Some have doubted that the news media (TV, news, etc.) have been “taken over” by corporations. They admit to there being a concentration as fewer and fewer corporations own media outlets, but to the conclusion that what gets passed on to us as “news” is controlled by corporate interests, well that is just a step too far for them.

They are wrong.

I have been reading a book covering the politics during the years 1939-1941, that is focused upon the how we ended up being fully invested in World War II. In 1939 the country was almost exclusively isolationist. Just before Pearl Harbor, which obviously changed everybody’s minds about something, the country was leaning interventionist. Part of that transition involved the story of the FBI trapping a small, possibly sole and definitely rather inept Nazi spy ring. German intelligence never had a major presence in the U.S., but the federal government at the time, trumpeted loudly and clearly about the German Fifth Columnists and the spy network of Nazi Germany, even though they knew it was not true because they were shaping public opinion to support the decision they wanted to take. This was neither the first nor the last time the federal government deliberately lied to us to get us to “democratically” support some decision they wanted to make. I am sure you can come up with others with little effort (Gulf of Tonkin incident, etc.).

What astonishes me is that with so many reports of people lying to sway public opinion, it seems impossible to run a democracy this way (as a democracy, anyway).

In any case, the news media are completely under corporate control because . . .

1. there are many opportunities to investigate (journalistically) the failings of the federal government to do what is right in the minds of the people.

2. the corporate and monied interests have won “the game” and like things exactly as they are. I have written a great deal about this. Any law the monied interests want changed, gets changed with a small expenditure of funds (bribes). Their profits are at record highs, union membership at record lows, etc.

3. the Republicans and Fox (sic) News can come up with nothing better than faux scandals to have hearings about and to trumpet about on their opinion shows (Bengasi, the IRS, etc.)

So, there are real scandals and lies being told and we hear nothing of them because the corporate interests like the status quo and don’t want the apple cart upset. So, the number of real investigative journalists has been reduced to nonviability and real issues are shrugged off because faux scandals serve as well as real ones. When “news reporters”/politicians trump up a faux scandal and the idiocy of it is exposed, do you end up with more or less faith in your government? Less, you say? And whose interests does that serve?