The jaw-dropping truth about who controls your online news

[Kid Berwyn]

The jaw-dropping truth about who controls your online news

by Caitlin Scialla
Fair.Org via Alternet.org, February 05, 2026

When Ben Bagdikian, an esteemed journalist and early FAIR contributor, published his groundbreaking book The Media Monopoly in 1983, he painted a troubling picture of US media consolidation, reporting that 50 corporations controlled the media business. With each reprint, that number dwindled (FAIR.org, 6/1/87). When FAIR replicated his analysis in 2011 (Extra!, 10/11), it stood at 20.

Snip...

“News” is increasingly synonymous with online news. Over half the US public (56%) say that they “often” get news through their digital devices—compared to less than 1 in 3 (32%) who often get news from TV, 1 in 9 from radio, and only 1 in 14 from print publications like newspapers or magazines (Pew, 9/25/25).

Snip...

The pervasive presence of billionaires and the entrance of private equity firms in FAIR’s Top 7 suggest even further shifts away from democratic, truth-telling media.

Each month, Press Gazette, a London-based magazine for the journalism industry, ranks the top 50 news websites in the US in order of monthly visits, based on data from the marketing firm Similarweb. FAIR tallied Press Gazette‘s results over a 12-month span, from December 2024 to November 2025, to get a figure for total US visits to major news sites over that period: 45.6 billion.

More than half of those visits, nearly 25.5 billion, went to news sites controlled by just seven families or corporate entities.

Continues...

https://www.alternet.org/who-controls-online-news/

The 7 big turds:

New York Times
News Corp.
Warner Bros./Discovery
Apollo Global Management
Comcast
Microsoft
IAC Inc.

[Uncle Joe]

1. True journalistic devoted institutions are precious and few

Fearless journalist Amy Goodman has spent three decades amplifying the voices mainstream media ignores. This documentary charts her extraordinary path—from war zones to the daily whirlwind of hosting Democracy Now! Winner: Audience Award, Mill Valley; Audience Award, SIFF DocFest; Audience Award, Woodstock.

film synopsis
film details
Director: Tia Lessin, Carl Deal
Producers: Karen Ranucci, Diana Cohn, Caren Spruch, Tia Lessin, Carl Deal
Cinematographers: Cliff Charles, Nausheen Dadabhoy, Julia Dengel, Keith Walker
Editor: Mona Davis
Music: Zoë Keating
Cast: Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzales, Jeremy Scahill, Sharif Abdel Kouddous, Nermeen Shaikh
Country: USA
Language: English
Year: 2025
Running Time: 101 minutes
Director Filmography: Tia Lessin: The Janes (2022), Citizen Koch (2013), Trouble the Water (2008) Carl Deal: Citizen Koch (2013), Trouble the Water (2008)
Awards: Special Jury Award, Documentary Feature, Audience Choice, Best Documentary Feature, Santa Fe Internationall Film Festival; Audience Choice Award, Best Documentary Film, St Louis International Film Festival; Winner: Audience Award, Mill Valley; Audience Award, SIFF DocFest; Audience Award, Woodstock
Primary Company: Xceptional Communications
Contact Email: [e-mail]

https://psfilmfest.org/film-festival-2026/film-finder/steal-this-story-please

____________________________

As for the corporate media; blind hogs can root up an acorn every now and then, but there is still a lot to be said for having vision, and the integrity of independence to pass it on.

Thanks for the thread Kid Berwyn

[Kid Berwyn]

2. Amy Goodman, Juan Gonzalez (ret.) and Democracy Now! are TOPS!

One recent example:

“No Means No”: AZ Secretary of State Calls for Resistance as Trump Pushes to “Nationalize” Voting

Excerpt...

Secretary Adrian Fontes, thanks so much for joining us. If you can start off by just responding to President Trump saying he wants to federalize, to nationalize the elections, and what exactly that means?

ADRIAN FONTES: Well, what it means is that you, as an American, if you are comfortable right now in the face of this rhetoric, then you are with the regime. It’s really that simple. This is the moment where the American public should be exercising its power under the First Amendment to stand and be counted. What we have right now is sort of a “welcome to the Third World” doormat, and we’re walking right over it as if nothing is going on. And so, very clearly, my call is not what my reaction is. It ought to be what your reaction is as an American. Again, if you’re comfortable, you’re with the White House.

Snip...

ADRIAN FONTES: Well, no means no. And what’s happening in Wisconsin with that extortion letter — “We’ll take our gang off the streets if you hand us, you know, this thing that we value” — speaks again to what I said earlier. Look, if they were comfortable with their policies and they were excited about facing the public, they would love to have an election. They would love to have the states just running things the way they did. And the clip earlier, where Donald Trump said, “Oh, 2020 was corrupt, but 2024 was OK,” you know, it just speaks to the notion that he understands very, very clearly that there are consequences to leadership when facing the power of the American people. And that power regularly gets exercised through the normal process of elections.

Elections are the predictable, normal — I’ve likened them to a golden thread that runs through the fabric of our society. It binds everything together. And what he’s trying to do is pull that golden thread out and disintegrate the entire fabric of our society and throw us into chaos, unpredictability. And that’s bad for business. It’s bad for science. It’s bad for the arts. It’s bad for innovation. It’s bad for, you know, entrepreneurs. It’s bad for everyone.

This is a moment right now when, like here in Arizona, we should not be handing over any of our personal identifying information to the president. Not only should we not be doing it, but it’s against the law for me to fulfill the request from the Department of Justice. But let me make one thing very, very clear here, as well: The Department of Justice has never asked the state of Arizona, through my office or any other means that I’m aware of, for the regularly available voter list, that is available through a public records request. What they’ve asked for is all of the personal identifying information that we are charged by law to keep confidential, under penalty of felony conviction. OK? We’re talking about mothers’ last names, date and month of birth, part or whole of your Social Security number, tribal ID numbers. These are the things that we are charged to keep confidential, and the Department of Justice is asking for it. And I’m just saying no. So, to your question: What does no mean? No means no.

Continues...

https://www.democracynow.org/2026/2/4/arizona_election

[Uncle Joe]

4. I even like their breaks between stories,

they don't do commercials just music of different musicians from around the world.

[Evolve Dammit]

10. Rec

[Goonch]

3. ;-{)

[Kid Berwyn]

5. The great Robbie Conal groks.

A Cabinet of Horrors



https://www.track16.com/2018/robbie-conal

[Goonch]

7. ;-{)

[Kid Berwyn]

18. His is the very essence of a modern satanic pedophile protector global crime boss.

The most vile person to occupy the Oval Office, in the pocket of those who run Vladimir Putin and Semion Mogilevich; Donald J Trump is a traitor working to destroy the Constitution of the United States of America.

Even the expression sums him up: "Never trust a fart."

[mdbl]

6. They have all made themselves a fulfilled prophecy made by Jesus and Lord Donald Dump

FAKE NEWS!

[Kid Berwyn]

14. We need a United States Truth Force

Like how Sen. John F. Kennedy said about the Peace Corps at University of Michigan when running for President in 1960.

[popsdenver]

8. Actually, in reality

It is the CORPORATIONS, UBER WEALTHY REPUBLICANS, AND THE ENTIRE REPUBLICAN PARTY..........
And of course Fox News which has 100% of ALL Republicans tuned in 24/7.......Even on the Armed Forces? Network, all over the world.....

[Kid Berwyn]

16. Exactly what most people get, 24/7/366 to include Leap Year (Thanks, Aleksandr!)

We need more surrealism.

&t=33s

Der OwnershipKlass likes to keep the lid on free thinking and ideas they don't want people to know, let alone consider.

[erronis]

9. Let's hear it for ProPublica and The Guardian. And the thousands of bloggers who are getting the truth out.

Totally agree with the recommendation for Democracy New with Amy Goodman.

[Evolve Dammit]

11. The only real news IMHO

[Kid Berwyn]

20. Steve Kangas: The Origins of the Overclass

A great analysis by a very brave human being.

The Origins of the Overclass

by Steve Kangas

The wealthy have always used many methods to accumulate wealth, but it was not until the mid-1970s that these methods coalesced into a superbly organized, cohesive and efficient machine. After 1975, it became greater than the sum of its parts, a smooth flowing organization of advocacy groups, lobbyists, think tanks, conservative foundations, and PR firms that hurtled the richest 1 percent into the stratosphere.

The origins of this machine, interestingly enough, can be traced back to the CIA. This is not to say the machine is a formal CIA operation, complete with code name and signed documents. (Although such evidence may yet surface — and previously unthinkable domestic operations such as MK-ULTRA, CHAOS and MOCKINGBIRD show this to be a distinct possibility.) But what we do know already indicts the CIA strongly enough. Its principle creators were Irving Kristol, Paul Weyrich, William Simon, Richard Mellon Scaife, Frank Shakespeare, William F. Buckley, Jr., the Rockefeller family, and more. Almost all the machine's creators had CIA backgrounds.

During the 1970s, these men would take the propaganda and operational techniques they had learned in the Cold War and apply them to the Class War. Therefore it is no surprise that the American version of the machine bears an uncanny resemblance to the foreign versions designed to fight communism. The CIA's expert and comprehensive organization of the business class would succeed beyond their wildest dreams. In 1975, the richest 1 percent owned 22 percent of America’s wealth. By 1992, they would nearly double that, to 42 percent — the highest level of inequality in the 20th century.

How did this alliance start? The CIA has always recruited the nation’s elite: millionaire businessmen, Wall Street brokers, members of the national news media, and Ivy League scholars. During World War II, General "Wild Bill" Donovan became chief of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA. Donovan recruited so exclusively from the nation’s rich and powerful that members eventually came to joke that "OSS" stood for "Oh, so social!"

Another early elite was Allen Dulles, who served as Director of the CIA from 1953 to 1961. Dulles was a senior partner at the Wall Street firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, which represented the Rockefeller empire and other mammoth trusts, corporations and cartels. He was also a board member of the J. Henry Schroeder Bank, with offices in Wall Street, London, Zurich and Hamburg. His financial interests across the world would become a conflict of interest when he became head of the CIA. Like Donavan, he would recruit exclusively from society’s elite.

By the 1950s, the CIA had riddled the nation’s businesses, media and universities with tens of thousands of part-time, on-call operatives. Their employment with the agency took a variety of forms, which included:

* Leaving one's profession to work for the CIA in a formal, official capacity.
* Staying in one's profession, using the job as cover for CIA activity. This undercover activity could be full-time, part-time, or on-call.
* Staying in one's profession, occasionally passing along information useful to the CIA.
* Passing through the revolving door that has always existed between the agency and the business world.

Continues...

(ORIGINAL huppi.com LINK now NONSECURE) -- Secure essay via INTERNET ARCHIVE: https://web.archive.org/web/20120110200048/http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-overclass.html

[erronis]

21. Thank you - I've downloaded the Kangas article to read off-line.

Never sure when some of these resources will magically disappear - or be subtly changed.

[ancianita]

12. The New York Times is not a "turd." In its 175 years, NYT has developed the deepest, most expansive investigative teams

in journalism. Without The New York Times we wouldn't have known about the following.

High-Impact Investigations

The Pentagon Papers (1971): A classic example where the Times published leaked top-secret documents revealing that the U.S. government had systematically lied to the public about the scope and progress of the Vietnam War

Weinstein Sexual Misconduct Allegations (2017): Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey’s reporting helped catalyze the #MeToo movement

NYC Taxi Medallion Scam (2017): A Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation by Brian M. Rosenthal into predatory loans that ruined taxi drivers.

Visual Investigations Team Projects (Various): The Times uses digital forensics to reconstruct events, such as tracking Russian bombing of Syrian hospitals, the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, and documenting police brutality in the U.S. and Hong Kong.

Trump Family Finances (2018): An investigation into the president's tax schemes and wealth inheritance.

Mississippi Sheriffs Investigation (2023-2024): A joint effort revealing corruption and abuse within Mississippi law enforcement.

Killing of Rescue Workers in Gaza: Proved multiple Israeli soldiers fired on unarmed emergency workers.

Visual & Digital Investigations
The Times’s Visual Investigations unit has become renowned for analyzing open-source intelligence (OSINT) to hold powerful actors accountable:

Ukraine War: Verification of atrocities and weapon usage.

Afghanistan Airstrike: Proving a 2021 U.S. strike killed civilians, not militants, prompting a military apology.
: Proving a 2021 U.S. strike killed civilians, not militants, prompting a military apology.

Sudan War Crimes: Using "trophy" videos to link paramilitary leaders to violence.

Public Service & Accountability
The 1619 Project: A major initiative re-examining the legacy of slavery in the US.

Migrant Child Labor in the U.S. (2024 Pulitzer Prize for Investigative Reporting): Reporter Hannah Dreier exposed thousands of migrant children working dangerous jobs in factories, slaughterhouses, and construction sites across America, revealing systemic government and corporate failures.

Baltimore Fentanyl Overdose Crisis (2025 Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting):

The New York Times has won over 300 Pulitzer Prizes, with many recent honors specifically for its,,local and international investigative reporting units.

Human Rights & Global Conflicts
The Sudan Civil War: An investigation by Declan Walsh and NYT staff won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting by exposing the horrific humanitarian consequences and the role of foreign leaders in the conflict.

Russian "Shadow Wars": A series documenting Russia’s covert operations, including the deliberate bombing of hospitals in Syria, won the 2020 Pulitzer for International Reporting.

U.S. Airstrike Casualties: An investigation into hidden civilian casualties from thousands of American airstrikes in the Middle East led to the 2022 Pulitzer for International Reporting and prompted significant Pentagon reforms.

The War in Ukraine: Visual investigations used phone records and video to identify Russian paratrooper units responsible for killing civilians in Bucha.


Underreported Issues: In-depth reporting on the organ transplant system, inequities in healthcare, and the "disappearance" of Chinese military officials.

In collaboration with The Baltimore Banner, this investigation detailed the devastating fentanyl crisis among older Black men and the failure of city leaders to intervene.


Know what makes people smarter? THINKING about what you read. Asking more questions. Not broadbrushing a whole swath of publishers over one article.

[Keepthesoulalive]

15. What about what the current administration is doing

The financial crisis in the United States is dire and the cretin sitting in the White House is demented. They have not always been on the right side of history. This is one of those times.

[hay rick]

19. They sponsor a lot of great journalism but...

their relentless Biden-bashing before the 2024 election provided a dog-ate-my-homework excuse for those who would support what should have been understood as the vastly greater threat posed by a proven enemy of the rule of law and honest government. NYT's choices, which may have been self-serving of their business interests, was worse than failure- it was a betrayal of American democracy.

[Kid Berwyn]

22. True. Here's important history the NYT missed.

Operation PAPERCLIP wherein CIA bigwigs helped their pre-war NAZI friends and thousands of war criminals escape justice after WW2 to boost the nascent CIA in the Cold War, unaware the NAZIs had been infiltrated by Stalin.

CIA MK/ULTRA mind control program wherein CIA agents fed LSD on unsuspecting agents, academics and everyone who even "spotted a bit of the Buchenwald touch" in the experiments.

The Plot to Kill President Kennedy which involved the leadership of CIA and FBI, as well as DoJ, at the very least in covering up their connections to the assassination and, at the very least, obstructing Justice.

The Gulf of Tonkin Big Lie to get America to make war on Vietnam when President Johnson said the North Vietnamese intentionally attacked US destroyers with invisible torpedoes on a dark and stormy night.

Watergate not only ended when Gerry Ford pardoned the traitor Nixon, the pardon helped one key player of his "team" to escape Justice, the head of the RNC, who later returned to largely operate Ronald Reagan in the form of VP George Herbert Walker Bush.

S&L Crisis caused by deregulation that put US taxpayer on the hook for risky loans profiting crooks who never paid it back, including then-president Bush's son, Neil Bush, whose personal Silverado S&L fraud cough "bailout" cost $1 billion.

George Herbert Walker Bush lied America into war on Iraq in 1990, giving Saddam Hussein through acting Ambassador April Glaspie, who said the USA had "no position on Arab-Arab border disputes" after the Iraqi CIA-installed dictator complained Kuwait was "side drilling" under the border, tapping into "his" nation's oil.

George W Bush lied America into war on Iraq in 2002 , falsely blaming Saddam Hussein for the events of 9-11; a Big Lie given a big assist by Corporate Media, including NYT stenographer Judith Miller.

The Banking Crisis also caused by deregulation that put the US taxpayer on the hook for risky loans profiting crooks who never paid it back, the estimated "bailout" of which cost $1 trillion -- without a single crook being held to account.

There's more, but you get my point about the turds who miss stories and help NAZIs, MAGA, Putin and their affiliated greedheads get ahead.

[UTUSN]

13. Somewhat off topic, what do you think of Chris HEDGES, Nick BRYANT, Whitney WEBB?

Last edited Fri Feb 6, 2026, 03:05 PM - Edit history (2)

WEBB seems to be credibly encyclopedic but she is featured a lot on wingnut sites (BET-DAVID). In the video here BRYANT is credited as *** (LATE EDIT: ) having published the black book in 2015 that he got on ebay from an EPSTEIN flunkie who (stole?) it. *** (END EDIT)

All of these, separately and together, draw an exhaustive web of techno-corrupt control of everything - not conspiracy.

[Kid Berwyn]

24. Chris Hedges is TOPS!

Guy calls the game as he see it -- without picking a side, other than that of journalism:

"Afflict the Comfortable and Comfort the Afflicted."

Whitney Webb puts things together pretty darn well, but I know very little about who she is or from where she comes.

Nick Bryant seems to be a good sort -- I remember his byline with some good reports.

I will watch the video this evening and report manyana.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

17. I have a subscription for Apple News on my iPhone.

I get pretty good articles from that from The Atlantic, NYT, Vanity Fair, local newspapers across the country, Politico, The New Yorker, LA Times, The Bulwark, Vix, The New Republic, etc, etc.

[Kid Berwyn]

25. Media Monopoly led to the rise of the Right

Absolutely appreciate those news resources. However, most of what the majority of outlets "produce" is sideshow, distrction and not all that relevant to Democracy. Details on what's missing from the 99-percent of stuff that's produced for the 99-percent of "viewers" for those new to the subject:

The Lewis Powell Memo: A Corporate Blueprint to Dominate Democracy

Additional important history to know...

Alex Carey: Corporations and Propaganda

The Attack on Democracy

The 20th century, said Carey, is marked by three historic developments: the growth of democracy via the expansion of the franchise, the growth of corporations, and the growth of propaganda to protect corporations from democracy. Carey wrote that the people of the US have been subjected to an unparalleled, expensive, 3/4 century long propaganda effort designed to expand corporate rights by undermining democracy and destroying the unions. And, in his manuscript, unpublished during his life time, he described that history, going back to World War I and ending with the Reagan era. Carey covers the little known role of the US Chamber of Commerce in the McCarthy witch hunts of post WWII and shows how the continued campaign against "Big Government" plays an important role in bringing Reagan to power.

John Pilger called Carey "a second Orwell", Noam Chomsky dedicated his book, Manufacturing Consent, to him. And even though TUC Radio runs our documentary based on Carey's manuscript at least every two years and draws a huge response each time, Alex Carey is still unknown.

Given today's spotlight on corporations that may change. It is not only the Occupy movement that inspired me to present this program again at this time. By an amazing historic coincidence Bill Moyers and Charlie Cray of Greenpeace have just added the missing chapter to Carey's analysis. Carey's manuscript ends in 1988 when he committed suicide. Moyers and Cray begin with 1971 and bring the corporate propaganda project up to date.

This is a fairly complex production with many voices, historic sound clips, and source material. The program has been used by writers and students of history and propaganda. Alex Carey: Taking the Risk out of Democracy, Corporate Propaganda VS Freedom and Liberty with a foreword by Noam Chomsky was published by the University of Illinois Press in 1995.

Source: TUC Radio

Part 1: https://tucradio.org/podcasts/newest-podcasts/alex-carey-corporations-and-propaganda-part-one-of-two/

Part 2: https://tucradio.org/podcasts/newest-podcasts/alex-carey-corporations-and-propaganda-part-two-of-two/


Gore Vidal on what Americans read, see and hear via Corporate McPravda:

"A writer must always tell the truth, unless he is a journalist."

“The corporate grip on opinion in the United States is one of the wonders of the Western world. No First World country has ever managed to eliminate so entirely from its media all objectivity - much less dissent.”

“When you control opinion, as corporate America controls opinion in the United States by owning the media, you can make the masses believe almost anything you want, and guide them as you please.”

Here’s an observation from me, back in 2024 when SCROTUS birthed King Taco:

What hasn’t gotten enough mention in the coverage of Trump’s Imperial Immunity and discussion of what constitutes official and unofficial conduct on ABCNNBCBSFoxNutz is what the ruling really means: SCOTUS just used a Sharpie on the Constitution to write in Donald J Trump where it used to read “We the People.”

[Initech]

23. I'm in Los Angeles.

Since decrepit billionaire asshole Patrick Soon-Shiongh bought the newspaper and turned the opinion editorial section into Fox News in print form, I barely hear a peep. Billionaire MAGA assholes are destroying the free press.

[Kid Berwyn]

27. I've been ticked at LA Times since they dumped Robert Scheer.

Scheer lost his job for, get this, criticizing Bush the Lesser's illegal, immoral, unnecessary and disastrous war on Iraq.

LA Times Dumps Liberal Columnist

Scheer out as Bush attacks Iraq War critics

FAIR, November 17, 2005

Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer was fired on November 11 after nearly 30 years at the paper, the last 13 as one of its most progressive political columnists.

In a published statement announcing op-ed page changes (11/10/05), the Times insisted that it is dedicated to “provid[ing] readers with a wide range of voices and perspectives,” but in dumping Scheer, the paper has gotten rid of one of the few prominent progressive columnists in the country.

Scheer’s forceful and independent commentary has often placed him in the middle of national debates. He has been one of the strongest critics of the White House over the Iraq War. For instance, in a pre-war column (8/6/02) that undercuts the current notion that everyone got the WMD story wrong, Scheer wrote that “a consensus of experts” told the Senate that Iraq’s chemical and biological arsenals were “almost totally destroyed during eight years of inspections.” Shortly after George W. Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech, and well ahead of the pack, Scheer (6/3/03) called White House pretexts for war a “big lie.”

Scheer was also one of the first columnists to call for withdrawal from Iraq, in a November 4, 2003 column that presaged shifting public opinion on the issue—though his position is still hard to find among his fellow pundits. More than 1,700 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis have died since Scheer’s call for withdrawal was published.

In 1999, with a Democrat in the White House, Scheer used his column to expose the racism and unfairness driving the government’s (and media’s) case against Wen Ho Lee, a Chinese-American scientist wrongly accused of spying. And when a federal court struck the words “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance in 2002, Scheer was one of the rare media figures who bucked the Republican/Democratic consensus by strongly defending the court’s decision (See Extra! Update, 8/02.)

The Times has suggested that Scheer’s firing was simply part of a larger revamping of its opinion pages, but Scheer says he was fired for ideological reasons and because the Times‘ corporate parent, Tribune Company of Chicago, was caving in to outside pressure from conservatives. As Scheer told Democracy Now! (11/14/05), “What happened is that I had been the subject of vicious attacks by Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh…. I was a punching bag for those guys. I’m still standing, and the people who run the paper collapsed.”

Continues...

https://fair.org/take-action/action-alerts/la-times-dumps-liberal-columnist/

PS: LA Times then-ownership hired the VRWNJ Jonah Goldberg to give voice to, uh, the wrong. Jonah's mom, Lucianne Goldberg, helped make Ms. Lewinsky a household name after sterling service to conservatism.

[Dawson Leery]

26. KICK

[Kid Berwyn]

28. United States Truth Force

There is only one business mentioned by name is the Constitution: the Press. The Founders’ idea was publishers, editors and writers would tell the truth to advance democracy.

Seeing how there's no Fairness Doctrine, and to counterbalance the media of the wealthy and the Hate from the Reich, I suggest a new network of networks, combing traditional news media and new and social media, run along the lines of an independent government-funded corporation like the BBC, except with Democracy on top and running through the entire organization.

Just an idea I hope someday becomes a reality.