Archive for the ‘Media Control’ Category

Mandela coverage – the urgent need for corporate-free media

Now that Nelson Mandela has finally been laid to rest, its worth reflecting not only on an historically significant figure, but the crucial truths an international media has sought to bury, says John Hilley.

Bush and Bono paying their respects to Mandela

And, in the wake of that relentless distortion of Mandelas life and cause, its an urgent reminder of the need for a radical new media, completely released from the constraints of corporate control.

The treatment of Mandelas death and memorial has shown just what a vital service state-corporate journalism performs in disguising systemic crimes, whitewashing elite offenders and mythologising those deemed useful to that selective narrative.

Or, rather, its shown precisely none of this to a public massively smothered by political and media groupthink.

Notable here has been the focus on Mandelas capacity for forgiveness, an honourable character trait, of course. Yet, as pinpointedly shown by Media Lens, emotionally potent over-simplifications have been used here to twisted effect. Thus:

many journalists have rightly praised Mandelas forgiveness. But the state-corporate system also has a generous capacity for excusing torturers, dictators, terrorists, and even former enemies like Mandela anyone who serves the deep interests of power and profit in some way.

So, while in life and death Hugo Chavez whose revolutionary movement sought to resist Western-corporate dictate was damned and derided as an egotistical tyrant, Nelson Mandela whose African National Congress embraced that neoliberal agenda was forgiven and hailed as a saintly liberator.

Another welcome antidote to this choice media adulation can be found in Greg Palasts fine dissection of the rampant hypocrisy and dollification of Mandela, laying bare the real story of how, beyond the standard media narrative, his triumph over political apartheid came at the cost of a continued and deepening economic apartheid.

Like Media Lens, Palast also corrects the much-vaunted line on Mandelas ready forgiveness:

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Mandela coverage – the urgent need for corporate-free media

Liberty Media Down to Underperform – Analyst Blog

We downgrade our recommendation on Liberty Media Corp. ( LMCA ) to Underperform based on its disappointing third quarter of 2013 financial results. Both the top and the bottom line fell below the respective Zacks Consensus Estimate. We do not find any near-term growth catalyst for the company. Currently, Liberty Media carries a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell).

Why the Downgrade?

Liberty Media is steadily restructuring its business model, targeting to control several subscription-based businesses. We believe that the strategic investment in several subscription-based companies will make the company's overall financials volatile. Liberty Media currently controls a 27.3% stake in Charter Communications Inc. ( CHTR ), the fourth largest pay-TV operator in the U.S.

Liberty Media is aggressively pursuing an idea so that Charter Communications can acquire Time Warner Cable Inc. ( TWC ), the second largest cable MSO (multi service operator) in the U.S. However, Charter needs to raise at least $25 billion for this takeover, which will significantly leverage the company's balance sheet.

Even if Charter succeeds to raise that amount from the market, other competitors such as Comcast Corp. ( CMCSA ), Cox Communications and several private equity firms may offer more attractive bids for Time Warner Cable.

Liberty Media's businesses are susceptible to rapid technological changes. Large cable TV operators are increasingly deploying digital TV networks, which are gradually gaining huge market traction. Increasing deployment of personal video recorders, video-on-demand technology and IPTV network are systematically changing the distribution and viewing habits of the common people.

The multi-channel video market in the U.S. is almost saturated. Roughly, 87% of the TV households in the U.S. are multi-channel TV subscribers. It is not easy to lure customers from competitors since every operator is offering innovative packages.

CHARTER COMM-A (CHTR): Free Stock Analysis Report

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Liberty Media Down to Underperform - Analyst Blog

Propaganda model – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The propaganda model is a conceptual model in political economy advanced by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky that states how propaganda, including systemic biases, function in mass media. The model seeks to explain how populations are manipulated and how consent for economic, social and political policies is "manufactured" in the public mind due to this propaganda.

The theory posits that the way in which news is structured (through advertising, media ownership, government sourcing and others) creates an inherent conflict of interest which acts as propaganda for undemocratic forces.

First presented in their 1988 book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, the "propaganda model" views the private media as businesses interested in the sale of a productreaders and audiencesto other businesses (advertisers) rather than that of quality news to the public. Describing the media's "societal purpose", Chomsky writes, "... the study of institutions and how they function must be scrupulously ignored, apart from fringe elements or a relatively obscure scholarly literature".[1] The theory postulates five general classes of "filters" that determine the type of news that is presented in news media. These five classes are:

The first three are generally regarded by the authors as being the most important. In versions after September 11, Chomsky and Herman updated the fifth prong to instead refer to the War on Terror and antiterrorism, although they say it operates in much the same manner.

Although the model was based mainly on the characterization of United States media, Chomsky and Herman believe the theory is equally applicable to any country that shares the basic economic structure and organizing principles which the model postulates as the cause of media biases.[2]

The size and profit-seeking imperative of dominant media corporations are said to create a bias. The authors point to how in the early nineteenth century, a radical British press had emerged which addressed the concerns of workers but excessive stamp duties, designed to restrict newspaper ownership to the 'respectable' wealthy, began to change the face of the press. Nevertheless there remained a degree of diversity. In postwar Britain, radical or worker-friendly newspapers such as the Daily Herald, News Chronicle, Sunday Citizen (all since failed or absorbed into other publications) and the Daily Mirror (at least until the late 1970s) regularly published articles questioning the capitalist system. The authors posit that these earlier radical papers were not constrained by corporate ownership and were therefore free to criticize the capitalist system.

Herman and Chomsky argue that since mainstream media outlets are currently either large corporations or part of conglomerates (e.g. Westinghouse or General Electric), the information presented to the public will be biased with respect to these interests. Such conglomerates frequently extend beyond traditional media fields and thus have extensive financial interests that may be endangered when certain information is publicized. According to this reasoning, news items that most endanger the corporate financial interests of those who own the media will face the greatest bias and censorship.

It then follows that if to maximize profit means sacrificing news objectivity, then the news sources that ultimately survive must be fundamentally biased, with regard to news in which they have a conflict of interest. In the United States, regulations require that broadcasters disclose such conflict of interest.[citation needed]

The second filter of the propaganda model is funding generated through advertising. Most newspapers have to attract advertising in order to cover the costs of production; without it, they would have to increase the price of their newspaper. There is fierce competition throughout the media to attract advertisers; a newspaper which gets less advertising than its competitors is at a serious disadvantage. Lack of success in raising advertising revenue was another factor in the demise of the 'people's newspapers' of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The product is composed of the affluent readers who buy the newspaper who also comprise the educated decision-making sector of the population while the actual clientele served by the newspaper includes the businesses that pay to advertise their goods. According to this filter, the news is "filler" to get privileged readers to see the advertisements which makes up the content and will thus take whatever form is most conducive to attracting educated decision-makers. Stories that conflict with their "buying mood", it is argued, will tend to be marginalized or excluded, along with information that presents a picture of the world that collides with advertisers' interests. The theory argues that the people buying the newspaper are the product which is sold to the businesses that buy advertising space; the news has only a marginal role as the product.

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Propaganda model - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Want to know the truth? Verifiable information on banking …

For Those Who Want To Know

This website provides a concise, reliable introduction to vital information of which few are aware. We specialize in providing fact-filled news articles and concise summaries of major cover-ups which impact our lives and world. All information is taken from the most reliable sources available and can be verified using the links provided. Sources are always noted, with links direct to the information source provided when possible.

WantToKnow.info presents this information as an opportunity for you to educate yourself and others, and to inspire us to strengthen democracy and to work together for the good of all.

Frequent visitors can explore our most recent posts at this link. Summaries of recent news articles that should have made front page news are also available here. And you can read key excerpts from 20 of the most revealing major media news articles ever published at this link. For those new to this website, please read on.

Did you know that:

Note: If you are already aware of these cover-ups, please visit our page which will take you even deeper.

If the facts presented above were reported in headline news where they belong, concerned citizens would be astounded and demand to know more. This has not happened, which is why we felt compelled to create this website. The verifiable information presented here may at first disturb you. It may even change the way you look at the world. Yet we invite you to see this as a powerful opportunity for building a brighter future. By sharing this vital information with your friends and colleagues, you can play a key role in restoring a true democracy of the people, by the people, and for the people.

We encourage you to be skeptical in exploring this information. Some of what you read may at first seem quite unbelievable. Yet we also encourage you to keep an open mind and do a little research using the links to the reliable sources provided and determine for yourself whether there is truth to the information provided.

The powerful information presented here is a wake-up call. It is a call to move beyond complacency and apathy to focus on our deeper purpose in life and on creating the world we want to live in. It is a call for each of us to focus on moving from fear to love. If we want to make this world a better place, understanding what's happening behind the scenes can be vitally important. By exploring the reliable, verifiable information and knowledge provided here and spreading it far and wide, each one of us can make a difference.

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Third World Traveler, third world, United States foreign …

THIRD WORLD TRAVELER is an archive of articles and book excerpts that seek to tell the truth about American democracy, media, and foreign policy, and about the impact of the actions of the United States government, central banks, global financial and trade institutions, transnational corporations and the corporate media, on democracy, social and economic justice, human rights, and war and peace, in the Third World, and in the developed world. THIRD WORLD TRAVELER also provides information and links to aid international travelers. Visitors are encouraged to buy the books and subscribe to the magazines, to ask their libraries to put them on the shelves and their bookstores to stock them, to visit the websites, and to tell others about the wealth of information that these independent news sources provide. For, without public awareness of and support for independent authors, publications, and websites, this much-needed information may not continue to be available. "Believe nothing, no matter where you read it, or who said it, unless your own reason and your own common sense agree." Gautama Buddha (the quotation is a paraphrase of the original) "To oppose the policies of a government does not mean you are against the country or the people that the government supposedly represents. Such opposition should be called what it really is: democracy, or democratic dissent, or having a critical perspective about what your leaders are doing. Either we have the right to democratic dissent and criticism of these policies or we all lie down and let the leader, the Fuhrer, do what is best, while we follow uncritically, and obey whatever he commands. That's just what the Germans did with Hitler, and look where it got them." Michael Parenti Daniel Ellsberg / Philip Agee / John Stockwell / Ray McGovern / Gary Webb / Julian Assange William Binney / Russell Tice / Thomas Drake / Sibel Edmonds / Bradley Manning / Edward Snowdon / Jeremy Hammond John Kiriakou / Coleen Rowley / Karen Kwiatkowski / Wendell Potter / Jesselyn Radack / Mark Klein "The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth." H. L. Mencken "Our real heroes are those who have tried to tell us the truth." Robert Fearn "We Americans are the ultimate innocents. We are forever desperate to believe that this time the government is telling us the truth." Sydney Schanberg "The master planners devised the strategy of a merger - a Great Merger - among nations. But before such a merger can be consummated, and the United States becomes just another province in a New World Order, there must at least be the semblance of parity among the senior partners in the deal. How does one make the nations of the world more nearly equal? The Insiders determined that a two-prong approach was needed; use American money and know-how to build up your competitors, while at the same time use every devious strategy you can devise to weaken and impoverish this country. The goal is not to bankrupt the United States. Rather, it is to reduce our productive might, and therefore our standard of living, to the meager subsistence level of the socialized nations of the world. The plan is not to bring the standard of living in less developed countries up to our level, but to bring ours down to meet theirs coming up... It is your standard of living which must be sacrificed on the altar of the New World Order." Gary Allen in his book "The Rockefeller File" Aung San Suu Kyi THIRD WORLD TRAVELER - SITE MAP "During the past two centuries when the peoples of the world were gradually winning their political freedom from the dynastic monarchies, the major banking families of Europe and America were actually reversing the trend by setting up new dynasties of political control through the formation of international financial combines. These banking dynasties had learned that all governments must have sources of revenue from which to borrow in times of emergency. They had also learned that by providing such funds from their own private resources, they could make both kings and democratic leaders tremendously subservient to their will." Carroll Quigley in his book "Tragedy and Hope" "What the press do is they tell you lies, lies they already know you want to hear. The press can figure out what its readers or viewers believe, and make a hell of a living pandering to their egos and telling them that they're smart. They lie and tell the audience they are right, and they never have to change your mind about anything. And the audience rewards them, lauding them and paying them money to keep hearing those sweet, self-serving lies." Allan Uthman Noam Chomsky THIRD WORLD TRAVELER - SEARCH PAGE "There is a transnational ruling class, a "Superclass", that agrees on establishing a world government. The middle class is targeted for elimination, because most of the world has no middle class, and to fully integrate and internationalize a middle class, would require industrialization and development in Africa, and certain places in Asia and Latin America. The goal of the Superclass is not to lose their wealth and power to a transnational middle class, but rather to extinguish the notion of a middle class, and transnationalize a lower, uneducated, labor oriented class, through which they will secure ultimate wealth and power. The global economic crisis serves these ends, as whatever remaining wealth the middle class holds is in the process of being eliminated, and as the crisis progresses, the middle classes of the world will suffer, while a great percentage of lower classes of the world, poverty-stricken even prior to the crisis, will suffer the greatest, most probably leading to a massive reduction in population levels, particularly in the "underdeveloped" or "Third World" states." Andrew Gavin Marshall BEYOND THE MEDIA MATRIX BREAKING THROUGH THE MATRIX OF THE CORPORATE MEDIA TO REVEAL THE WORLD AS IT REALLY IS "Today Americans would be outraged if UN troops entered Los Angeles to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful. This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil. The one thing every man fears is the unknown. When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted to them by their world government." Henry Kissinger speaking at the annual Bilderberger meeting, May 21, 1992 "Ever since the days of Henry Ford, the Economic Elite have needed a thriving US middle class to increase growth and profits, but now, in the global economy, they view the US middle class as obsolete. They increasingly look globally for profits and they would rather pay cheap labor in countries like China and India." David DeGraw REAL WORLD ORDER WHO RULES THE WORLD ? "Not all conspiracies are theories." "People, governments and economies of all nations must serve the needs of multinational banks and corporations." Zbigniew Brzezinski "Some believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as "internationalists" and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure - one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it." David Rockefeller in his "Memoirs" HOW THE WORLD REALLY WORKS The Pope / Evelyn De Rothschild / Queen Elizabeth II / David Rockefeller RULING ELITES NEW WORLD ORDER ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT "We are ruled, though it may be difficult to imagine, by a small dynastic power structure, largely consisting of powerful banking families, such as the Rothschilds, Rockefellers, and others. They emerged in controlling the financial system, extended their influence over the political system, the educational system, and, through the major foundations, have become the dominant social powers of our world, creating think tanks and other institutions which shape and change the course of society and modern human history." Andrew Gavin Marshall "The general public are viewed as no more than ignorant and meddlesome outsiders, a bewildered herd. And it's the responsible men who have to make decisions and to protect society from the trampling and rage of the bewildered herd. Now since it's a democracy they - the herd, that is - are permitted occasionally to lend their weight to one or another member of the responsible class. That's called an election." Noam Chomsky QUOTATIONS TO MAKE US THINK The Thinker by Rodin a searchable database of quotations - excerpted from hundreds of books and thousands of articles - challenging conventional wisdom "The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching aim - nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent private meetings and conferences. The apex of the system was to be the Bank for International Settlements [BIS] in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations ... Each central bank sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world." Carroll Quigley in his book "Tragedy and Hope" "The media are a pitiful lot. They don't give us any history, they don't give us any analysis, they don't tell us anything. They don't raise the most basic questions: Who has the most weapons of mass destruction in the world by far? Who has used weapons of mass destruction more than any other nation? Who has killed more people in this world with weapons of mass destruction than any other nation? The answer: the United States." Howard Zinn PATHOCRACY: THE GLOBAL ORDER DO PSYCHOPATHS RULE THE WORLD? Roman Emperor Caligula Throughout history, psychopaths, sociopaths and character-disordered individuals have ruled societies. And, they rule ours. "Americans are too broadly underinformed to digest nuggets of information that seem to contradict what they know of the world. Instead, news channels prefer to feed Americans a constant stream of simplified information, all of which fits what they already know. That way they don't have to devote more air time or newsprint space to explanations or further investigations... Politicians and the media have conspired to infantilize, to dumb down, the American public. At heart, politicians don't believe that Americans can handle complex truths, and the news media, especially television news, basically agrees." Tom Fenton "I spent 33 years in the Marines, most of my time being a high-class muscle man for big business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for Capitalism... The general public shoulders the bill. This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones, Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations." Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler, 1935 John Perkins INTERNET NEWS & INFORMATION "Americans are wonderfully courteous to strangers, yet indiscriminately shoot kids in schools. They believe they are masters of the world, yet know nothing about what goes on outside their shores. They are people who believe the world stretches from California to Boston and everything outside is the bit they have to bomb to keep the price of oil down. Only one in five Americans hold a passport and the only foreign stories that make their news are floods, famine, and wars, because it makes them feel good to be an American. Feeling good to be American is what they live for. " Brian Reade, London columnist DOCUMENTARIES, VIDEOS, & PHOTOS PAGE "War means blind obedience, unthinking stupidity, brutish callousness, wanton destruction, and irresponsible murder." Alexander Berkman MEDIA - MAIN PAGE Glenn Greenwald / Michel Chossudovsky / Chris Hedges / John Pilger / Oliver Stone "Most Americans have no idea that what we are fed by the news media is nothing more than a portrayal of what powerful corporations want us to believe, that what happens to pass as education is as often as not mere propaganda, that what we learn in church may have very little or nothing to do with the truth, that what our parents teach us may be nothing more than an accumulation of their own personal biases, no doubt a rather subtle modification of what they were taught by their parents. And through such a process, governments and nations around the world wield control as to what their citizens, believe, value, and do." Doug Soderstrom BOOK EXCERPTS - SORTED ALPHABETICALLY BOOK EXCERPTS - SORTED BY SUBJECT Internet News and Information page Independent Press & Publishers pagePropaganda page Public relations watch Project Censored pageMedia Control pageBroadcast Media watch "What the press do is they tell you lies, lies they already know you want to hear. The press can figure out what its readers or viewers believe, and make a hell of a living pandering to their egos and telling them that they're smart. They lie and tell the audience they are right, and they never have to change your mind about anything. And the audience rewards them, lauding them and paying them money to keep hearing those sweet, self-serving lies." Allan Uthman Media pageMedia watchMedia Reform Print Media pageGlobal Media pageMedia & New World Order page Magazines pageProgressive Media Links Think Tank watchFreedom of Information Act - Help Center "More than fifty years ago the [J.P.] Morgan firm decided to infiltrate the Left-wing political movements in the United States. This was relatively easy to do, since these groups were starved for funds and eager for a voice to reach the people. Wall Street supplied both. The purpose was not to destroy ... or take over but was really threefold: (1) to keep informed about the thinking of Left-wing or liberal groups; (2) to provide them with a mouthpiece so that they could "blow off steam," and (3) to have a final veto on their publicity and possibly on their actions, if they ever went "radical". Carroll Quigley in his book "Tragedy and Hope" AUTHORS' PAGE Howard Zinn / William Blum / Chalmers Johnson / F. William Engdahl / Paul Craig Roberts "Communism and socialism are themselves forms of monopoly. The only difference is that in this case, the monopoly is operated by the government. But what if an international banker, through loans to the state, manipulation of a central bank, campaign contributions, or bribes, is able to achieve dominion over a government? In that case, he would find socialism welcome, for it would serve him as an instrument to control society." James Perloff CORPORATE MEDIA'S THREAT TO DEMOCRACY

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Third World Traveler, third world, United States foreign ...