NO English Al Jazeera

[Rob Lister]

It's one of many things which concerns me about your country. Media concentration is a terrible problem in the USA (and west in general) now. Not only are there few dissident voices, but almost extinct is the investigative journalist.

According to your profile, you are from Canada. According to Wiki,

snip

As of 2005, almost all Canadian television stations are owned by national media conglomerates. These acquisitions have been controversial; stations in smaller markets have frequently had their local news programming cut back or even eliminated. For instance, CTV's stations in Northern Ontario and in Atlantic Canada are served by a single regional newscast for each region, with only brief local news inserts for headlines of purely local interest. This, in turn, has contributed to the rise of independent local webmedia such as SooToday.com, The Tyee and rabble.ca.

It appears you need remove the log from your eye.

 

[thinkingaboutit]

According to your profile, you are from Canada. According to Wiki,

snip


It appears you need remove the log from your eye.

Yes it's a major problem here too. What log?

 

[WildCat]

I might not if it meant they'd never call on me again to ask another question.

Now you have an answer to your original question!

Keep in mind that there are many reporters asking many questions so there's room to cover many issues.

But they all want to have their question answered in their paper/news show, even if it's one a hundred other reporters also asked.

May I ask what your question would be?

Why have you not vetoed a single spending bill in your entire presidency?

 

[thinkingaboutit]

Did I contradict that point? No, I don't believe I did. But those alternative sources are now widely accessible AND widely accessed, and they never were before. The overall problem is getting better, not worse. And it's not peculiar to, or even particularly accute in, the US either.

I don't disagree that in some ways things are getting better but to say the problem is not bad is a mistake imho. Most of the mass media, the vast majority, is owned by 6 corporations. There has been greater concentration of ownership in the last 35 years than ever before.

There are more alternatives but none are driven by the exposure that big media can buy and therefore they are not really very widely known, trusted or accessed.

 

[thinkingaboutit]

I don't suppose anyone here has read Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death? It's an excellent book which argues that we have changed all of our major institutions (political, religious, etc) to be more like television.

I highly recommend it.

In the book he also argues that media changed too. The invention of the telegraph and photo first, then later videotape and broadcasting allowed 'news' to change from stuff that actually impacted us to stuff that entertained or captivated and it could be from any corner of the world.

 

[Ziggurat]

There are more alternatives but none are driven by the exposure that big media can buy and therefore they are not really very widely known, trusted or accessed.

Speak for yourself. Everyone I know uses sources besides just the big networks. And people who don't go looking for diverse information aren't going to get it even with diverse mainstream media either.

 

[thinkingaboutit]

Speak for yourself. Everyone I know uses sources besides just the big networks. And people who don't go looking for diverse information aren't going to get it even with diverse mainstream media either.

Sorry but the everyone I know argument doesn't stack up against the stats...

 

[Ziggurat]

Sorry but the everyone I know arguments doesn't stack up against the stats...

And those stats prove... what, exactly? That the people I know aren't a representative sample? Jeeze, I could have told you that. So what? If people want news, they can find news. If they don't want news, nobody can cram it down their throats. The only definitive information those stats show is that NO single category captures the majority of Americans, and that the internet is becoming more and more important while traditional delivery mechanisms are becoming less important. Where's the crisis?

 

[thinkingaboutit]

Really that's what you get from those charts? Are you sure you're not more interested in winning an argument than intellectual inquiry here? Look at the chart again and you can see that people are getting their news from big media which is highly concentrated. That has been my contention. Statistically a small proportion of the population gets news from alternative media.

Anyway I'd like to offer one other read on this topic... It's fairly illustrative as to the dangers of vertical integration and corporate media concentration in general.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2627


snippet

By Norman Solomon

After eight years in the White House, Dwight Eisenhower delivered his farewell address on January 17, 1961. The former general warned of “an immense military establishment and a large arms industry.” He added that “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

One way or another, a military-industrial complex now extends to much of corporate media. In the process, firms with military ties routinely advertise in news outlets. Often, media magnates and people on the boards of large media-related corporations enjoy close links—financial and social—with the military industry and Washington’s foreign-policy establishment.

Sometimes a media-owning corporation is itself a significant weapons merchant. In 1991, when my colleague Martin A. Lee and I looked into the stake that one major media-invested company had in the latest war, what we found was sobering: NBC’s owner General Electric designed, manufactured or supplied parts or maintenance for nearly every major weapon system used by the U.S. during the Gulf War—including the Patriot and Tomahawk Cruise missiles, the Stealth bomber, the B-52 bomber, the AWACS plane, and the NAVSTAR spy satellite system. “In other words,” we wrote in Unreliable Sources, “when correspondents and paid consultants on NBC television praised the performance of U.S. weapons, they were extolling equipment made by GE, the corporation that pays their salaries.”

 

[Ziggurat]

Really that's what you get from those charts? Are you sure you're not more interested in winning an argument than intellectual inquiry here? Look at the chart again and you can see that people are getting their news from big media which is highly concentrated. That has been my contention.

Yes, but that's ALWAYS been the case. Where's the argument that things are any worse now than, say, 30 years ago? Seems to me it's much better.

Statistically a small proportion of the population gets news from alternative media.

Statistically a small portion of the population cares about following the news carefully. And that portion now has options undreamed of even a decade ago.

After eight years in the White House, Dwight Eisenhower delivered his farewell address on January 17, 1961. The former general warned of “an immense military establishment and a large arms industry.” He added that “we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

And somehow conveniently left out of pretty much every mention of this quote is that military spending as a fraction of GDP is now far below what it was when Eisenhower made that statement.

One way or another, a military-industrial complex now extends to much of corporate media. In the process, firms with military ties routinely advertise in news outlets.

"One way or another" translates into including ways which don't matter. For example, GE makes jet engines. They also make lightbulbs and washing machines. They advertise lightbulbs and washing machines in Time magazine, and suddenly the "military-industrial complex" has tentacles wrapped around our news. Color me unimpressed.

 

[thinkingaboutit]

And somehow conveniently left out of pretty much every mention of this quote is that military spending as a fraction of GDP is now far below what it was when Eisenhower made that statement.



"One way or another" translates into including ways which don't matter. For example, GE makes jet engines. They also make lightbulbs and washing machines. They advertise lightbulbs and washing machines in Time magazine, and suddenly the "military-industrial complex" has tentacles wrapped around our news. Color me unimpressed.

The GDP of the USA has grown drastically since then so is that really particularly incisive? Are you suggesting military spending isn't huge in the USA? 500 billion a year plus what they're spending on Iraq and Afghanistan?

The bottom line is media doesn't want to upset it's advertisers or go against it's own corporate interests. Sorry you weren't impressed.

 

[Ziggurat]

The GDP of the USA has grown drastically since then so is that really particularly incisive?

Well, YES. Of course it is. The allegation is that financial interests in military-industrial affairs affects politics. If so, then all financial interests do, which means that military-industrial interests have to compete with other financial interests. And as a fraction of the economy, military financial interests have declined significantly since Eisenhower, and even since the 1990's.

Are you suggesting military spending isn't huge in the USA? 500 billion a year plus what they're spending on Iraq and Afghanistan?

Sure it's big (but you got the figure wrong anyways - that's the ballpark of total cost of Iraq and Afghanistan, not yearly budget). But the whole economy is ginormous. We're a 12 TRILLION dollar economy. And that IS per year.

The bottom line is media doesn't want to upset it's advertisers

Mainstream media have a whole lot of advertisers. What they need a whole lot more than advertisers (who are NOT in short supply) are viewers. Viewers are abandoning traditional media, and the advertisers won't spend large bucks on decreasing viewerships. The primary financial motivator for media outlets is getting viewership numbers up, not trying to track the particular political sensitivities of what really amounts to a small fraction of their advertising base. You'd need to be either ingorant of basic economics or believe in a conspiracy to think otherwise.

 

[thinkingaboutit]

Well, YES. Of course it is. The allegation is that financial interests in military-industrial affairs affects politics. If so, then all financial interests do, which means that military-industrial interests have to compete with other financial interests. And as a fraction of the economy, military financial interests have declined significantly since Eisenhower, and even since the 1990's.



Sure it's big (but you got the figure wrong anyways - that's the ballpark of total cost of Iraq and Afghanistan, not yearly budget). But the whole economy is ginormous. We're a 12 TRILLION dollar economy. And that IS per year.



Mainstream media have a whole lot of advertisers. What they need a whole lot more than advertisers (who are NOT in short supply) are viewers. Viewers are abandoning traditional media, and the advertisers won't spend large bucks on decreasing viewerships. The primary financial motivator for media outlets is getting viewership numbers up, not trying to track the particular political sensitivities of what really amounts to a small fraction of their advertising base. You'd need to be either ingorant of basic economics or believe in a conspiracy to think otherwise.

I don't believe my figure is far off. $500 billion a yearish plus what is being appropriated (which is separate) for Iraq and Afghanistan. The industry is larger though, as there are large foreign sales of American weapons as well. War profiteering is big in the USA. This isn't really in contention afaiac.

When I take a critical look at the Bush administration I don't see them trying to act in the best interests of the USA, I see money as their motive and ruthlessness as their m.o. (see a war in Iraq built on lies) Proof? Well do you know that Dick Cheney's stock options in Haliburton have risen since the war began over %3000? What about Bush family ties to Kellog, Root and Brown? How about Richard Perle and co. and their security consulting firms reaping huge profits? Of course the petroleum industry has to be acknowledged in this equation too. Oil of course is strategically critical to the function of the US military (as well as agriculture, personal transportation etc.). So you can see how interests are interconnected.

It seems that you're the one who doesn't know a lot about economics if you want to downplay the importance of and competition for the advertising dollar. Especially with a decreasing overall viewership.

 

[thinkingaboutit]

For 2007, the budget was raised to a total of US$ 532.8 Billion.[1] This does not include many military-related items that are outside of the Defense Department budget, such as nuclear weapons research, maintenance and production (which is in the Department of Energy budget), Veterans Affairs or the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (which are largely funded through extra-budgetary supplements, e.g. $120Bi in 2007).[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_budget_of_the_United_States

 

[Ziggurat]

War profiteering is big in the USA.

And peace profiteering is even bigger.

When I take a critical look at the Bush administration I don't see them trying to act in the best interests of the USA, I see money as their motive and ruthlessness as their m.o.

What you see them trying to do means nothing. People can and do disagree about not only what's best for the country, but also how to achieve it. Ascribing malevolent influences to political differences is lazy thinking.

Well do you know that Dick Cheney's stock options in Haliburton have risen since the war began over %3000?

I call bull****. Are you aware that Haliburton's profits on Iraq are far below their other profits? Are you aware that they could have made just as much money by taking the cost outlays they made and investing them in government bonds? It was oil sector services OUTSIDE Iraq which Haliburton has been raking money in from. And Cheney has already legally obligated himself to donate all the proceeds from those options to charity, WITHOUT taking any tax deductions, which means he won't see a cent of it anyways.

What about Bush family ties to Kellog, Root and Brown?

What about them? He's got ties to the Carlyle group too. But Rumsfeld axed the Crusader artillery system (which would have made them a bundle) anyways. But of course, I bet you didn't even know about that connection. And now that you know about it, I bet you'll ingore it since it doesn't fit nicely into the conspiracy picture you've developed.

It seems that you're the one who doesn't know a lot about economics if you want to downplay the importance of and competition for the advertising dollar.

Uh, nothing you said has anything to do with advertising revenues for media, so I'm not sure why you think this constitutes any sort of refutation of my point.

 

[thinkingaboutit]

And peace profiteering is even bigger.



What you see them trying to do means nothing. People can and do disagree about not only what's best for the country, but also how to achieve it. Ascribing malevolent influences to political differences is lazy thinking.



I call bull****.


And Cheney has already legally obligated himself to donate all the proceeds from those options to charity, WITHOUT taking any tax deductions, which means he won't see a cent of it anyways.



What about them? He's got ties to the Carlyle group too. But Rumsfeld axed the Crusader artillery system (which would have made them a bundle) anyways. But of course, I bet you didn't even know about that connection. And now that you know about it, I bet you'll ingore it since it doesn't fit nicely into the conspiracy picture you've developed.



Uh, nothing you said has anything to do with advertising revenues for media, so I'm not sure why you think this constitutes any sort of refutation of my point.

Yes Carlyle and Bechtel I know quite a bit about this stuff yes. Fine you call ********? I'll reference all my claims from here on in and you can do the same.

Cheney's stock options...

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Cheneys_stock_options_rose_3281_last_1011.html

Haliburton's stock price rose from prewar $20ish levels to a high in the $70's until they caught major **** and had their contracts canceled because they are wholly corrupt.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/hp?s=HAL&a=11&b=31&c=2000&d=02&e=29&f=2007&g=m

Are you aware that Haliburton's profits on Iraq are far below their other profits? Are you aware that they could have made just as much money by taking the cost outlays they made and investing them in government bonds? It was oil sector services OUTSIDE Iraq which Haliburton has been raking money in from.

Now I call ******** on this. Source please? Halliburton has had over $16 billion in revenue in from Iraq.


esar complained last year about the low profit margins earned in Iraq from the company's troop support contract with the Army, known as "LOGCAP." He even threatened to charge the Army with higher costs by declaring that he would "jack the margins up significantly" if companies other than Halliburton are allowed to bid for new work under LOGCAP. He made his comments in response to a U.S. military recommendation that called for the immediate termination of the LOGCAP contract so that other, less scandalous, firms can be hired to assist the soldiers.

"Jacking up the margins" is already standard practice at Halliburton via cost overcharges. Those overcharges helped boost the company's war profits by 284 percent during the second quarter of this year.

Audits conducted by the Pentagon's Defense Contract Audit Agency determined that KBR had $1 billion in "questioned" expenses (i.e. expenses which military auditors consider "unreasonable") and $442 million in "unsupported" expenses (i.e. expenses which military auditors have determined contain no receipt or any explanation on how the expenses were disbursed).

Despite the cost overcharges, numerous critical reports from military auditors and the public outcry against Halliburton, Washington continues to drag its feet in dealing with the company's continuing rip-off of U.S. taxpayers.

http://www.halliburtonwatch.org/news/lesar_stock.html


You're right about Cheney and his stock options profits going to charity but it's indicative of the companies fortunes during this war and you can bet he'll have a place at the table when he returns to the private sector.

So you're not skeptical that there is undue political influence from military and oil companies in Washington at this time?

 

[thinkingaboutit]

What about them? He's got ties to the Carlyle group too. But Rumsfeld axed the Crusader artillery system (which would have made them a bundle) anyways.

So according to you, every proposed Carlyle weapon system has to be purchased for there to be war profiteering or influence in Washington decision making?

There are direct connections between the people making the decisions, and the companies that these people have made, do make, or will make money from in the future.

Why do you think Bush and Cheney wanted to go to war in Iraq?

 

[thinkingaboutit]

What you see them trying to do means nothing. People can and do disagree about not only what's best for the country, but also how to achieve it. Ascribing malevolent influences to political differences is lazy thinking.

But when evidence mounts it gets a lot harder to ignore. I'd call an illegal war of aggression which was waged under false pretenses, criminal. I can assure you I didn't jump to conclusions on this. It's not lazy thinking it's having applied a great deal of critical thinking to the issue.

If not for profit, then what was the purpose of the Iraq war? To democratize Iraq? If the USA cares about democracy and human rights why do they prop up other dictators such as President Karimov of Uzbekistan who likes to boil his political opponents alive.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3943.htm

Was it because of AlQaeda? Well Saddam had no ties to Al Qaeda despite what Cheney said. Cheney even set up a department to create supporting 'intelligence' because traditional services (the CIA) didn't agree with his premise.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html

WMD's? The same thing. Falsified evidence.
http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/priraqclaimfact1029.htm

So it was best for America how? I can clearly see how good it is for Bush, Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz etc.

 

[thinkingaboutit]

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn01142004.html

[SIZE=+2]The O'Neill / Suskind Bombshells[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+2]Bush, Oil & Iraq: Some Truth at Last[/SIZE]

[SIZE=+2]By ALEXANDER COCKBURN[/SIZE]
[SIZE=+3]H[/SIZE]ere we have former US Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill disclosing that George Bush came into office planning to overthrow Saddam Hussein, and MSNBC polls its audience with the question, Did O'Neill Betray Bush?
Is that really the big question? The White House had a sharper nose for the real meat of Leslie Stahl's 60 Minutes interview with O'Neill and Ron Suskind, the reporter who based much of his expose of the Bush White House, The Price of Loyalty, on 19,000 government documents O'Neill provided him.
What bothers the White House is one particular National Security Council document shown in the 60 Minutes interview, clearly drafted in the early weeks of the new administration, which showed plans for the post-invasion dispersal of Iraq's oil assets among the world's great powers, starting with the major oil companies.
For the brief moment it was on the tv screen one could see that this bit of paper, stamped Secret, was undoubtedly one of the most explosive documents in the history of imperial conspiracy. Here, dead center in the camera's lense, was the refutation of every single rationalization for the attack on Iraq ever offered by George W. Bush and his co-conspirators, including Tony Blair
That NSC document told 60 Minutes' vast audience the attack on Iraq was not about national security in the wake of 9/ll. It was not about weapons of mass destruction. It was not about Saddam Hussein's possible ties to Osama bin Laden. It was about stealing Iraq's oil, same way the British stole it three quarter of a century earlier. The major oil companies drew up the map, handed it to their man George, helped him (through such trusties as James Baker) steal the 2000 election and then told him to get on with the attack.
O'Neill says that the Treasury Department's lawyers okayed release of the document to him. The White House, which took 78 days to launch an investigation into the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA officer, clearly regards the disclosure of what Big Oil wanted as truly reprehensible, as opposed to endangering the life of Ms Plame. It's going after O'Neill for this supposed security breach.




War for profit. (weapons, oil revenues, more)


And very interesting question posed about the MSNBC poll. Sort of ties in nicely with this thread I'd say.

 

[thinkingaboutit]

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]All in the (Profiteering, First) Family [/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]by Margie Burns[/FONT]​

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] [/FONT][FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Close relatives of President George W. Bush continue to benefit financially from the Iraq invasion, as revealed by sources including regulatory filings. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] St. Louis, Mo.-based Engineered Support Systems (EASI), where William H. T. Bush, an uncle of George W. Bush, joined the board of directors in 2000, is a major military contractor. William H. T. Bush is a Bush ``Pioneer," a contributor raising more than $100,000, in the 2000 and 2004 elections. Following the 2000 election and Sept. 11, 2001, the company's federal contracts, revenues and stock price have increased. The company declined to comment for this article. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] EASI received contracts from all branches of the armed forces in 2003. The Defense Department listed EASI in its top 100 contractors in 2001, with $330 million in contracts; and in 2002, with $380 million in contracts Estimates for 2003 are over $380 million. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] As luck would have it, company products include ``Field Deployable Environmental Control Units" to deal with weapons of mass destruction. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] On Jan. 17, 2003, the company announced orders from the Air Force and the Marines for these units, complete with Nuclear Biological Chemical Kits, in preparation for secret arsenals of WMDs hidden, the White House insisted, by Saddam Hussein. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] On Jan. 22, 2003, President Bush delivered one of several speeches in St. Louis. On Jan. 28, 2003, he delivered his State of the Union address, including the famous accusations linking Saddam's Iraq to WMDs and illicit nuclear material. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] On March 26 the company announced an Army order for its ``Chemical Biological Protected Shelter" systems, bringing Army orders for this product to a total of 204 units. On March 25, the Bush administration requested supplemental funding from Congress ``to cover military operations, relief and reconstruction activities in Iraq, and ongoing operations in the global war on terrorism." [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] On May 1, EASI announced the acquisition of its Maryland subsidiary, TAMSCO, coincidentally the day President Bush made his televised flight-suit appearance to announce ``mission accomplished" in Iraq. The following week, TAMSCO announced that it had begun technology support for U.S. Army logistics operations in the Middle East, stating that this tech support began linking the United States, Kuwait and Germany in February, 2003. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] The White House has not responded to repeated telephoned and e-mailed requests for comment. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] The stock advisor service VectorVest, which puts out a daily list of 7,500 American stocks ranked by value, safety and timing, has more than once listed EASI stock in first place. Directors of the company including William Bush, who is on the audit committee, received monthly consulting fees and options to buy stock at $28.42 per share. Company stock, which tripled in two weeks after 9/11, now trades at $49. In January 2003, William Bush owned 33,750 shares. In January 2004, he owned 56, 251 shares. Directors also own blocks of stock as a group. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] This company track record is only part of a larger pattern, in which close associates of the sitting president share in financial benefits generated by the foreign policy of our highest office. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Former president George H. W. Bush resigned in fall 2003 from the finance giant Carlyle Group, heavily associated with military and security contracts, which received $677 million in contracts in 2002 and $2.1 billion in contracts in 2003. Carlyle recently sold $335 million in stock from its chief military subsidiary. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Neil M. Bush, a younger brother of George W. Bush, has a $60,000-per-year contract with a principal in Washington-based New Bridge Strategies, a private firm set up to generate contracts in Iraq. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] A controversial $327 million contract, awarded in January by the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, benefits Winston Partners, the private investment firm of Marvin P. Bush, another brother. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] The contract, to equip the Iraqi armed forces and Civil Defense Corps, went to Nour USA, a Virginia company formed last May, which also benefited from an $80 million CPA contract awarded in July. Nour USA has come under scrutiny through its ties to Ahmed Chalabi, a member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] It also has ties to Bush family interests. Nour USA is invested or affiliated with several companies in Winston Partners' portfolio, including Hobart West, an employment agency; LogoTel, a clothing company; and Axolotl, a computer-services company. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif] Controversy may obscure President Bush's reasons for embarking on the war in Iraq, but the record is clear that it profits his family.[/FONT]
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0223-08.htm

i missed this one on CNN and in the NYT