfered S&L
dollar that the special interest groups have already sent their top
dogs to fight any meaningful change to the way campaigns are
currently financed. There is one particular industry that bears
close scrutiny in its lobbying efforts against campaign finance
reform. It is the media industry, a formidable oligopoly that has
come to wield enormous influence with both the general public and
our political leaders.
Consider that Mr. Graham, chief
executive of the Washington Post Company, recently spoke of the
"political advertising bonanza at six Post-Newsweek television
stations" (NYT, 12/11/2000). Campaign season is a windfall for
the barons of the corporate media. Not only do they get a huge slice
of the three billion dollar pie, but advertising rates also soar for
both the political candidates and the car salesmen. On top of that,
they get all those "free feeds" from the conventions and
the primaries. This campaign season, due to the close vote in
Florida, their ratings soared to a level surpassed only by the Gulf
War, further enriching bottom line revenues.
The Media lords are not about to walk
away from all that gravy. They will fight any reform laws with a
vengeance. So, every American is urged to be alert for biased
reporting of this critical legislation. There is already a concerted
effort to prevent Senator McCain for putting campaign financing at
the top of the Senate's agenda.
If anyone still harbor doubts about
the danger of the mass media’s control of the American political
agenda, consider the recent reports of Murdoch’s deals with China.
The New York Times reported on Jan 10, 2001 that "Mr. Murdoch
has worked hard to restore relations with Beijing since angering the
country’s Communist Party elders with his anti-totalitarian remark
made in 1993 shortly after he bought the Star TV satellite
network." Note that among his other properties, Murdoch owns
FOX, the New York Post and the London Times. He also happens to own
HarperCollins, the infamous book publishers that gave Newt Ginrich
his five million-dollar advance.
The Times article also had the
following revelation: "Since making the statement, Mr. Murdoch
has quietly steered his media empire away from confrontation with
China, a potentially huge market that is still closed to foreign
media. In 1994, he removed BBC news broadcasts from his Star TV
lineup and softened the television network’s other news offerings.
He later sold the South China Morning Post of Hong Kong, a Newspaper
often critical of Beijing, to a pro-Beijing businessman. And last
year, the News Corporation’s HarperCollins subsidiary canceled a
contract to publish the memoirs of Hong Kong’s last colonial
governor, Chris Patten, whom Beijing abhors."
While the mass media pundits were out
hunting Chads, Murdoch was working a deal with China over content.
While the media was ranting on about dimples, most Americans were
left to marvel at how the two parties have the system in a lockbox
all the way down to the precint level. We discovered all kinds of
wonders about our political process.
We still get one vote, but the
Democrats and Republicans decide what the ballots look like. They
get to set the criteria for who gets on the ballot. They also frame
the narrow spectrum of issues that the campaign will revolve around,
with ample guidance from the media titans. These two entrenched
parties also had the power to deny third party candidates, like
Nader, a seat at the presidential debate and to prevent him from
even attending the debate. Again, this blatantly undemocratic feat
was accomplished with the able assistance of a few arrogant men who
have come to control the international media empires.
When you paint the whole canvas of how
the media titans have come to dominate the political decision-making
process, it is as disturbing as Picasso’s Guernica. Part of the
canvass has CNN’s Ted Turner paying the American dues to the
United Nations, with Ambassador Hollbrooke and Senator Jesse Helms
relegated to playing the role of mediators. Then over in another
corner, Murdoch is busy making all kinds of "media
arrangements" that will suit the Chinese government. How
exactly would FOX have covered the slaughter of students at Tianemen
Square under the terms of the current "sweetheart deal"
with the elders of the Chinese Communist Party?
In the middle of the canvas, the
"journalists" at the New York Times Publishing Company are
busy hiding the evidence of fifty years of Israeli brutality against
the Palestinians. A bit over to the side, you see Graham of the
Washington Post Company assuring the Russian ambassador that
Chechnya will be totally ignored. He is leading a delegation that
includes the Chairmen of CBS, ABC and NBC who are there to lobby the
Russians for stricter compliance in the Anglo-American embargo
against Iraq. The deal is a straightforward exchange, the lives of
half a million Iraqi children for a Russian reign of terror in
Chechnya.
Ignore all the media fuss about chads
and dimples. The real problem in America today is not about the
right to vote or whether your vote counts. The real problem is about
the right to run for office. Any multi-millionaire can win if he is
willing to squander his inheritance on running for office. If you
don't have that kind of loot, you are required to pay your dues
climbing the ranks at one of the two major parties and paying homage
to their corporate sponsors.
We now have a political system that
has been entirely ruined by money. Three billion dollars works out
to a nice color TV for each undecided voter. Money can't buy you
happiness, but if you have serious coin, you can always rent a
congressman or a Senator to legislate something that will make you
happy.
Next camping season, the networks and
newspapers should be required to import real journalist from
England, Australia and Canada and set their "spin" crews
to sea, after providing them with absentee ballots. Hollywood stars
should be limited to endorsing salad dressing and Nikes, unless they
have a law degree from Stamford, in which case they can endorse only
their closest relatives. Individual citizens should be limited to
contributing $500 to any campaign. No corporate donations should be
allowed. No union donations, so the corporations don’t use unions
as an excuse for political corruption. Most important, candidates
will be allowed to solicit and receive funds only from residents of
the states they are running in. Exit polling should be made a felony
offense.
Any campaign money that is remotely
tied to the interests of a foreign government should be strictly
prohibited. Finally, FOX should rescue itself from covering campaign
2004. Campaign reforms are absolutely essential, lest the elders of
the Chinese Communist Party insist on Al Gore as their candidate for
the next election. As for the Palestinians, they are well advised to
demand that the New York Times be given a seat at the Peace
Conference as a party that has long been a belligerent in the
Israeli/Palestinian conflict. In the meantime, every American should
demand swift and draconian campaign finance laws.
Mr. Ahmed Amr is Editor
of NileMedia.com in Seattle and a regular contributor to Media Monitors
Network (MMN)
Source:
by courtesy & © 2001 Ahmed Amr
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