Upholding the Marxist View of the News Media
http://english.qstheory.cn/magazine/201401/201402/t20140208_318982.htm (Dead Link)
by Li Baoshan
From the English Edition of Qiushi Journal Vol.6 No. 1 January 1, 2014
Originally appeared in Qiushi Journal, Chinese edition, No. 16, 2013
Views of the news media pertain to overall views and fundamental opinions with regard to news phenomena and news activities. The Communist Party of China (CPC) believes that news activities should be guided by the Marxist view of the news media. This view is particularly relevant at present. In this article, I would like to present some opinions with regard to some issues of common concern.
Qiushi Journal is the organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, CPC
"[…] The considerable cost of running a media outlet dictates that only the rich can afford to run a media organization, and only tycoons and large financial groups can afford to run major media organizations. The most powerful Western media organizations, those that play a decisive role in world news, command global broadcasting, and exert an enormous influence on world politics, economy, ideology, and culture, are actually controlled by a small handful of families. The Wall Street Journal, the Fox Broadcasting Company, and The Times all belong to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp; CBS Broadcasting, Inc., Paramount Television, and MTV belong to Viacom Incorporated, which is controlled by the Redstone family; the world’s largest book publisher, Penguin Random House, Europe’s largest television broadcasting company, the RTL Group, and its largest magazine publishing group, Gruner + Jahr, all belong to the Bertelsmann Company, which is owned by the Mohn family; the New York Times Company, controlled by the Sulzberger family, owns The New York Times and the International Herald Tribune; and the Chandler family has long controlled the Los Angeles Times. In Britain, the Thompson family controls Reuters, one of the world’s four largest news agencies; the Pearson family owns the Financial Times, The Economist, and Pearson PLC, which runs the largest TV network in Europe; and The Guardian has been always controlled by the Scott family. In the U.S., the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) has been bought out by the General Electric Company, which is controlled by the Morgan Financial Group; Cable News Network (CNN) is owned by Time Warner Incorporated, whose 11 board members are almost all executives of investment banks, transnational corporations, or media companies, or former high-ranking government officials; and Disney, a huge media company and the owner of the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), has a number of former or current executives from large enterprises such as Procter and Gamble, Visa, Google, and Starbucks on its board. Such an intricate web of power constitutes the true picture of the Western media.
Independent media may be independent of governments and political parties, but it can never be independent of capital. The media can independently hold politicians to account, criticize political parties and governments, drive politicians out of office, condemn a political party to defeat in an election, and even force a change of government, yet they will never fundamentally question, criticize, or oppose their capitalist chiefs, or the capitalist system. The capitalist system is the arena in which capitalists thrive. This is why the mainstream U.S. media, who has always reveled in its “all-encompassing scrutiny,” was somehow unable to expose or predict the international financial crisis, a crisis that resulted from the greed of Wall Street tycoons, and that not only damaged the U.S., but also sent shockwaves around the world. This is also the reason why they are so indifferent to the Occupy Wall Street movement, which has taken target at the deep-rooted flaws within capitalism, believing that the movement has “no news value.” In fact, the Occupy Wall Street movement is about the 99% fighting against the 1%, and this 1% just happens to include the monopoly capitalist groups that control the so-called independent media. To them, the media is nothing but a mouthpiece and a tool.
People in the West often say that state-owned media represents the monopolization of the media through state power. The way we see it, private media can mean only the monopolization of the media through capital."