{"id":112729,"date":"2018-06-11T12:00:15","date_gmt":"2018-06-11T11:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=112729"},"modified":"2018-06-09T21:02:53","modified_gmt":"2018-06-09T20:02:53","slug":"elon-musk-and-the-corporate-controlled-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/06\/elon-musk-and-the-corporate-controlled-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Elon Musk and the Corporate Controlled Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Advertisers Are Calling the Shots, Don’t Call It Journalism<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

An MSNBC camera operator tapes the Democratic Presidential Candidates Debate at the Polk County Convention Complex November 24, 2003 in Des Moines, Iowa. (Photo: Shaun Heasley\/Getty Images)<\/p><\/div>\n

7 Jun 2018 – <\/em>Was Elon Musk just whining when he accused mainstream media outlets of tilting news coverage against Tesla to favor advertising giants from the incumbent automobile and oil industry?<\/p>\n

Mainstream pundits rushed to scoff at Musk\u2019s suggestion that a network\u2019s corporate owner would censor news to please its sponsors. But corporate bias is an old malady with which I\u2019m familiar from a long career as an environmental advocate.<\/p>\n

In 2003, when environmental leader Laurie David and Arianna Huffington\u2019s \u201cDetroit Project\u201d attempted to air paid advertisements touting automobile fuel efficiency, all the networks\u2014then raking in $15 billion annually from the auto industry\u2014refused to carry the ads.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey wouldn\u2019t run them,\u201d Huffington told me, \u201cand we ended basically not being able to use the money that was budgeted to buy airtime.\u201d<\/p>\n

Laurie David, a former David Letterman producer whose husband, Larry David, created Seinfeld and the popular series Curb Your Enthusiasm, told me, \u201cI met with Lloyd Braun, the president of ABC, and brought the commercial up there to see if they could run the ads. He pretty much laughed me out of the office. He said, \u2018We have three offices. We have an office in Los Angeles, we have an office in New York City and our third office is in Detroit.\u2019 There was no way he was going to put something on his network that might piss off the auto industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

In May 2004, ABC canceled distribution of Michael Moore\u2019s Fahrenheit 9\/11\u2014a screed against George W. Bush\u2019s pro oil policies. ABC President Michael Eisner explained that he wasn\u2019t about to allow an ABC News<\/em> report that imperiled Disney, the network\u2019s parent company. According to Moore\u2019s agent, Ari Emmanuel, Eisner feared that the president\u2019s brother, Gov. Jeb Bush, would retaliate by rescinding tax breaks to Disney\u2019s Florida theme parks.<\/p>\n

I have considerable personal experience with corporate censorship. Veteran actor Charles Grodin often complained that I got him fired from the best job he ever had\u2014as a nightly talk- show host on MSNBC<\/em>. On Nov. 11, 1996, Grodin hosted me to plug my book Riverkeepers. Unlike the more seasoned MSNBC<\/em> and NBC News<\/em> hosts, he allowed me to talk at length about the record of the network\u2019s parent company, General Electric. I recited how GE\u2014which owns more Superfund sites than any other company\u2014had polluted the Hudson River, leaving hundreds of fishermen jobless. NBC responded by cancelling the show so suddenly that Grodin didn\u2019t even get to say goodbye.<\/p>\n

In a post-mortem column, Newsday<\/em> journalist Marvin Kitman mourned the surprise sacking of the popular host, which he attributed to my interview. Kitman commented that my appearance \u201cwas the longest attack on a General Electric-owned network on GE for polluting the Hudson\u201d and lamented that Grodin \u201cwas one of the things that was good about TV, a genuine original, the closest thing we had to an Oscar Levant in this age of mellow-mouth talk-show hosts.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2003, the North American winners of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, known as the \u201cNobel Prize for grassroots work,\u201d were former FOX TV reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson. The two investigative reporters lost their jobs at Tampa\u2019s Fox-owned WTVT<\/em> after they refused to doctor a news report that had displeased Monsanto. The reporters had discovered Monsanto\u2019s controversial bovine growth hormone (BGH) in virtually all of the state\u2019s milk supply, despite commitments by Florida\u2019s supermarkets not to sell hormone tainted milk. After Monsanto complained to Fox President Roger Ailes, the network ordered the reporters to re-edit the show in a way that was deceptive but favorable to Monsanto.<\/p>\n

Akre later testified that the network had tried to force her and Wilson to declare BGH milk safe, despite abundant studies showing otherwise. When they refused, Fox fired the reporters. Akre and Wilson sued Fox. In August 2000, following a five-month trial, a Florida jury awarded Akre $425,000 under Florida\u2019s private-sector whistle-blower\u2019s statute, which prohibits retaliation against employees who threaten to disclose conduct that is \u201cin violation of a law, rule or regulation.\u201d The jury found that Akre had been fired \u201cbecause she threatened to disclose to the Federal Communications Commission \u2026 [Fox\u2019s] broadcast of a false, distorted or slanted news report that she reasonably believed would violate the prohibition against intentional fabrications or distortions of the news on television.\u201d<\/p>\n

During that innocent period in American history, the FCC\u2019s 50-year-old News Distortion Rule prohibited the broadcast of false reports. The First Amendment allows anyone who owns a printing press or newspaper to lie with impunity. But FCC had declared that Corporations broadcasting under federal licenses on the publicly owned airwaves had a legal obligation to serve the public interest by being truthful. Fox appealed the verdict and five major networks filed amicus curiae briefs supporting Fox\u2019s argument that lying by newscasters should not be forbidden.<\/p>\n

In a bizarre decision adopting Fox\u2019s argument, an appellate court, dominated by former corporate lawyers, reversed the lower court\u2019s finding, holding that the FCC ban on lying did not qualify as a \u201claw, rule or regulation,\u201d since it had been created over the years in decisions by FCC judges and never promulgated in a rulemaking process.<\/p>\n

This decision effectively made it legal for networks to lie in news reports to please their advertisers. Fox then sued Akre and Wilson for reimbursement for $1.7 million in legal fees.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat reporter is going to challenge a network that orders him to cover up for polluters or companies that abuse workers or engage in health and safety violations, if the station can retaliate by suing the reporter to oblivion the way the courts are letting them do to us?\u201d Wilson asked me.<\/p>\n

It was no surprise that a virtual media blackout greeted Akre and Wilson\u2019s reception of the Goldman Prize. The mainstream press altogether ignored the embarrassing story. The judicial decision proved to be steroids for Fox\u2019s explosive growth as a vessel for corporate propaganda sans fact checking. It also opened the floodgates for what has become habitual censorship by other networks in favor of corporate advertisers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe news today,\u201d Akre told me, \u201cis far more about the business of journalism than the journalism business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Due to my long, strange friendship with Roger Ailes\u2014which began in 1975 when we spent the summer in a tent together in Africa (It\u2019s a long story!)\u2014the now deceased executive regularly allowed me to appear and express contrary opinions on Fox talk shows. He drew a line, however, against direct criticism of his advertisers. In 2014, I was involved in the creation of a documentary critical of big Pharma, I asked him for an opportunity to discuss the subject on Neal Cavuto\u2019s talk show. His answer was a hard \u201cNo!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBobby,\u201d he told me, \u201cduring non-election years, the bulk of news division revenue comes from pharmaceutical advertisers. I would fire any Fox host who allowed you on their show. And if I didn\u2019t Rupert [Murdoch, the network owner] would be on the phone with me in 10 minutes demanding scalps.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elon Musk has proposed a return to the old standard which holds newscasters accountable for lying on our publicly owned airwaves. Anyone who cares about American democracy ought to agree.<\/p>\n

________________________________________________<\/p>\n

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Robert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/strong><\/a> is a longtime environmental campaigner and\u00a0author of <\/em>American Values: Lessons I Learned From My Family<\/a> <\/strong>(HarperCollins) and <\/em>Crimes Against Nature: How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy<\/strong><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original- commondreams.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Advertisers Are Calling the Shots, Don’t Call It Journalism<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":112731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112729\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}