For those of us who view corporate monopoly control of newspaper, television, and radio news as a major obstacle to democracy in the United States, there is some good news at hand. That good news could hold the key to the restoration of democracy in our country, and with that, the re-emergence of a progressive/liberal agenda could someday end the stranglehold that the wealthy and the powerful hold over ordinary Americans.


The problem – Corporate control over most of the news that Americans receive

Democracy is only as good as the information that we receive. Our right to vote means very little if we don’t have enough information on which to make an intelligent choice in the voting booth.

That is why corporate monopoly control over much of our national news media, which was greatly facilitated by the Telecommunications Act of 1996, has been so toxic to our democracy. With that Act, the wealthy and powerful were able to exert so much control over the news that the average American receives that they created a radically alternative reality for most Americans.

During the 2000 Presidential race, Al Gore, one of the most decent men to ever run for the U.S. Presidency, was recast as a liar and an egomaniac. His resounding victory over George W. Bush in debate after debate was recast by our corporate media as a humiliating defeat by repeatedly emphasizing his sighs, rather than the numerous Bush lies that were the cause of those sighs. In 2004, John Kerry, a legitimate war hero, was recast as a fraud, through the constant repetition of lies promulgated by an organization with close (but unrevealed at the time) ties to George W. Bush – while Bush’s use of his family ties to avoid service in the Vietnam War (which he said he supported) were virtually ignored by the corporate news media.

I’ve quoted Bill Moyers on this subject enough times that some of you may be tired of it, but this statement that he wrote during the Bush administration is so critical to this discussion that I can’t leave it out:



The vast change in how Americans receive their news

In 2001, when George W. Bush took office, a Pew Research Center poll showed that 74% of Americans received most of their national and international news through television, 45% through newspapers, and only a paltry 13% through the internet (Observant readers may have noticed that those percentages add up to more than 100%. All I can say is, poll respondents must have been given the option of indicating more than one choice). By 2004, when George Bush “won” his second presidential election, the situation was somewhat better, but not a whole lot. Those who said they received most of their news through the Internet had risen from 13% in 2001 to 24% in 2004. But by 2008, the Internet had surpassed newspapers as the second most common source of news, and it lost out to television only by 70% to 40%. Here is a graphic demonstration:



There are two very strong trends that make these findings very significant as a portent for the future. First is the time trend, which I’ve already mentioned. Note the vast jump in Internet viewership, just from 2007 to 2008. Secondly is the age comparison. Among people younger than 30, by 2008 the Internet had equaled television as the major source of news – each stood at 59%. Just one year prior to that, television predominated over the Internet in that age group by a two to one ratio (68% to 34%). Obviously, people under the age of 30 will be voting in our country for a much longer period of time than older people. It doesn’t seem likely that these people will give up the Internet as they age, and each four-year election cycle brings millions of additional 18 to 22 year olds into the picture.

And furthermore, it seems likely that Internet viewers are more likely to vote in large numbers than those who obtain most of their news through television. It is much easier to obtain one’s news through television than through the Internet, and it therefore seems that Internet consumers of news would be more motivated to vote than TV consumers.


The importance of Internet vs. TV consumption of news

I’ve already noted the virtual corporate monopoly over television news in recent years. Some would counter that fact by saying that TV news is nevertheless superior to Internet news because it is presented to us by experienced and professional journalists. In 2007, NBC anchorman Brian Williams complained about that, saying:


What about that argument? Should we acknowledge the superiority of TV over Internet news because it’s brought to us by experienced professionals? My short answer to that is, ABSOLUTELY NOT!

Experience and so-called “professionalism” mean nothing at all when they’re clouded in self-interest and bias. No, I take that back. It’s a lot worse than nothing. It’s like hiring a man convicted of bank fraud to be your financial advisor. Does he know a lot more about the ins and outs of finance than the great majority of people? Sure. Would you trust him with your money? Not unless you’re a complete idiot.

In contrast, the Internet is filled with a tremendous diversity of news sources that, taken together, comprise a much more representative view than what we get from TV news.


Flaws and advantages of the Internet as a news source

But what about the flaws in the Internet as a source of news? Unlike established TV networks and newspapers, they have few if any standards to adhere to. Anyone can post a blog with no oversight whatsoever, so how are we supposed to determine the accuracy of what read on the Internet?

The answer to that question is very complex and would take several pages, or even a book to address adequately. I won’t attempt to do that here, but I do have a few things to say about it.

Don’t reflexively believe anything you read, even if it comes from your favorite politician. Consider whether it makes sense in the context of everything else you know about the subject. Consider its consistency with what you know to be reality. Consider whether evidence is presented or merely assertions, and consider the quality of the evidence. Consider whether there are rebuts to it, and how much sense those rebuts make. Consider the ultimate sources of the information and the reliability of those sources. Consider whether you believe what you read merely because you want to believe it. And then there is video evidence, which is all over the Internet today, and usually much more difficult to fake than other kinds of evidence.

Notwithstanding the many potential problems with obtaining news from the Internet, the diversity of news sources provides a great advantage over what you get from TV news. Is a lot of “news” that you get from the Internet pure garbage? Certainly it is. But you have a lot to choose from, and you have competing points of view. At least you have a good fighting chance to obtain an overall picture about major issues that is pretty close to reality – as long as you take the time and care to evaluate what you read and see. But if you rely totally on television or radio as a source of news, you have almost no chance at all (unless you spend a lot of time listening to Keith Olbermann and Rachael Maddow).


Some examples of how the Internet has radically changed the political landscape in the U.S. in recent years

George Allen’s upset loss in the Virginia Senate race
In 2006, Senator George Allen of Virginia was not only considered a shoo-in for the Virginia Senator race, but he was even considered a leading contender for the presidency in 2008. That was before he showed his racism by referring to his opponent’s Native American staffer as “Macaca”. A few years earlier, with the corporate media remaining silent, few Americans would have known about that incident. Or if they had been informed about it, Allen could have denied it. But the incident was captured on video, and it spread all over the Internet on U-tube. Democratic candidate Jim Webb won the election, and with that the Democrats took control of the U.S. Senate, which they have not relinquished.

The debut of Sarah Palin at the Republican National Convention of 2008
In her debut on the national stage at the 2008 Republican National Convention, John McCain’s pick for his vice presidential running mate, Sarah Palin, gave as impressive a performance of reading a teleprompter speech as I’ve ever seen. Her words were well articulated, and she didn’t make a single gaffe. It was a nation-wide hit.

There was just one small problem with the speech – It was filled with lies and grossly misleading statements. She claimed to have told Congress “No thanks” to the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere”, though that was a lie. She proclaimed herself a stalwart supporter of special-needs children, despite having slashed funding for special needs children as Alaskan governor. She boasted of her credentials as an “ethics reformer”, despite the fact that she was in the process of being investigated by the Alaskan legislature for ethics violations.

She claimed to have bravely opposed big oil. But on the other hand, she claimed that “alternative-energy solutions are far from imminent”; she said she was unconvinced about how much human emissions contribute to current global warming trends; and, she opposed listing polar bears as a threatened species because it could require action on climate change.

She grossly distorted Senator Obama’s record: She said that he had not sponsored a single major piece of legislation, though he had sponsored a law with Senator Lugar to secure and destroy loose nuclear weapons, he sponsored the first bill to deal with pandemic flu preparedness, a bill to provide government oversight of genetic testing, and with Hillary Clinton, a bill to require hospitals to disclose medical errors. Palin claimed that Obama planned to raise taxes, when in fact Obama’s tax plan would reduce taxes for working and middle class Americans.

When Sarah Palin told all these lies she must have thought that we were still living in 2001, when she could expect our corporate news media to successfully cover up for her. And indeed, she was immediately acclaimed as the “New GOP Star” by our corporate news media.

But the days when pathological liars could reasonably expect to get away with all that while the corporate news media covers up for them were over. Palin’s lies were exposed all over the Internet, in blogs such as this one. By Election Day 2008, only 38% of voting Americans believed that Sarah Palin was fit to be President.

Exposure of John McCain’s voting record on veterans’ benefits
Veterans were considered one of John McCain’s most solid demographic groups, since he himself is a veteran. He never tired of pushing that point home, as when McCain said to Barack Obama in response to Obama’s criticism of McCain’s voting on veterans’ issues:


No matter. Let McCain try to avoid discussing his woeful voting record on veterans’ benefits. That record was picked up and blasted all over the Internet, including: McCain’s April 2005 nay vote on $2 billion for veterans’ health care; his March-06: nay vote on a bill to increase medical care for veterans by $1.5 billion; his nay vote on a April-06 bill to increase outpatient care for veterans by $430 million; his May 2006 nay vote on a bill to provide $20 million for veterans’ medical facilities; his nay vote on a June-06 resolution for withdrawal of troops from Iraq; his July-07 nay vote on cloture of a bill to specify minimum rest periods for troops in Iraq; and many others.

You would rarely if ever hear the corporate media talk about this. But for those who were hesitant to believe that John McCain would vote against veterans in that way, all they had to do was look up the votes themselves, through the links that were so frequently displayed along with the articles that exposed McCain’s voting record. By the time Election Day rolled around, McCain’s “straight talk express” was almost totally derailed.


Conclusion

The rapidly increasing influence of the Internet as a source of news, at the expense of corporate owned newspapers, radio and television, creates a tremendous opportunity for advocates of a progressive/liberal agenda for our nation. It’s not only that getting the truth out to more and more Americans predisposes them to vote for Democratic over Republican, as evidenced by the 2006 and 2008 landslide elections.

It’s much more than that. It seems obvious to me that the corporate leanings of so many Democratic politicians today are influenced largely by their fear that voting for the American people at the expense of the corporatocracy will risk attracting the vicious criticism of the corporate news media. With the Internet poised as a counterbalancing force, that fear should consistently recede. When our elected representatives vote for measures that give powerful corporations the license to screw ordinary Americans out of their life savings, they can expect more and more that their votes and actions will be exposed.

That is the way it should be. When our Founding Fathers took such great care to create the foundations for a free American press, they did not imagine that our press would one day be controlled by interests so inimical to the American people. Our own government facilitated the conditions that allowed that to happen. Bill Moyers struck at the heart of the matter in his book, “Moyers on America – A Journalist and his Times”. He explained that in 1934 (FDR's Administration) the Federal Communications Act (FCA) was passed, with the intent of preventing monopolies of news that would allow a small number of news organizations to operate against the public interest.

However, the Reagan Revolution ushered in a deregulation ideology beginning in 1981 that resulted in the elimination of many of the public interest safeguards of the FCA. Moyers notes:


But now, with the rapidly increasing influence of the Internet, the corporatocracy is losing its hold on the news that most Americans receive. With that, a great opportunity has arisen for the American people to take back their country. We must not let the corporatocracy take that away from us.