Is Corporate Media Breaking the First Amendment?

By Doria Montfort on 07/16/2009

The First amendment was ratified to protect the freedom of press and preserve the masses from the oppressive governmental control and sociopolitical manipulation that often results from the mass reception of important information from a single source. However, with the current press controlled and funded by giants not limited to News Corp., Viacom, and AOL/Time-Warner, it seems reasonable to evaluate how much freedom actually exists in the press.

When the majority of popular media is acquired from a regulated market controlled by a few corporations, information becomes a product glossed into a desirable and purchasable form. As a result, truly independent sources dishing out what may be more relevant but less packaged information disappear quickly in the shadow of their monopolized opponents. Consequently, the unfair balance of vendors allows for an unfair balance of information. In that sense, the press is only as free as the market it exists in.

With such a weighted media enterprise, it is clear why so many people obsessively dwell on every detail relating to Michael Jackson's prescription drug abuse, David Carradine's autoerotic asphyxiation, or Lindsey Lohan's current state of alcoholism. It is easy to gravitate towards the overflowing stream of superficial, overtly formulized media when it is so clear, easily accessible, and consistently flowing. Since the press is given so much freedom to write about whatever gritty details relate to these specific money-generating subjects, audiences are too distracted to question whether or not these corporations are allowing all the facts about serious issues that could affect our country and society in a dramatic manner.

Censorship by omission puts audiences in a position to find themselves inadequately versed on more pressing issues, such as the progress of the on going Guantanamo bay hearings, or why, as of yet, the patriot act has not been repealed. These topics may be present in the Newspaper, but they still come second in priority to the more instinctually appealing, sexual or substance related scandals making the money and the headlines. After all, people's eyes are naturally drawn to the larger font and the provocative pictures. Less glamour-driven news is not packaged in the same aesthetic fashion. Furthermore producers and editors fear deviating from what makes instant money because their livelihoods depend on the continuation of proven practices instead of publishing necessary but controversial stories that may not please their bosses or the government. As a result this information flows into muddier, side tributaries, hiding the flecks of valuable information not found in the prominent currents of information.

With all this information at hand, the question begs itself: Are these corporations breaking the first amendment by giving people the scandalous stories they want to hear rather than the scary, yet truthful, stories they need to hear? Certainly CEO's controlling billions of dollars have a political agenda that does not involve the upheaval of the status quo or angering the administration that allows them to flourish. However, through controlling the media market and pushing available information into a direction irrelevant from the issues at hand, is that not a clever manner of inhibiting the freedom of the press?

[Additional Photos: "Corporate Censorship", Flickr.com, 2009]