"Democracy Dies in Darkness," Says the Motto of the Washington Post, as They Help Turn Out the Lights

"Profit Motive" and "Free Press" is an Oxymoron

To conservatives, anything that isn't favorable toward their preferred perspective and politicians, and which calls out and reports negative information about them is biased, as far as they are concerned.  The idea of finding a "niche" among the population that is prone to believe conspiracy theories and that is lacking enough education and discernment to actually distinguish between facts and what they perceive as some kind of bias was exploited by Rush Limbaugh.  He found his "niche audience" on AM radio, a medium with which he was familiar from his days of playing records and announcing song titles and artists as a disc jockey.     

AM radio was dying, as the music and entertainment had moved over to the FM side of the dial where it had a much clearer, crisper signal.  AM stations, especially in smaller media markets, were going silent.  The combination of Limbaugh's political ideology, and building a network of radio stations, mostly AM talk formats, in places scattered around the country within reach of the audience who shared the fears and believed in the conspiracy theories he pandered turned into a money making operation, the bulk of it went in his pocket, but there was enough that came in from local advertisers to help AM stations scrape by and avoid bankruptcy or buyouts.  

I worked for a radio station in a small town in South Texas, originally just a 5,000 watt AM signal that played country music.  When I worked there, the owner had borrowed money and invested in adding an FM transmitter for the music side of the broadcast, letting the DJ's go, and subscribing to a satellite broadcast to save money on personnel, while the AM side was a news radio station that had a radius of over 100 miles.  It barely broke even, after paying personnel and consulting expenses for outside news and talk sources.  So he joined Limbaugh's EIB network, basically mortgaging the station property to pay the subscription fee, and got four hours a day from the network, two of it Limbaugh's own show.  

The network didn't exist to "save" the small town radio stations on which it built its audience.  In this case, the station picked up enough listeners to attract a few long term advertising contracts from local businesses who wanted their ads aired during the EIB shows.  Though the station paid a high monthly subscription to be on EIB, it was allowed only eight sixty-second advertising spots during the whole four hour time slot.  Basically, the money generated from the local advertisers they picked up paid the monthly fee to EIB for the satellite feed.  Limbaugh made millions off of hundreds of these small town radio stations.  The radio station owner, still in debt for the improvements he made, without sufficient income to pay it off, eventually sold out to a media corporation and two counties lost their only local news and radio voice.  

And that illustrates what's going on in America's "free press."  It has grown into a system that has been made to work for its ownership's political interests.  There is no interest anymore in defending Democracy or in protecting "we, the people" from tyranny.  The "niche" audience of people on the political left is still large enough and effective enough to have some influence, and make a place for itself in the market, as we see in MSNBC, and to some extent, still has some influence in the corporate board rooms of the three major networks.  But this is not a free press.  That has died. This is now, like just about everything else in the United States, a commodity that can be bought and sold in the marketplace.  

I couldn't move forward here without mentioning Rupert Murdock.  No links, no credit, and one paragraph to simply say that this is one of the biggest obstacles in America to a free press.  If it were possible to sue and hold accountable one person for the damage done by decades of misinformation, it would be this man, and his Fox News empire.  They were sued, by the way, in a crippling way, and I am praying that there's more of this on the way.  That would be one magnificent way to help turn some of the lights back on.  If that would extend to all of the right wing extremist wannabees who have followed Murdock's model and imitated his despicable character, like Newsmax and others of that ilk, we might have a free press again at some point.  This is one big reason why we no longer do.  

It's Not a "Free" Press if it Can Be Bought and Sold

It is ironic that, in the United States today, one of the more "fair and balanced" media outlets is PBS, the government owned, taxpayer supported network.  It's about as bland and non-controversial as it can possibly be, though I do give it credit for protecting free expression, especially when it is in danger of being lost simply because of a lack of enough popularity to generate revenue.  Popularity should never be a determining factor in the cultural, social, or personal value of any art form or free expression and in that regard, PBS is a gift.  I wonder if it would survive a second Trump term in office? 

The only other "fair and balanced" media that exists in the United States is the collection of listener supported news outlets and media brands that have formed.  They do not have the money to provide the kind of staffing necessary to gain the listening audiences and the ratings that would make them a highly effective factor in the convoluted politics we now face because of the failure of our justice system and the breaking of the Constitutional guardrails intended to protect the people's power from usurpation by dictatorship.  

But they do exist.  And in this season of political turmoil, they are still giving light in the growing darkness.  

One of the priorities that I personally see for a Harris Administration, if enough support can be gathered in Congress, is the prohibition, on constitutional grounds, of the ownership of media outlets by corporations.  We need to keep media outlets from being owned by big business interests, and we also need to keep the ownership of media outlets independent.  No one should be allowed to own, and thus have editorial control, over multiple radio, television and internet media outlets.  

And we need someone at the FCC who is willing to put teeth into enforcing fairness, once those laws are changed.  

In the meantime, I will share some links that I hope will be beneficial and provide some peace of mind in this time of media confusion and usurpation.  

Common Dreams

Pacifica Network

AlterNet

Democracy Now!

McClatchy DC

Mother Jones

Nation of Change

Salon

The American Prospect

The Intercept

The Nation

The Atlantic

Baptist News Global

The New Yorker