Presenting the Brita news filter

La Verdad
    By Terra Lawson-Remer

The morning paper, the evening news. Crinkled newsprint and plastic anchormen inform us of "important world affairs." Muffy stuck in a tree again? Russia tottering on the brink of collapse? What, indeed, is the news that's fit to print?

The world had, at last count, 161 nation-states of varying sizes. Ethnic conflicts, economic instability, and brutal violence rack many of these regularly. Bosnia and Iraq get reported. Chiapas and Burma, along with vast brethren of shadow actors on the world stage, remain invisible. Every day, countless events are distilled into formattable news stories. Yet what makes the evening news—and what unknown anguish is filtered out?

Cut, jump scene. Imagine now the global corporate structure. An arachnid's art couldn't be more intricately woven or stickily effective. The ownership web extends from chemical producers and arms manufacturers to financial firms and food distributors. Thus it comes as no surprise that our media outlets are also controlled by a small concentration of powerful corporations. Money talks, as we all know. The existence of such an extensive media monopoly in monied hands filters and dictates the news we know.

When you watch the ABC Evening News, don't forget that it's owned by the Walt Disney Company. Which may be why, as some allege, ABC failed to cover a contentious labor dispute at Disneyland last spring. General Electric owns NBC, along with almost 100 other subsidiaries, including life-insurance companies, various media outlets, and (surprise) electricity providers. Want a little vodka with your Captain Kirk reruns? The Sci-Fi Channel and the USA Network are both owned by Seagram, parent company of Absolut Vodka, MCA Records, and Universal Studios, among other subsidiaries.

Media critics estimate that American news sources are controlled by approximately 10 media giants. Perhaps you thought to escape the ubiquitous corporate web with a short perusal of Marin Independent Journal? Despite representation to the contrary, it is owned by Gannett, publisher of USA Today and a giant conglomerate with subsidiaries in over 40 media markets. The news giants also include among their ranks Advance Publications, the Hearst Corporation, and the New York Times Company, which together control over 70 print-media outlets. Everything from Wired Magazine to the Free Press of Mankato, Minn., is part of the corporate web of ownership.

A free press is not free when controlled by the interests of profit-maximizing conglomerates. Inevitably, corporate interests will at some time conflict with the facts of world events. CBS, ABC, and NBC have often refused point-blank to sell airtime to Adbusters, an international anti-consumerism group that makes adver-tisements targeting corporations and consumerism.

Censorship can also be both subtle and unintentional. When a small and self-interested elite controls the daily barrage of media, discourse is necessarily stifled. Imagine a debate in which only 10 people were allowed to speak, each wearing a coat and tie, while 260 million people, dressed in an assorted array of fashion faux pas, were forced to sit and listen. Perhaps media censorship in the U.S. is not direct—but it is real nonetheless.

The values of corporate America color our actions by filtering what we know. Presidents don't urge action to end oppression in East Timor—because nobody's heard of East Timor. Should Pinochet stand trial for genocide in Chile? The fact that Pino-chet was put in power by the United States in the face of impending anti-capitalist democracy (yes, we exchanged democracy for a brutal dictatorship) is a crucial and usually unreported fact. Examples are endless.

The filtering out of world events defines our opinions more effectively than the coverage of those stories actually deemed newsworthy. We should question the absence of discourse. We should remember the corporate web of ownership. What's happening, we should wonder, in the continents we never hear about? Don't forget the corporate Brita that is filtering your nightly news.

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