Losing the Microphone

[Martin Hash]

The greatest weakness of Capitalism is that everything is for sale, including our news. This has always been a problem but the vibrancy of market economics naturally inspired multiple newspapers with opposing views in every town to somewhat equally represent the political space. But another weakness of Capitalism, the concentration of wealth & power, inevitably allowed single organizations to dominate the narrative by buying all outlets, not just newspapers but radio & television too. Laws were passed, the so-called Fairness Doctrine, that prevented such blanket ownership, and when there was an inadvertent monopoly in a particular market, it required opposing arguments to be given somewhat equal coverage. This lead to the golden age of journalism, where the public trusted & respected the media, but those few decades of Edwin R. Murrow-style honesty were a fluke, only possible because of government regulation. When the media was deregulated, all the venom of Capitalism was unleashed, and the media became not only a laughingstock, but intensely dangerous.

Mainstream media news loses money, especially print, like newspapers & magazines; that's why The Right has so behind in the narrative-setting business, they are too conscientious to buy into bankrupt enterprises. The Left, on-the-other-hand, understands the power of propaganda and how to distribute it, and they don't see the red in the balance sheet, instead they recognize who holds the microphone controls what happens at the party. People who want profits get out of the MSM; it's the folks who have an agenda who buy up those properties: Washington Post, USA Today, CNN, Newsweek, Politico, Huffington Post, and countless other examples; those are political mouthpieces, not investments. It’s not paranoia to think that there’s a cabal who own the media and use it for their own nefarious purposes, the only question is who?