He put it well at the end of the book: 'Can it really be argued that elites have no power over the news organizations they own or finance? Or that if they do have power, they never use it'? I think not.Ī great book that goes beyond a structural analysis of the news media's faults but gets directly into their political and societal function as both a public information service and 'its irreducible responsibility. Parenti basically aruges that OF COURSE privately owned media companies controlled by disgustingly wealthy people (with names and addresses) will ultimately choose profits over fair and measured reporting. It doesn't hurt media moguls when, by beating their chests and crusading for progressive causes, they develop a fanatically loyal viewer base numbering in the hundreds of millions spread out across the globe. Major news giants are happy to wax lyrical about the benefits of so long as it doesn't hurt profits. The same is true for media organizations. It doesn't hurt shareholders when millions of Yass Kweens buy gay rainbow headbands at $45 a pop. Their 'progressive' slant is all misdirection. These corporations 'championing' progressivism are the same corporations whipping Bangladeshi children in sweatshops, polluting the crick, and spending billions on lobbying schemes.

It took me a while to realize that he is completely correct, even in our era of blatant corporate progressive shilling (#BLM Nike shirts, #TRANSISBEAUTIFUL Adidas coder socks, #LOVEISLOVE gay mug at shartmart). A comprehensive breakdown of how and why American media organizations submit to the ~general~ aims of the American state (particularly concerning foreign policy), how overt censorship is rarely necessary because journalists have grown accustomed to self-censorship, and how a superwealthy class of media owners have used information as a tool to increase their personal wealth.Įarly on I was a bit annoyed by Parenti's much-repeated claim that American media companies are controlled by a deeply conservative class of people who use their positions of power to give news media a markedly conservative slant.

Inventing Reality by Michael Parenti