New name for MSM: News Monopolies???

[Peace Patriot]

I'm unhappy with the name MSM--the "mainstream media."

For one thing, they absolutely do NOT represent the mainstream of news or opinion in this country. The mainstream are all those Kerry voters--including the whopping 57% of all new registered voters in 2004 who registered Democratic (vs. 41% Republican)--who voted the Bush Cartel out. And they are the nearly 60% of Americans who STILL oppose the Iraq war, now, today. And the 63% of Americans who oppose torture under any circumstances.

In other words, your common, decent, fair, just, tolerant, generous, rule of laws not men, "no" to unjust war, mainstream American.

Her views are not represented in the so-called MSM.

"Mainstream," my ass.

And it's getting to be just too common a usage--an easy shorthand for....?

What do we really see when we look at those hairdos spouting Karl Rove's talking points? Or read those lies in the Washington Post? Or gape into the great big black holes where the real news should be in the New York Times?

War Profiteering News Monopolies!

But that's a mouthful. How about the shorthand "News Monopolies"? ("News Mops" for short?) (News monopes?)

"News monopolies" says a lot. It says they're not free and open--it's not good information. It's monopolized information. And it says MONEY. (News Moneyopolies. Hm-m.) It says there are News Barons hording the air waves and the ink--just like Robber Barons hording money and railroad rights of way. Bad dudes. Ugly dudes. Power mongering dudes. In silk top hats.

I've taken to calling them the "lapdog press." But that isn't quite it. They are more than lapdogs. They LIED about the Exit Polls on election night, that showed a Kerry win. They CHANGED that data--"altered" it, to fit the "official tally" that nobody even knows where it comes from. (Do you know WHERE they "tally" the "votes"? Or WHERE whatever it is that they "tally" comes from?). They have created a DELUSION OF DEMOCRACY to serve the ends of the rich and their military-industrial complex.

So that's my nomination: News Monopolies (for whenever you were going to write "MSM").

What's yours?

Are you as unhappy with "MSM" as I am?

[cornermouse]

1. The Evening National Enquirer News.

Because that's the level of journalism that they have descended to.

[Griffy]

33. its called PROPAGANDA... nt

[Why Syzygy]

2. Conglomerate

Is the term you're looking for.

[Paul Dlugokencky]

3. Corporately-Controlled Media

a.k.a. "CCM"

They may not technically be monopolies, but they sure are controlled by corporations concerned only with their own bottom line. Look how arch-conservative Rupert Murdoch cozies up to the "Communist" Chinese in order to gain access to the market in China. It's all about playing ball with the powers that be in order to protect the bottom line.

[Peace Patriot]

4. But they ARE monopolies, aren't they? Wasn't that what the FCC...

...fight was all about, recently? One corporation owning too many TV stations, radio stations and newspapers in one market? That's a monopoly. It controls access, prices and product. It owns all the means of production and distribution. But mostly it controls the news itself. Nothing gets to be "news" without the monopoly's consent.

That's what I meant to suggest: a monopolization of what the news IS. As well as a financial monopoly.

But I understand what votesomemore is saying about "conglomerates"--you've got a corporation with multiple interests, some of them outright war profiteering (one arm manufacturing war materials, the other pedaling war to the public).

Also, I understand "corporately-controlled media." Or corporate media. But I think the phrase "corporate media" has somehow lost its freshness. It doesn't fully convey the tight control over what news IS. And I think it needs the word "news" stuck in there--"corporately-controlled news media"--because usually (at DU anyway) we're specifically talking about news manipulation and propaganda, not the latest movie or TV drama. (There is a relationship, of course--and things to be said about the manipulation and propaganda in entertainment--but that's not usually the context in which "MSM" is used.)

I think it's got to be catchier, to catch on. "MSM" is almost in the Dictionary. And it's much too mild and inaccurate a phrase ("mainstream media") for the hideous weapon of mass destruction that it has become. We need to change it before it gains general usage outside of leftist blogs (or maybe it already has).

The hideous news.

Our very, very, very biggest problem, in getting our depressed, disempowered, disenfranchised fellow and sister progressives--the majority of this country--to see how badly they have been lied to, and how wrongful the election system is, is their ATTACHMENT to the corporate TV and other news as some sort of umbilical cord to the Nation (a means of connecting with the national community--even if they don't believe half of what they see/hear, they get sucked into the delusion of consent and connectedness that is created). So we need to convey the HIDEOUSNESS of that delusion.

Maybe "news monopolies" is not ugly enough.

[Why Syzygy]

6. No it isn't . How 'bout . PWM?

Propagandist War Machine.
Or even MPWM (Media Propagandist War Machine).

It took me awhile to figure out "MSM", btw. I don't know how mainstream that shorthand is.

To us it is a dirty word as it stands.
It does deserve a filthier name.

[Amaryllis]

25. Go here and read this. The media is far more corrupt than even we knew:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=203&topic_id=331781&mesg_id=331781
PP, I know you already know about this but please help spread the word! All our work on e-voting will not restore honese elections if we don't deal with the Election News Service.

"... this corporation, which fanatically guards its people and processes from the public view, is a consortium of the three major television networks: ABC, NBC and CBS, plus the Associated Press wire service, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post and other news-gathering organizations."

As usual when asked about how NES counts and disseminates the vote, he
(Robert Flaherty, the president of News Election Services (NES), the private company that compiles voting results and feeds them to the major media, was asked to make it clear how the NES system works) replied:"This is not a proper area of inquiry."

Can it be that the methods used to accept, tally and broadcast the results of the American vote are improper areas for questioning?

"Yes," says Mr. Flaherty, "that is a proprietary matter not open to the public."

http://www.constitution.org/vote/votescam01.htm
Votescam, chapter one

"We will describe the operations of the secretive NES later on, although it is noteworthy here to mention that this corporation, which fanatically guards its people and processes from the public view, is a consortium of the three major television networks: ABC, NBC and CBS, plus the Associated Press wire service, CNN, the New York Times, the Washington Post and other news-gathering organizations."

[Peace Patriot]

35. The Bloodshed and Torture War Profiteering Lying News Monopolies?

BTWPLNM?

"Establishment" News Media is too tame. And I think there are a lot of people who would like to be part of (or known as part of) "The Establishment," but who oppose unjustified war and torture and looting little old ladies' meager pensions. They might want "a piece of the pie" but they are not ogres like the Bush Cartel.

(Also, "the Establishment" became kind of a meme in the '60s which simply meant what rebellious youth were against--their parents, the "authorities," the bourgeois, middle class values--so it has that association for many people--"the Establishment" is not evil, it's just...oh, kind of staid, boring, living a life stuck in a rut...)

And I'm not sure "Big Brother Media" says enough about the INSIDIOUS aspects of the Bloodshed and Torture War Profiteering Lying News Monopolies--the way a paper like the NYT comes on strong on SOME STORIES, seeming to be reliable, combined with BIG BLACK HOLES where certain OTHER stories are NOT COVERED; the bobble-headed hairdos on TV who deliver the message that you have no power here, you are just "audience"; the fracturing and destruction of political story lines, so that no one can follow anything; the obsessive focus on UTTER TRIVIA, sensationalism, sex scandal stories. And the glitzy nature of it all.

It's a very special, very particularized form of Stalinism made for America.

Although Big BM is hilariously funny and accurate as an acronym.

Orwell was writing about Stalinist Russia--and so the oppression that he portrays is quite grim.

I wonder what he would do with 24/7 hairdos, Michael Jackson and the NYT's apology for its war crimes.

It's almost beyond parody.

-------

A couple of movies get close to what I'm after:

"Blade Runner" (bad title, absolutely fabulous movie, by Ridley Scott, with Harrison Ford and Rutger Hauer)

"The Fifth Element" (by Luc Besson, with Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich--right up there with "Blade Runner," in my opinion--but funnier)

"The Matrix" (by Andy Wachowski, with Keanu Reeves--way too serious, but right on as to the DELUSION that our democracy has become)

And, to some extent, "Pulp Fiction" (by Quentin Tarantino)

In the first three movies: American Society gone WACKO in every way that Global Corporate Rule can devise--stretched to the Nth degree--very glitzy, very empty, soulless, manipulative and delusional--and with a remote background of violent, repressive, all-seeing and highly corrupt ENFORCEMENT (the "government"). (--in "Pulp Fiction," it's organized crime, rather than corporate rule/government).

The methods of manipulation are all based on glitzy delusion (unlike Orwell's Big Brother--which is gray, grim, repetitive, boring).

-------

The Bobble-Headed Bloodshed and Torture War Profiteering Lying News Monopolies?

BHBTWPLNM?

-------

...ludicrous, hideous, delusional...

------

"News Monopolies" doesn't quite do it (doesn't convey delusion, corruption, glitzification of mass murder)

"Lapdog media" hints at the sleaze, and at the unreliability of source.

------

Anyway, the one thing I KNOW is that it is NOT THE MAINSTREAM. It is more like a brain implant trying to CONVINCE you that it's the mainstream--trying to override your common sense and your thinking ability. It in no way represents the mainstream thinking of the American people--or even what's happening in the country (events). So we've got to get rid of that word (mainstream) in our description of it.

[helderheid]

10. CCM

That's what I call it too. It's a term that is not only true, but not a turn off to those who don't "get it" but gives them something to think about.

[seaclyr]

5. Here's an equation for you: MSM=ENTERTAINMENT=LIES

[Peace Patriot]

7. True enough. But "mainstream" has nothing to do with it. It ISN'T...

...mainstream. It certainly SEEKS to be the "mainstream"--to crush this delusion into peoples' skulls, and make them THINK that it's the "mainstream." But in reality it's just a minor stream...

ha, ha!

The minorstream news!

...a muddy little trickle of polluted water off in some remote and barren desert.

All that money, all that clout, all those silk tophats, all those producers, editors, anchor people and script writers, and all that fancy dancy technology, and all they can produce is this dirty little squirt of a creek in the grand, flowing universe of events.

What poverty!

But anyway, as to MSM-ENTERTAINMENT-LIES, yeah, but most people, even some intelligent people I know, ACCEPT it as some sort of hybrid thing, infotainment or something, that PLUGS THEM IN. They believe SOME OF IT, maybe not even most of it, but they believe something deeper, and harder to get at. That The Nation=The News, and that keeping up with the news, in whatever slapdash fashion, somehow CONNECTS THEM with The Nation.

And into that connection--or, that NEED FOR connection--the corporate evil-doers pour their poisonous lies about what is real, and what is not real, about our country.

How to get all this across in a phrase?

[luaptifer]

8. PRESSTitution Ring alternated with Corporate Whores/Media n/t

[ClassWarrior]

9. I agree about MSM! Corporate Media's becoming pretty common.

And it puts the blame for all this shit right where it belongs - on the corporatists.

NGU.

[feelthebreeze]

11. Government Influenced Media

This has the ring of tainted source and questionable veracity. State sponsored Media is too scary for our fellow Americans to swallow. "Corporatism" in all it's usages is viewed as attacking those set institutions which people still rely on. It also makes the real direction of threat, the current theocratic neocons, too out of focus, not culpable.
We need to be careful with our language, we to break through the massive denial that our populace is embracing. To limit and frame the media with such terms as "controlled" puts a nail in the coffin for these failed institutions. It gives a feeling of defeat and hopelessness for all and gives no room for growth in a different direction. "Influenced" gives the option back to the Main stream to follow another course if they wish. Leading with "Government" puts the focus of where the harm is directly coming from. The phrase in it's entirety allows for better alternatives to a broken system i.e. Non-influenced Media, the courageous, can do, individualistic spirit that much of this country was founded on can be directed toward this achievement. It is not rebelling, it is showing a true American approach to an existing problem.

The winds of change are blowing... do you feel the breeze?

[ClassWarrior]

12. But the harm ISN'T coming directly from government.

Government isn't all bad. It's only bad when the corporatists get their greedy, manipulative paws all over it. We just shoot ourselves in the foot when we blame "government."

It's sort of like the Radical RW saying, "Corruption happens in every party," when it's a rare exception for us, while the RepubliCON artists are pathological criminals. If we buy into that lie, we just let them off the hook for their crimes.

NGU.

[Peace Patriot]

15. I also like to make a distinction between Republicans and the Bush Cartel.

I call those beholden to the Bush Cartel (there are a whole lot of them): BushCons.

I listened carefully to all the debate speeches in Congress about Condoleeza Rice and Alberto Gonzales, and I swear to God that the BushCons are Pod People--literally from "Invasion of the Body Snatchers." Same rote phrases over and over again. Same DIRECTED minds. No independent thought. None. It was scary. Full phrase: The BushCon Pod People in Congress.

I mean, I remember some Republicans I used to like, when I was young. We even had a few relatives who were Republicans. Very nice and good people. Personally. And they thought for themselves!

And California Republicans were the first environmentalists--way ahead of the Democrats.

Sober, well-meaning people who believed in good government, fiscal responsibility (boy, has THAT gone out the window!), and a CONSERVATIVE FOREIGN POLICY (meaning, no "foreign adventures," no use of the military for private gain, no preemptive wars, diplomacy first, rule of law, etc.)

I remember when Savings & Loan institutions were the Rock of Gibraltar. To me, that was Republicanism. You could trust Republicans with your money. (I'm not kidding.)

What I'm saying is that these BushCons are NOT Republicans! They are a damned fascist coup. Barry Goldwater would HATE THEM. Not to mention Dwight Eisenhower--he would probably be leading the army AGAINST them in a bloody revolution! Did he see all those guys die in WWII for this rotten crew of assassins, backstabbers and blood-stained oilmongers?

Damn looters, war profiteers, mass murderers, scofflaws, pirates, brigands, illegal ALIENS!

Whew. I'm really on today.

What to call the corporate frigging lapdog media?

The Matrix?

[Peace Patriot]

16. There are also some "DEMOCRATIC" BushCons. n/t

[ClassWarrior]

18. Don't make me go all Ralph Nader on you!!

<LOL>

NGU.

[Griffy]

34. its PROPAGANDA! say it to everyone you know.. thats EXACTLY what it is..

[Nictuku]

13. MSMII

I like MSMII (Main Stream Media Is Irrelevant)

[NationalEnquirer]

14. News Monopolies is perfect! But..

They will soon be irrelevant..

[garybeck]

17. Corporate Media n/t

[feelthebreeze]

19. Unless I am mistaken...

Clear Channel is the corporation that owns our biggest defender in these ghastly times, none other than Air America. We do a disservice to our existing institutions when we lump all corporations into this theocratic neocon scheme as we do to lump all government into the madness that this country is being plunged into. Thanks for the edification on the poor use of Governmnet, as in Government influenced Media, Class Warrior. I change to Neocon directed Media.

[Peace Patriot]

20. I'm kind of tending back to "the lapdog news media"--because it...

...expresses the contempt I truly feel.

Clear Channel's sins are NOT forgiven because they see money in a left-oriented news/talk station.

I don't lump anybody into "this theocratic neocon scheme." I don't think theo- has anything to do with it. The BushCons' use of religion is hypocritical and cynical in the extreme. To me, the news monopoly scene is about war profiteering and global power mongering. And I see almost no difference between the NYT's disgusting promotion of Iraq war lies and Faux News' flagwaving and general idiocy, or rightwing hate radio. They all serve the same purposes, profit and death.

Read this crap about blogs from Bill Keller (exec ed NYT). The NYT bears some of the responsibility for the slaughter of over 100,000 people. Think about it. And Keller sneers at bloggers for having a "pinhole" perspective.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1255001&mesg_id=1255001

[ClassWarrior]

21. Clear Channel doesn't own Air America Radio.

It's owned by a private group of investors. Clear Channel simply smells profit, and so runs AAR on several of its local stations. The only thing that trumps ideology for these Ferenghi ghouls is profit.

NGU.

[tinanator]

22. fascist media

call it what it is.

[kitkat65]

23. The Nightly Cleanup Crew n/t

[Land Shark]

24. I like MSM_ (an underscored blank space after MSM) or MSM -

Main Stream Media Monopolies (MSMM or MSM2)

but I prefer MSM_ or MSM-

no one will fill in the blank space with "respected journalists", instead it will allow the human mind to fill in the most appropriate term in the blank space while still retaining the recognizable and understood abbreviation of MSM.

Once established, it will also allow for creativity, like MSM*?@!
and MSM _journalists_.

The blank allows the context to speak, and triggers the reader's imagination.

[omega minimo]

26. BBM

<They LIED about the Exit Polls on election night, that showed a Kerry win. They CHANGED that data--"altered" it, to fit the "official tally" that nobody even knows where it comes from..... They have created a DELUSION OF DEMOCRACY to serve the ends of the rich and their military-industrial complex.>

<Our very, very, very biggest problem, in getting our depressed, disempowered, disenfranchised fellow and sister progressives--the majority of this country--to see how badly they have been lied to, and how wrongful the election system is, is their ATTACHMENT to the corporate TV and other news as some sort of umbilical cord to the Nation (a means of connecting with the national community--even if they don't believe half of what they see/hear, they get sucked into the delusion of consent and connectedness that is created). So we need to convey the HIDEOUSNESS of that delusion.>


These statements reinforce the notion that it is time to cut to the chase--

Big Brother Media
Big BM

The "mainstream" folks you would like to reach can handle more truth than might be expected. It's an open secret that it's Big Brother time. People don't want to see or think about what's really going on. Some reframing efforts seem determined to coddle the sensibilities of mainstream folks who are willfully cavalier about BBM barrage of lies; who want to believe in leaders no matter what evil they commit; who need to be woken up from their numbness, not massaged into agreement with logical phraseology. BBM is insane!

[Tactical Progressive]

27. Corporate Media Monopolies

or Corporate News Monopolies

I've been calling them the "corporate media" for a few years now, since my early days on Media Whores Online. I too don't like the implied populism of 'mainstream'.

But I really like your 'monopoly' construction. Very good work. The word 'monopoly' conveys exclusion quite well. 'Corporate' still gives a good sense of the political economics, so I'll use them both, individually and together. 'Monopoly' works really well in conjunction with 'corporate'. It reinforces the terminology. I'm going to start using it now.

Plus CMM rhymes nicely with CNN.

[WhirlyGirl]

28. Peace Patriot, thanks for asking this question...

... because I agree that the MSM are no longer mainstream. They are a lot like the media were in the '50s, in fact -- resulting in the culture once again becoming as arid as the Sahara desert.

I favor the phrase "lapdog media" a lot.

I also use "reductionist media" because of the way news outlets like to reduce every issue and public figure to a single convenient image or catch-phrase (Dean is out of control, Kerry is distant, Bush is charming, McCain is contrary, etc.) -- and then contort each news story to agree with their thumbnail sketches.

In addition, I hope you won't mind my re-posting something I put up under another heading a couple days ago, because of what I concluded about what we need to call the media:
. . .
The right-wing rose to power by means of the preposterous characterization of themselves as victims of arrogant liberals who control everything, very similarly to the way Nazis portrayed themselves as victims of the international Jewish conspiracy. The right's Littlechap vs Sir routine has worked wonderfully for them.

So long as conservatives appear to be "reforming" a 75-year-old bloated liberal system, Americans will accept any outrageous "solution" perpetrated upon them because no American wishes to be seen as lagging behind the times (that's how, in America, you can be "conservative" and "the next new thing" simultaneously -- impossible in Europe).

I believe that the American people must begin to see Bush and the Republicans as The Establishment before progressive protest will have any effect. In otherwords, progressivism must emerge in the popular imagination as edgy and new and the only place, politically, for bright young things to be.

Keep referring to the right as the Establishment and to news organizations as the Establishment Media (because, let's face it, they are and always were). When the concept begins to catch on, you'll know we're almost home. . . .
. . .

-- WhirlyG

[NationalEnquirer]

29. Lapdog is good.

Because I DONT think the media is Republican (although they own it, the reporters and editors are Democrats).
But I DO think they have been whipped and yelled at so much by the Right, that they basically roll over now for the Repunks.

Pretty sickening, and now with Rather and Jordon gone, I just don't see whats to stop the bleeding..

[WhirlyGirl]

30. Being tagged the EM, Establishment Media, will make them WANT to change!

... for reasons stated immediately above, and one post above that.

No American with any self-respect wants to be perceived as being a member of the Establishment; the implications are just too humiliating.

[seaclyr]

31. I like CMM (#27)

It's catchy and captures what's wrong with MSM. I'm still wondering whether there's something that would capture the fact that it should be viewed as just entertainment tho'....... Really, it's just not to be taken seriously.

[Griffy]

32. well.. I call the PROPAGANDA scandal.. InvestiGATE :) nt

[OKJackson]

36. Weighing in my two cents...

...when we label something, there is a group that always wants to split hairs about everything we say to distract from the main conversation and if possible, detract from it without touching it.

When we point out the monopoly angle, it easily breaks into a discussion of free speech and the value of capitalism. So here's my solution, "corporate propaganda machines." Why that? It's not dishonest, because their only advantage is that they are a large business (note I did not say "big business") who has the cash flow to maintain its lease on FCC airwaves, and enough viewers to attract revenue generating ads.

Do remember, with a good jerk of their actual revenue source (our viewership) they may swing our way. As someone else pointed out here, CBS has started working the Gannon angle after getting screwed over by Rove on the TANG issue and their ratings. THey are not our friends, but they can be our tools.

Remember that, TOOLS. Use them, become the controller who will only view when they are honest. The turnaround will come naturally, after all, what whore turns down a dollar?

[autorank]

37. CM (Corporate Media)...accurate, succinct, pithy

[ConsAreLiars]

38. Corporate Media, or maybe Corporation Media Services -- CMS

It identifies both their motivations and interests. It also identifies their allies and the money trail. It's not just the "news" divisions that are involved.