Corporations have no bodies or souls to punish their influence over politicians’ campaigns ensuring they are the purveyors of interests for a price. America’s largest corporations form a queue to buy that influence.
While the industry reaped record profits, Fox painted oil companies as the victim of a fake war on fossil fuels
Source: Fox has shamelessly spent 2022 bootlicking the fossil fuel industry | Media Matters for America
FAIR & BLANCED (ODT)
On February 5, President Donald Trump gave his 2019 State of the Union address. It was filled with misinformation and anti-immigrant bigotry, often sounding similar to Sean Hannity’s Fox News show. While mainstream news outlets fact-checked the many lies and misleading claims in the speech, Fox News figures heaped enthusiastic praise on Trump’s address, calling it “one of the best speeches I’ve ever heard in terms of reaching across the aisle,” gushing that “the president delivered, I think, a message of unity,” claiming “Trump is going to be recognized as one of the greatest presidents of our generation, if not the greatest,” and more:
via Fox News figures salivate over Trump’s 2019 State of the Union address
However, the most important part of the story isn’t the question of partisan bias. It’s that a national station group is forcing content on local stations. To many, what Sinclair is doing is precisely what U.S. broadcast policy is supposed to protect against: a single company advancing an agenda to a majority of the country using the public good of broadcast spectrum.
The ConversationWith Sinclair’s pending purchase of Tribune Media’s 42 stations, the company’s reach is only poised to grow.
via Danger: Sinclair is advancing its agenda using the public broadcast spectrum | Informed Comment
From all the recent hand-wringing about “fake news,” you would think that the hand-wringers had never stood in a supermarket checkout line, surrounded by 72-point headlines about alien abductions and miracle cures.
Source: Fake News Is Not the Real Media Threat We’re Facing | The Nation
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