BODYBAGS

Lies on TV

The power to control what is known - by millions, if not billions, of people -rests with about 10 media conglomerates. This concentration of power in corporations like Viacom, Disney, AOL Time Warner and Rupert Murdoch's empire, News Corporation, was facilitated by the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The Act gave the green light to corporate media mergers, allowing these conglomerates to operate as media cartels with global reach, virtually no meaningful regulation, and little if any social responsibility.

As a consequence, authentic journalism - free from conflicts of interest or oversight by the cartels - is disappearing at an alarming rate. Journalism is no longer a practiced discipline, as it was pre-cartels, but is now only one piece of a media portfolio, forced to take a back seat to TV shows, music CDs, big-budget movies and other products offering higher returns on investment. Journalism that previously sought the truth is now researched, test-marketed, and packaged for consumption with one ultimate objective: profits.

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