USA: Freedom of the Press: Who is Really Behind Our Mainstream Media?

Have you ever wondered who controls the media you watch, hear, and read from? In today’s society, we spend over 150 hours a month watching television. We also spent countless hours surfing the Internet, connecting on social media, watching movies, listening to music, and reading books and magazines. 

Americans are more “connected” now than ever before. It is great that most Americans have easy access to some form of mainstream media, however, it is terrifying to think that out of the thousands of television shows, news networks, newspapers, and radio stations, only six gigantic media conglomerates produce 90 percent of the media we consume.

Think about it: 6 companies are in charge of everything you see and hear. Our opinions and beliefs are shaped by what we see and hear. It is no wonder America is falling into a deep abyss full of problems and debt. What is worse is that there could be a major merging of these media conglomerates, leaving 5 companies in total control of what we see and hear.

It’s sad that most Americans still believe we live in a democracy. Our media is controlled by only 6 companies that push their own agendas by shaping people’s opinions, making people believe things they want them to believe, or possibly even distracting them from what is really going on in the world.

Why don’t we hear about trade deals like the Trans-Pacific Partnership in the news? It’s going to affect our every day lives! Why don’t we hear about how the FDA is under funded and is only inspecting 1 to 2 percent of our food imports? It’s affecting our health! Why aren’t we hearing about how companies are outsourcing all of our jobs? It is affecting our middle class!

What is really going on? Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, News Corporation, CBS Corporation, and Comcast are influencing us too much. America needs to wake up! We need to break this sick addiction to mainstream media and start thinking for ourselves. We are literally being “programmed” with these programs we watch on a daily basis.

 Read more: Who is Really Behind Our Mainstream Media? | Economy In Crisis

Freedom of the Press: ​Americans, Europeans want non-MSM coverage of intl. news poll results show

Getting their international news only from mainstream media is not what the majority of Americans and Europeans want, an opinion poll shows. Some 60 percent desire alternative sources of news coverage.

The only country among the five polled by the British company ICM Research for Sputnik news radio, in which less than half of respondents said they would like to have an alternative source of information on world affairs, was France. Forty-nine percent of the people there said they would be ‘quite interested’ or ‘interested a lot’ in it.
 
Greeks were on the other side of the spectrum, with over 80 percent vying for such a source. The US and UK were level at 57 percent, while Germany ran at 55 percent, Sputnik reported.

The majority of Europeans - UK, French, German and Greek residents among them - distrust mainstream media coverage of the conflict in eastern Ukraine, a recent poll targeting over 4,000 people, reveals.

Greeks appear to have showed the least faith in their domestic media, with a total of 76 percent saying they were ‘fairly’ or ‘totally distrustful’ of mainstream reports on Ukraine. In Germany, the same opinion was shared by 57 percent of respondents.

Britons, on the other hand, have great trust in the mainstream media’s handling of the situation. As many as 55 percent of respondents stated they put a fair amount of trust in the coverage of events in eastern Ukraine by British media. Some 33 percent said it was biased, however.

In France, 47 percent of respondents said they don't trust the Ukraine conflict coverage.

EU-Digest
 
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