CORPORATE REFORM NEEDED IN US TO IMPROVE CORPORATION-OWNED MASS MEDIA, AUTHOR SAYS
December 15th 2007 20:34
The US mass media "is controlled by a handful of very large companies" such as General Electric, Disney, Westinghouse, CBS and Fox that "are under very strong pressure to make a lot of money" and do so by degrading news to the level of entertainment for which there is a broader audience, according to Lee Drutman, communication director of the Washington-based non-profit Citizen Works and co-author with Charlie Cray of the new book The People's Business: Controlling Corporations and Restructuring Democracy (Berrett-Koehler).
Drutman said corporate owners of mass media are providing "very little coverage of politics and world events."
Drutman said he detects "a palpable shift" in public opinion as "people are getting fed up with the greed of corporations," and asserted the challenge is to build "broad support for corporate reform by reducing the clout of corporations, for example, in elections, through public funding of
elections.
The author said European and Asian corporations tend to be structured differently from their American counterparts and thus conduct themselves more in the public interest.
"In Germany, you'll find the workers sit on the board of directors and the company is also run by and for its workers, and that’s very common in European, socialist-leaning states where there is much more of a sense that the company has an obligation to its workers and communities."
Drutman said this spirit exists in Japanese and other Asian corporations that operate beyond the narrow interest of stakeholders.
- From MediaBlab
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