The bias in the US media towards corporate and special interests is apparent in some sources more easily and readily than in others, especially if one has access and bothers to look at a broad base of international news sources.
The great change was institutionalized with the overturn of the Fairness Doctrine under Reagan in 1985 and the revoking of media ownership restrictions from 1934 and 1975 under the Clinton administration’s Telecommunications Act of 1996.
What has changed perhaps is the extreme marginalization of independent sources. For the most part media outlets declare themselves for one group or another. The bias of the financial media in policy issues has become so obvious and servile to its corporate interests that it is almost embarrassing. What is even more surprising is the reach of this sort of continuous advocacy journalism into ‘mainstream’ channels such as Fox and MSNBC that actively re-interpret reality to suit a class of viewers.
This balkanization of the issues attracts large classes of listeners into group think, and precludes any meaningful debate of the issues, even to the very framing of the questions and the issues, and ultimately their very perception of reality.
This post was published at Jesses Crossroads Cafe on 27 OCTOBER 2014.
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