Write a commentPresident Truman once told a roomful of editors they were the most important "group of men in this country," in the everlasting "battle for men's minds."
In the original preface to "Animal Farm", George Orwell argued the opposite. Orwell wrote that the British free press was similar to Soviet state propaganda. To prove his point, Orwell said, "The British press is extremely centralised, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who have every motive to be dishonest on certain important topics."
Ownership of the mass media in the United States was also extremely centralized. Business Insider, The New York Times, and Fortune all reported "6 Corporations [The Big Six] Control 90% Of The Media In America." NBC News, MSNBC, and CNBC are more than media staples. They're "profit-seeking firms; their owners, directors, suppliers, and advertisers are interested in the economic health of these firms."
They're a huge corporation owned by a giant conglomerate, Comcast. The conglomerate News Corp owned the Wall Street Journal, Time magazine, Fox News, and HarperCollins. The New York Times Company owned The New York Times.
Arkansas State University wrote, "the majority of print media institutions in the United States are owned by private businesses." A majority of print media institutions are profit-seeking corporations with an interest in the economic health of their corporation.
Business Roundtable explained that a corporation "exist[s] principally to serve shareholders." Another phrase for shareholders was "the owners of the business." So a corporation existed to serve the owners of the business. Milton Friedman explained in a New York Times article how to serve the owners of the business.
Friedman wrote, "There is one and only one social responsibility of business—to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits." The responsibility of corporations "in a free‐enterprise, private‐property system," "is to conduct the business," in a way that makes "as much money as possible."
A critic might argue, the Big Six make grandiose pronouncements about public service. Yet, then-AT&T vice-president E. K. Hall said "that 'the public mind... is in my judgment the only serious danger confronting the company.'"
Therein lies the function of our mass media institutions. They're big corporations owned by even bigger conglomerates that operate to make a profit. For instance, the revenue of the New York Times is from subscriptions and advertisers. More subscriptions increase the amount of other businesses— advertisers— who want to buy space in the newspaper. Their revenue doesn't depend on how many magazines were sold or articles published.
The New York Times will struggle to stay profitable if its journalists write critical articles about their advertisers. Business Week once reminded the New York Times, "the Times itself is a business," and it shouldn't ignore this fact.
Peter Dreier wrote that the media "in general reflect the world view of the powerful." Paramount's $108 billion hostile bid on Warner Bros. Discovery reiterates the fact that a few corporations control most of the mass media.
