The Media

Corporations and big business control the media, and there is no such thing as an unbiased source. I know that isn't what we're often led to believe; we'd like to think the media report the facts and that they have the best interests of the public in mind. While some journalists and filmmakers definitely follow this ethic, far too often it is simply the dollar that talks rather than the public interest. Advertising is the sole support of many publications, and that often means the unpopular views that might offend people are the ones that never see print. This creates a lopsided public view...and this is part of why CLAWS supports alternative media and encourages you to think critically about what you read.

Can you imagine a mainstream media presentation produced from the perspective of employees or workers rather than sympathetic to managment, profit seeking, or the upper echelons of corporations? Under corporate industrial capitalism, it's not likely to happen. Such a presentation would be accused of being "biased,", "anti-business,", "pro-union," etc. But the perspective of the business elite is represented everywhere in the mainstream media--indeed, it's practically thrust into our faces via advertising--yet we almost NEVER hear any accusations of this kind of message being "anti-worker" or "pro-business." This is no coincidence, of course. The people who own the mainstream media are manipulating public opinion to conform to their objectives. There's a reason TV is called "programming."

We encourage further research...take a look at the evidence, and draw your own conclusions...

MediaLens
"Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media"

Fear and Favor in the Newsroom
Read about the efforts to suppress this eye-opening documentary and learn about how our media are controlled by the powerful and wealthy, rather than serving the public interest. The film is available for ordering online. From the project's home page: "...shows for the first time on film how ownership of the press by a small corporate elite constricts the free flow of ideas and information upon which our democracy depends."

As former New York Times reporter Frances Cerra tells viewers, "I came to understand that freedom of the press is only guaranteed when you own the press. This is something I learned from The New York Times."

Don't miss it!

By Invitation Only: How the Media Limit Public Debate
by David Croteau & Wm. Hoynes

Media Madness
An article from Natural Life magazine about how corporations use the media to further their own objectives

Manufacturing Consent
Book and film by Noam Chomsky

FAIR: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting