Ever wonder why exactly the TV networks are so in the pocket of the Republican party?
I could never quite figure it out. The best I could come up with was the fact that, as big corporations, media companies' financial interests just make them more aligned with Republicans than with Democrats.
But Patricia Goldsmith writes that Karl Rove "reached out" (like Tony Soprano "reaching out" to John Sacrimoni) to Jack Welch, the CEO of General Electric,in 1999 to cement their relationship.
The whole article's on Smirking Chimp.
Here's the money quote:
Then in 1999 Karl Rove reached out to GE Chairman and CEO Jack Welch, promising radical deregulation for the broadcast industry (GE is the parent company of NBC). This fit right in with some of Welch's thoughts and ambitions. He had long felt that the news division at NBC wasn't living up to its full profit potential.
Other highlights:
Restore Fairness, Return to Reality
by Patricia Goldsmith Apr 16 2007
Forget Imus. All this fuss will be just so much wasted outrage unless we use it to direct public attention to the big picture: the way the media information cartel has rigged journalism in this country. We need to agitate to break up and re-regulate the media, beginning with restoration of the fairness doctrine.
Ever since the fairness doctrine went down for good in 1986, hate and misinformation have taken over the airwaves, beginning with Rush Limbaugh on the radio and spreading to TV.
The roll-back of fairness tilted the broadcasting playing field heavily to the right and led directly to the rise of Fox News and hate radio. Without constraints on how to present an issue, propaganda replaced real reporting-and became wildly popular. News suddenly became revenue stream responsible for generating ratings and earnings, and the race to the bottom in network news reporting began.
According to a a must-read article, "The Media Cover-up of the Gore Victory Part Four: Democracy, General Electric Style," by David Podvin and Carolyn Kay, that conversation led to some important changes:
Toward that end, Welch said that he would finally deal with a longstanding grievance of his: the ludicrous idea that news organizations should be allowed to operate in conflict with the best interests of the corporations that own them.
. . . The new dimension that Welch introduced was the concept that mainstream media should aggressively advance the political agenda of the corporations that own it. He did not see any difference between corporate journalism and corporate manufacturing or corporate service industries. . . .
In general, he saw corporate news organizations as untapped political resources that should be freed from the burden of objectivity.