With the election season in full swing, many of us have heard candidates railing against mainstream media and mass media. Mass media and mainstream media are essentially news that is dispersed to a large audience through different media technologies, such as television and radio. Some examples of companies in charge of mass media include Fox, CNN and MSNBC.
The problem with these media outlets is that our current economic system allows for a handful of individuals to have a disproportionate amount of influence over what information, and how said information is dispersed to the public. For example, the libertarian Koch brothers are on track to spend $900 million in this election cycle. This money is largely used for spending with public relation firms, which by definition are there to control the release of information to the mass media and the general public.
For example, liberal billionaire George Soros is notorious for his involvement in many political interest groups, such as MoveOn.org, the Advancement Project and Democracy Now!. He has had a fair share of involvement in the way the mainstream media has portrayed certain events in our more recent history. For example, Soros’s MoveOn.org spearheaded the movement against the impeachment of former President Bill Clinton. It organized volunteers to deliver petitions to members of Congress in 219 districts of America, and directed over 30,000 phone calls to district offices. With millions of dollars in contributions to political activist groups, Soros has had a tremendous influence in the way media may distort public opinion.
With the enormous amount of money flowing into our political system, certain issues may receive minimal coverage, or not even be covered at all. Recently, over 900 Democracy Spring protesters were arrested in Washington D.C. when protesting the influence of big money in politics. This was one of the biggest protests in recent American history since the Vietnam protests. Mainstream news networks took far too long before they widely publicized the event. While these events may not initially seem related, they most certainly are. There is a sort of triangular relationship between the media, politicians and big money interests, which skews the way certain issues are presented to the public, and which ultimately make it near impossible to sift through the bias and poor coverage in order to get real information from mass media even if you wanted to.
Matt Gerasimovich // Opinion Editor
