Glenn Greenwald: The Scope -- and Dangers -- of GE's Control of NBC and MSNBC

[marmar]

via CommonDreams:



Published on Monday, August 3, 2009 by Salon.com
The Scope -- and Dangers -- of GE's Control of NBC and MSNBC

by Glenn Greenwald


I want to return to the subject of GE's silencing of Keith Olbermann both because there are new facts I've obtained that shed light on what happened here and because this is one of the most blatant examples yet of pernicious corporate control over America's journalism. The most striking aspect of this episode is that GE isn't even bothering any longer to deny the fact that they exert control over MSNBC's journalism. They've brazenly dispensed with the long-held fiction of the sanctity of journalistic independence from interference by the corporate parents that own America's largest news organizations.

Instead, GE is now openly and proudly boasting of their editorial control over the news organizations they own, and publicly rubbing it in the faces of NBC News journalists that they're subservient to GE's corporate agenda. Look at this smug, creepy quote from GE executive spokesman Gary Sheffer explaining in The New York Times why GE issued its gag order preventing Olbermann from criticizing Fox and O'Reilly, all but mocking NBC and MSNBC journalists as nothing more than GE's office of corporate spokespeople:

"We all recognize that a certain level of civility needed to be introduced into the public discussion," Gary Sheffer, a spokesman for G.E., said this week. "We’re happy that has happened."

Why is GE even speaking for MSNBC's editorial decisions at all? Needless to say, GE doesn't care in the slightest about "civility" in general. Mika Brzezinski can spout that people who dislike Sarah Palin aren't "real Americans" and Chris Matthews can say about George Bush that "everybody sort of likes the president, except for the real whack-jobs," and GE executives won't (and didn't) bat an eye. What they mean by "civility" is: "thou shalt not criticize anyone who can harm GE's business interests or who will report on our actions." Thus: GE's journalists will stop reporting critically on Fox and its top assets because Fox can expose actions of GE that we want to keep concealed. ...........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/03-11

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. r

[Uncle Joe]

2. The parent corporations of the corporate media should be divested of their news divisions, they've

betrayed the public trust.

Thanks for the thread, marmar.

[Tutankhamun]

3. Yet most Americans still get their news amost exclusively from TV.

Which is why they will look at you like you're crazy if you mention the corporate influence in he MSM. "You crazy conspiracy theorist."

[Bozita]

4. kicking for Glenn Greenwald

[KoKo]

5. Kick...he makes good points. People often forget who pays the salaries

of even those folks we like at MSNBC..and we forget how quickly folks can be turned when they need to make a living. It could happen.

[TheWraith]

6. This article is bullshit.

Keith has publically stated that there is no such deal.

[bertman]

7. Keith was always "civil". It was O'Reilly the asshat who wasn't civil.

Rec.