Big business makes media bias more conservative

The column “Liberal bias ingrained in media” by
Garin Hovannisian (Oct. 13) hit on some true, key points, but
regrettably missed the larger picture.

How lucky for conservatives that there exists an accusation of a
liberal media, an accusation which is perpetuated by the media
itself. This constantly puts liberals on the defensive when it
comes to the subject and completely obscures the larger picture.
Yes, some stories on the evening news seemingly lean toward the
liberal side of the spectrum, for reasons that Hovannisian
explains.

But most people are too busy labeling news anchors as liberals
to see that mainstream media outlets have parent companies which,
like any successful company, are in the business of making money.
Let’s just look at the “Big Four” TV networks:
ABC is owned by the Walt Disney Corporation, CBS by Viacom, NBC
mostly by General Electric, and FOX by the media giant, News
Corporation.

In early May, Walt Disney, whose Miramax film studio financed
Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11,” refused to
distribute the movie. On September 23, 2004, at Forbes
magazine’s annual Global CEO Conference in Hong Kong, Sumner
Redstone, the chairman of Viacom, openly said he supports President
Bush, claiming that “the election of a Republican
administration is better for our company.”

Well, if a Republican administration is better for Viacom, and
therefore ABC, it would be naive of us to think that they would not
try to spin their news in favor of said president.

General Electric is a large government contractor, and
specifically a defense contractor. It could be said that they are
in the business of war. But they wouldn’t use NBC to
influence their profit, right?

Finally, the News Corporation, which is feared by other news
companies due to its size, currently owns 34 network channels and
29 cable channels in America alone, as well as 26 newspapers in the
United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. The company is now
lobbying the Federal Communications Commission to reduce its
restrictions on the number of media outlets a company can own.

The Federal Communication Commission’s chairman, Michael
Powell, son of Secretary of State Colin Powell, believes in such
deregulation, claiming it would help small media outlets enter the
business and grow. However, as anyone can see, allowing companies
to have a near monopoly on the news in no way promotes
competition.

What people fail to realize ““ or choose to ignore ““
is that the media is run by businesses.

Businesses are looking out for their own self-interests.
Businesses have lobbyists in Congress, and these businesses are in
a unique position to affect public opinion about themselves.

They accomplish this not by the spin they put on stories, but by
the stories they choose to run and by the coverage they give
certain incidents. A story about a president receiving oral sex in
the oval office stays in the news for months because that
president’s administration is not good for media companies.
On the other hand, stories about eligible voters becoming
disenfranchised in an election that was won by just a few hundred
votes do not get the coverage they deserve.

Stories about a few Vietnam veterans who didn’t serve with
presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry during the war but criticize
his service anyway are in the news for weeks, while stories about
President Bush’s ties to Saudi Arabia and Vice President Dick
Cheney’s current ties to Halliburton aren’t mentioned
in mainstream media.

The only way to learn about these newsworthy stories is to go
watch a movie that ““ if Walt Disney had its way ““ would
never have been released.

So, yes, there might be a slight built-in liberal bias in the
media for reasons Hovannisian mentions. But stepping back and
looking at the bigger picture reveals a much gloomier, even
Orwellian, media machine.

This is a machine that is not impartial, is not non-partisan and
is not unbiased in its quest for a higher profit at the end of the
fiscal quarter.

Berger is a fourth-year aerospace engineering
student.