Is it right, either spiritually, politically or culturally, for one person (Musk, Zuckerberg et al) to own a conduit to the truth? Is this a new form of dictatorship? Do we already live in an oligarchical state? Where is our ‘democratically’ elected government?
Is it right for one person (Rupert Murdoch) to own: (He owns everything until the reader reaches two dashes)
News Corp. holdings including three national newspapers in the U.K.; almost 150 publications in Australia; the New York Post and Community Newspaper Group in the United States; The Wall Street Journal and related publications in the U.S., Europe and Asia; Dow Jones information services;
HarperCollins book publishers. The list includes:
Daily Telegraph; Dow Jones; Harper Collins Publishers; Herald Sun; Inside Out; New York Post; News International; NT News; Post-Courier; Sunday Herald Sun; Sunday Mail; Sunday Times; The Advertiser; The Australian; The Courier-Mail; The Daily; The Mercury; The Sunday Mail; The Sunday Telegraph; The Sun; The Sunday Times; The Times; Times Literary Supplement; The Wall Street Journal; The Wall Street Journal Digital Network; Weekly Times; Zondervan.
Broadcasting
Businesses include the FOX Broadcasting Company; the 27 stations in the Fox Television Stations group and various television operations throughout the world. Cable properties produce and license programming for cable and satellite platforms in the U.S and Asia, including the FOX News Channel and FOX Business Network, FX and STAR. News Corporation wholly owns Italy’s most popular pay-TV company, SKY Italia. The company also has significant holdings in British Sky Broadcasting, Germany’s Sky Deutschland; Asia’s TATA SKY and FOXTEL in Australia and New Zealand.
The list includes:
FOX Broadcasting Company; FOX Sports; FOX Sports Australia; FOX Television Stations; MyNetworkTV; Big Ten Network; FOX Business Network; FOX Movie Channel; FOX News Channel; FOX College Sports; FOX Sports Enterprises; FOX Deportes; FOX Sports Net; FOX Soccer Channel; Fuel TV; FX; Nat Geo Wild; National Geographic Channel United States; National Geographic Channel Worldwide; Speed; STAR; Stats, Inc.; BSkyB; FOXTEL; Sky Deutschland; SKY Italia.
Movie and television production and distribution
Move production and distribution through Fox Filmed Entertainment and Twentieth Century Fox Film. Television production includes 20th Century Fox Television and other TV studios.
The list includes:
20th Century Fox; 20th Century Fox Espanol; 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment; 20th Century Fox International; 20th Century Fox Television; Fox Searchlight Pictures; Fox Studios Australia; Fox Studios LA; Fox Television Studios; Blue Sky Studios; Shine Group.
Other assets
“Next generation” media properties including Hulu, an online video joint venture with NBC Universal and Disney; and News Outdoor, an outdoor advertising company.
The list includes:
American Idol.com; AskMen; careerone.com.au; CARSguide.com.au; Fox.com; FoxSports.com; FoxSports.com.au; hulu.com; IGN Entertainment; Milkround; National Rugby League; NDS; News.com.au; News Digital Media; News Outdoor; Scout; Spring Widgets; truelocal.com.au; WhatIfSport.
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The list goes on with media monopolies like Disney or Belo, another corporation that takes in $1.4 billion a year and owns or operates eight print outlets, 20 TV stations, and ten cable news channels.
Ownership of information is not benign. In mariner’s home broadcast area, one station is owned by a conservative organization called Sinclair Broadcast Group, a media company that also owns or operates 294 television stations across the United States. Each local news broadcast is required to insert a conservative commentary as though it were part of the news.
Specifically, mariner isn’t trying to be critical. Recently he has been focusing on the issue of truth and how it has become rudderless; no one knows what truth is. This is dangerous at the species level because each of us, individually and generally, must know what our stable, normal habitat looks like. Interpreting cause and effect is managed primarily by the subconscious brain. Should we flee? Fight? Ignore? Interpret? Impossible without the truth – what is real?
At this moment, mariner recognizes control patterns similar to gerrymandering. Not that specific government jurisdictions are controlled but more a control of information across viewing areas which may include several districts or regions. Think FOX or MSNBC; think Texas truth versus California truth – which one is true either politically or capitalistically or especially empirically?
In the old days before broadcast technology (dare we include the telephone), truth was local. Truth was hands on. Truth was based on existential reality. When the ownership of news was local, the broadcaster couldn’t range far from existential reality. These last bastions of local truth are being bought by venture capitalists, stripped of capability and turned into advertisement brochures. Today, truth has no foundation, no existential reality. The definition of truth is ‘manipulated broadcasting’. No wonder populism prevails; government, science and existential experience are irrelevant and not to be trusted.
Each day mariner dislikes uncontrolled capitalism more.
Ancient Mariner