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Every single mainstream and cable news organization in the U.S. is traded on the New York Stock Exchange as part of the business structure of a U.S. Corporation. Your favorite news channel or network could be owned by your favorite appliance manufacturer. Hot damn…how terrific is that? Not terrific at all, because for a news organization to be indebted to a media conglomerate or have a stake in the financial success of that corporation jeopardizes the public’s right to know; thereby, it is a threat to our democracy.
Comcast owns 51% and General Electric (GE), 49% of NBC, which includes CNBC and MSNBC. Therefore, the company that provides us with cable, internet, and telephone services in our homes and the company that manufactures our appliances and light bulbs also have control of our news.
The whole idea of corporations owning news organizations violates the Code of Ethics that “Journalists should be free of obligation to any interest other than the public's right to know.” That means they should act independently and avoid, at all cost, any conflicts of interest, perceived or real. That was easier for them to uphold before the conflicts of interest started signing the paychecks of news producers.
Walt Disney owns ABC News. Now come on…do you think an ABC News producer would ever approve content that could potentially damage the reputation of the company that brought us Disneyland and Disney World and family-friendly programming. For god’s sake, they brought us Mickey Mouse. No way would ABC harm their bottom-line. Time Warner owns CNN and AOL, and AOL acquired the Huffington Post. News Corp owns Fox News, Fox Business, New York Post, and Wall Street Journal. CBS owns CBS News.
