So what? Every major American media outlet has a _very_ high wall between
news and editorial product and ownership and advertising. The media person
who demonstrates otherwise gets to be made a hero and celebrated by the
entire profession - yet it happens almost never. You keep making this
argument to me, Dan, but you don't have any evidence for it. I mean, none.
Apart from the fact that both the New York Times and the Washington Post are
owned by Democrats, that doesn't _prove_ anything. You'd have to show that
the owners have control over the product - and, with the striking exception
of the Washington Post and The New Republic (both owned by liberals), it's
very clear that they don't. The Weekly Standard (the conservative version
of the New Republic, btw) by contrast once published an article that said
Rupert Murdoch should be ashamed of himself for sucking up to the Chinese
government. I'll give you one guess who owns the Weekly Standard. If he
exerts control over them he's got a funny way of using it. The whole system
is set up to make sure that they don't. Conservative media people are rare
and generally segregated into the conservative media (Fox News, National
Review, and the Weekly Standard, pretty much). Dan Rather has publicly
stated his belief that the New York Times editorial page is right down the
middle of American public opinion. Do you really think so? You can't just
say - the owners control everything. They don't. Most reporters would say
that they don't. Certainly at major newspapers everyone in the media would
say that they don't. So give me _some_ form of evidence other than your
assertion that the owners have a nefarious conspiracy to rightwing bias the
media. You use evidence to back up every other point you make - how come
this one argument is apparently immune to it?
Well Gautam, where is your evidence that the media is populated by Democrats? Are you privy to their voting records? Do you have statements made by them that supports your position that the media are democrats?
On the other hand, the effects of ownership on editorial content can be and in fact is likely to be very subtle. You can attack GE on NBC but at some level you know that your next negotiation for a multi-million dollar contract may be affected by the bottom line of your parent company. In addition as you get to know the corporate suits you find out they are folks just like you (more like you then the working class stiffs who may be affected by GE's behavior). So you cut them some slack; or you don't tackle a complex story about corporate accounting because it won't get ratings and that will affect your own marketability; Think about CBS 60 Minutes tobacco industry thing a few years ago (I'm blocking the name of the movie at the moment).
