5. The Liberal Gatekeepers: State-Corporate Power’s Little Helpers David Cromwell and David Edwards, Media Lens
On the BBC Six O’Clock News on March 20, 2006, diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall declared solemnly: “There’s still bitter disagreement over invading Iraq. Was it justified or a disastrous miscalculation?” It was a wonderful illustration of how the world’s most respected broadcaster limits the range of acceptable debate; even thought. Kendall could have asked: “There’s still bitter disagreement over invading Iraq. Was it justified or an example of the supreme war crime, the waging of a war of aggression?” But this is what the media does relentlessly: exclude possible viewpoints - in fact, accurate depictions of events - that would lead the public to fundamentally question the motives and legitimacy of power. Silence is to Western democracy what the iron fist is to Big Brother-style totalitarianism. But how can silence about Western crimes reign in ostensible democracies? First, consider that most of what the public hears about politics, including foreign policy and environmental issues, comes from the corporate media. The industry is mostly made up of large profitseeking corporations whose main task is to sell audiences to wealthy advertisers - also corporations, of course - on whom the media depend for a huge slice of their revenues. This advertising revenue is as much as 75% of a newspaper’s total income, even for the so-called quality press like the Guardian and the Independent. Remember, too, that media corporations are typically owned by wealthy individuals or giant conglomerates, and are answerable to shareholders which means they are legally obliged to subordinate