Big Media Interlocks with Corporate America

[Guest guest]

> Thu, 23 Jun 2005 12:09:51 -0700

> Peter Phillips <peter.phillips

> Big Media Interlocks with Corporate America

 

>

> Big Media Interlocks with Corporate America

>

> By Peter Phillips

>

> Mainstream media is the term often used to describe the

> collective group of big TV, radio and newspapers in the United

> States. Mainstream implies that the news being produced is for

> the benefit and enlightenment of the mainstream population-the

> majority of people living in the US. Mainstream media include a

> number of communication mediums that carry almost all the news

> and information on world affairs that most Americans receive. The

> word media is plural, implying a diversity of news sources.

>

> However, mainstream media no longer produce news for the

> mainstream population-nor should we consider the media as plural.

> Instead it is more accurate to speak of big media in the US today

> as the corporate media and to use the term in the singular

> tense-as it refers to the singular monolithic top-down power

> structure of self-interested news giants.

>

> A research team at Sonoma State University has recently finished

> conducting a network analysis of the boards of directors of the

> ten big media organizations in the US. The team determined that

> only 118 people comprise the membership on the boards of director

> of the ten big media giants. This is a small enough group to fit

> in a moderate size university classroom. These 118 individuals in

> turn sit on the corporate boards of 288 national and

> international corporations. In fact, eight out of ten big media

> giants share common memberships on boards of directors with each

> other. NBC and the Washington Post both have board members who

> sit on Coca Cola and J. P. Morgan, while the Tribune Company, The

> New York Times and Gannett all have members who share a seat on

> Pepsi. It is kind of like one big happy family of interlocks and

> shared interests. The following are but a few of the corporate

> board interlocks for the big ten media giants in the US:

>

> New York Times: Caryle Group, Eli Lilly, Ford, Johnson and

> Johnson, Hallmark, Lehman Brothers, Staples, Pepsi

>

> Washington Post: Lockheed Martin, Coca-Cola, Dun & Bradstreet,

> Gillette, G.E. Investments, J.P. Morgan, Moody's

>

> Knight-Ridder: Adobe Systems, Echelon, H & R Block, Kimberly-Clark,

> Starwood Hotels

>

> The Tribune (Chicago & LA Times): 3M, Allstate, Caterpillar,

> Conoco Phillips, Kraft, McDonalds, Pepsi, Quaker Oats, Shering

> Plough, Wells Fargo

>

> News Corp (Fox): British Airways, Rothschild Investments

>

> GE (NBC): Anheuser-Busch, Avon, Bechtel, Chevron/Texaco,

> Coca-Cola, Dell, GM, Home Depot, Kellogg, J.P. Morgan, Microsoft,

> Motorola, Procter & Gamble

>

> Disney (ABC): Boeing, Northwest Airlines, Clorox, Estee Lauder,

> FedEx, Gillette, Halliburton, Kmart, McKesson, Staples, ,

>

> Viacom (CBS): American Express, Consolidated Edison, Oracle,

> Lafarge North America

>

> Gannett: AP, Lockheed-Martin, Continental Airlines, Goldman

> Sachs, Prudential, Target, Pepsi

>

> AOL-Time Warner (CNN): Citigroup, Estee Lauder,

> Colgate-Palmolive, Hilton

>

> Can we trust the news editors at the Washington Post to be fair

> and objective regarding news stories about Lockheed-Martin

> defense contract over-runs? Or can we assuredly believe that ABC

> will conduct critical investigative reporting on Halliburton's

> sole-source contracts in Iraq? If we believe the corporate media

> give us the full un-censored truth about key issues inside the

> special interests of American capitalism, then we might feel that

> they are meeting the democratic needs of mainstream America.

> However if we believe - as increasingly more Americans do- that

> corporate media serves its own self-interests instead of those of

> the people, than we can no longer call it mainstream or refer to

> it as plural. Instead we need to say that corporate media is

> corporate America, and that we the mainstream people need to be

> looking at alternative independent sources for our news and

> information.

>

> Peter Phillips is a professor of Sociology at Sonoma State

> University and director of Project Censored a media research

> organization. www.projectcensored.org Sonoma State University

> students Bridget Thornton and Brit Walters conducted the research

> on the media interlocks.

>

> --

> Peter Phillips Ph.D.

> Sociology Department/Project Censored

> Sonoma State University

> 1801 East Cotati Ave.

> Rohnert Park, CA 94928

> 707-664-2588

> http://www.projectcensored.org/

>