This all speaks to a larger point that I've been making for the last seven months: News outlets are little tiny cogs in giant corporate machines whose business interests far outweigh ratings and news revenue, much less truth and objectivity. GE (NBC) is a defense contractor which benefits from endless war; Viacom (CBS) is a vast media empire which requires lax ownership rules to stay together; News Corp. (Fox) is another vast media empire, and (bonus!) is owned by a right-wing loon.
In short, Republican rule is far more profitable to the media's parent companies than the best and most exciting news programming on Earth could ever be, so that's what they strive for. Their primary objective is not good journalism, not even ratings, but simply to do all they can to get Republicans elected... without making it too obvious.
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Tiny cogs in giant corporate machines whose business interests far outweigh ratings and news revenue
Blogging at FireDogLake, Eli charts a course from Dan Rather's lawsuit against CBS to Chet Koppel's characterization of Disney-owned ABC's News as "a pimple on the elephants behind" to emphasize a point:
