What if the media was just the lobbying agency for bigger profit making ventures?

Much of the Media’s true business model is probably not ads or customers or even profits. Controlling the narrative is power in itself. Those who hold the strings that give a party or candidate a ten point advantage, to some extent, control the party.

If it serves an industry to get one candidate elected, those that control the megaphone can describe said candidates flaws with the best possible spin, or not at all.  If this is the major driver of media ownership it explains the Fox paradox. Tucker Carlson and Fox are scoring super high ratings, and competing on uncontested territory. Why does no one seems to want to mimic that and compete for those viewers?The Media is the problem. Magnifying Glass.

Probably because Big Business doesn’t want “Power for The People” or small government or, euwh, competition.

So Big Business owns Big Media, and they both like Big Government. Nearly every big business benefits from big regulation by “friendly” regulators. They get a net of red tape that catches little fish competitors and a river of subsidies that make life sweeter for Big Fish.

And if Big Media hold the key to swing voters, then Big Government likes Big Media, so it’s a perpetual self feeding circle.  The media effectively becomes an arm of the left wing large government parties.  It’s all so predictable…

Revolver

Power Over Profits: Here’s The Dirty Little Secret Behind The Media’s True Business Model

What if the true goal of a media conglomerate is not to produce a reliable and entertaining news service tailored to its audience, but rather to influence that audience on behalf of third parties? What if the purpose of a media company is not to be profitable for its own sake, but influential for the sake of others?

Business models aren’t always what they present themselves to be. Movie theaters make money not from ticket sales, but from concession stands. Airlines likewise need to sell tickets, but they make more profit from frequent flier rewards programs. Supermarkets are increasingly big data collectors for insurance companies.

Users of Google, YouTube, and other internet/social media services might think of themselves as “customers,” but they are actually the product, as those services collect detailed data on users and sell it to third parties for advertising purposes.

The Amazon CEO bought The Washington Post

Readers might recall that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos purchased the Post for $250 million. The paper is of course notoriously biased against Trump, even by the standards of today’s mainstream media. This may be good for business and it may not be — but ultimately this is not what matters. What matters is that the Post is directly or indirectly profitable to its owner, Jeff Bezos. If it lost money, but influenced the public or other important constituencies in a manner that resulted in greater success for Amazon (a company 10,000 times its size), it would still be a worthwhile investment for Bezos.

Just as a social media company’s true product is its user data, the true product of a major media company is the flow of narratives that shape the perception of reality. Wielding influence over the public mind will always be more valuable than any profit that could be generated by optimizing the news to suit public tastes.

Bezos’ and Murdoch’s attitudes toward media explain why Twitter is so valuable despite losing over $2 billion since its launch. Twitter was allowed to operate at such a massive loss because it has a profound influence on shaping narratives that in turn influence the population.

Read it all at Revolver

What does it mean? That we need to Red-Pill people with a few truths they’ve never heard. A media like this can only survive if the people believe their news outlet is serving them, not using them. And even though the Media don’t make a profit from subscriptions, they can only maintain their power if politicans and owners believe the readers read the paper. 

h/t David E

9.7 out of 10 based on 84 ratings

101 comments to What if the media was just the lobbying agency for bigger profit making ventures?

  • #
    Craig

    Also throw in the Great Reset and the circle will be complete.

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  • #

    Harkens back to the Pravda and Isvestia propaganda machines in the days of the old USSR.
    It seems the west has embraced a similar strategy to influence harts and minds.

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    • #
      Mark Kaiser

      I agree John R. I would take this further.

      The old Russian saying “Pravda has no news, Isvestia has no truth.” indicates that Russians knew what they were getting from these publications.

      I don’t think the same can be said for many in the West today.

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        GlenM

        Of course it’s a lovely play; Pravda-Truth and Izvestia meaning message or news ( north east west south). Get it.

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          Bruce

          Hence the old soviet-era joke about there being “no truth in Pravda and no news in Isvestia, and vice versa”.

          But let’s NOT ignore the role of those with their grubby paws on the bully-pulpit keyboards.

          The “opinion-shaping” STARTS with the ground-level operators. They made their Faustian bargain VERY early in their “professional” (spit) lives.

          Also bear in mind that “creeping credentialism”, Alinsky-style, long ago industrialized the churnalist-production process.Impressionable, “concerned” youth is an easy mark for manipulators of all flavours. Wide-eyed, innocents? Hmmmmm. Four years in an indoctrination / reinforcement echo-chamber can do interesting things.

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        TdeF

        It’s literal. Pravda (правда) is the Russian word for truth and Isvestia (известия) is the Russian word for news. Neither are true.

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      • #
        DocSiders

        Money and Power are certainly in place as motivators for the constant lying propaganda from the Press…but make no mistake, they are primarily motivated by their willintg complicity to help destroy the USA and its Constitution in order to pave the way to a Centralized Global Socialist Utopia…with them and their Oligarch buddies in charge. Individual Freedoms have to go for that to happen in the way thar they would like it to.

        So, expect every Press report to be outright lies…or chosen to make political points. Everything in the Press and Entertainment is now just thinly veiled Leftist Propaganda…Everything…they don’t miss any opportunities.

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        • #
          Dave in the States

          The useful Idjts always assume they will be among the elite few. But history indicates that they will likely be among the many that will be lined up along the banks of the Yangzi.

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    • #
      Techie

      Sorry so late to the party, but remember it all really got started in the modern age with Wilson’s presidency. He ran promising to keep the US out of WW1, then hit the hard reality of wanting to get into the war to advance his progressive agenda.

      So he created a huge bureaucracy using Bernays and the huge Committee of Public Information to promote the war. They used patriotic imagery like “Uncle Sam Wants You!” and so on, from which we get the word “Jingoism”.

      The Soviets, Nazis and so on all used propaganda. So have the major parties in the US. I call it a weakness of the democratic system – democracy really only works if an educated populace can make rational decisions based on actual data. Of course the Founders here in the US recognized this and put many limits on the tyranny of the majority, all of which are currently under attack by the Demoncratic Party.

      Tyrants can game the system by forming massive ignorant propagandized majorities with themselves secretly in charge. The cursus honorum of today is more like “Become an accomplished liar, to the point where you even fool yourself. Then buy a lie factory and get your lies widely agreed to. Then and only then, run for office with a guaranteed voter base.”

      The joke is on all those sheeple voters – when the tyrant gets the brass ring the mask comes off and the long knives come out. Too late by far to say that’s not what you voted for!

      10

  • #
    David Maddison

    This all makes sense. Look at how many of the Leftist media (that’s most of it) has very poor readership or viewership. For example, Communist News Network averages an incredibly low viewship of 800,000 in the US market. Simularly with various legacy and new media throughout the world including Australia. Under normal circumstances these media outlets would not be economically viable but it is still worthwhile for their owners because of the way they alter perceptions of reality with fake news and propaganda. Relatively few people are (the present conservative/libertarian oriented readership excepted) are aware that they are being constantly moulded and manipulated into the alternative reality demanded of the Elites. The “news” is more and more Orwellian every day.

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    • #
      R.B.

      As long as you don’t get a job in the public service or academia unless you watch it, 800 000 is enough.

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    • #
      Richard+C+(NZ)

      David, CNN gains its major revenue as a carrier. So even if you don’t subscribe to CNN you may still be a revenue source to them.

      ’90 Million Pay Money to CNN While Fewer than 1 Million Watch’
      John Nolte, Breitbart

      “…the welfare queens at CNN are bringing in over a billion — that’s “billion” with a “B” — dollars a year just because the game is rigged to force you to pay for a far-left mouthpiece for the Democrat Party that openly calls for riots, demonizes children who dare to support Trump, engages in rape fantasies of Trump supporters, and deliberately spreads wild-eyed conspiracy theories.

      How is this possible?

      How in the world is CNN — national laughingstock in the credibility and ratings arena — able to run away with something like a billion dollars a year from Americans who do not watch CNN, Americans who boycott CNN, and American who despise CNN for its bigotry and love of violence?

      It’s your cable TV bill, bro.

      Or, if you prefer … It’s your satellite TV bill, bro.

      You see, if CNN is part of the cable package you subscribe to, you are in turn forced to subsidize the welfare queens at CNN.

      Doesn’t matter if you watch CNN. That is not how TV works anymore. Ratings and merit have nothing to do with how much money a cable network makes. If CNN is available to you, you are forced to pay for it.

      Why do you think your cable bill is so high?

      Why do you think you are not allowed to pay only for the cable channels you watch?

      If CNN was forced to live on ratings/merit alone, it could not survive at the level it does. CNN’s primetime lineup is in 14th place and only attracts an average of 876,000 viewers, so advertising revenue alone could not sustain the network, at least not at the level it enjoys with that billion dollars in free money coming from suckers like you.

      CNN is not the only network benefitting from these godforsaken carriage fees: Fox News, MSNBC, MTV, ESPN, etc… most cable channels earn money this way.

      But CNN is by far the biggest beneficiary of this rigged game when compared to its awful performance.”

      10

  • #
    David Maddison

    Australians have the double indignity thst two of the most significant propaganda outlets, Their ABC and SBS are actually funded by the hard work (taxes) of the very people they are manipulating.

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  • #
    Robber

    Big Business owns Big Media?
    I suspect most journalists despise big business.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      And? The “journalists” still do the job required of them. They are among the “useful idiots” of the Left.

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      • #
        Ian

        “The “journalists” still do the job required of them. They are among the “useful idiots” of the Left.”

        The biggest media company in Australia (and in the world) is News Corp which owns around two-thirds of the print media in Australia and is a majority stakeholder in Foxtel and Sky

        Surely you don’t believe News Corp is Left leaning? You may recall that Rudd’s petition for a public inquiry into News Corp’s control of Australia’s media got 500,000 signatures?

        https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-54819803

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      • #
        Ian

        Trial to see my original post

        06

      • #
        M. Allinson

        “… useful idiots.”

        I imagine these folks come the CCP taking formal possession:

        “Hey, Mr PLA soldier, I’m a Communist too, and I did all I could to bring the nation down.”

        PLA soldier: “You and friends you betray own nation, cannot use, against wall now please.”

        BRRRRRRRRRT!

        00

    • #
      R.B.

      Most journalists hate big carbon footprints, but theirs is for a worthy cause.

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    • #
      Dennis

      A couple of years ago I read an article claiming that Mr George Soros had extensive investments in media companies globally, and from memory that article was covering his purchase of a substantial shareholding in CH9 Television that now owns what was Fairfax Group newspapers Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, etc.

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  • #
    TdeF

    In the 19th century the billionaires were in finance, steel, beer and newspapers. Then cars and aircraft, electronics and the movies, entertainment.

    Advertising has been the cash cow which has powered newspapers for two centuries, long before the ‘media’ existed. Business needs to reach customers and newspapers were the only way. The free service Google amazed me, so much free, fast information. For nothing. Advertising is something people endure but it pays the wages of all journalists. But google steals the news from all newspapers and television.

    So now Google controls the billions in advertising, 90% of it. Then Amazon, Facebook, Twitter. Is it any wonder that people like Bezos buy newspapers including the Washington Post and interfere directly in US elections? Traditional newspaper giants have gone. Only Murdoch is left and his 1990s expansion was into satellites and the movies and Fox, Foxtel.

    Newspapers have started including magazines. Yesterday a heavy glossy magazine full of advertising was delivered inside the Australian, heavier than the newspaper. Pity the paperboy, another dying profession. And publicly funded SBS ‘multi cultural’ media carries commercial advertising. Paid service Foxtel which started as advertising free now carries more advertising than free to air!

    The only standout is the ABC behemoth which does whatever it wants, controlled utterly by its own staff who are extremely left wing political types with enormous power and a billion dollars in unearned income to bring down people. In the last two years they have jailed a Catholic Cardinal and removed an Attorney General of Australia, both without any proof. They will hound both to their graves. No one dares rein in the ABC because it has become illegally influential, as self evident. Politicians say nothing. They do not dare. The ABC does not obey the rules which apply to all other media and utterly ignores its own charter of independence. It should be sold. They should justify $60 million a week for a blatantly political organization which uses this vast cash to persecute opposition, as was so clear in the Porter case.

    So where do we get our information? Great blogs like this. And independent commentators and experts through blogs and web sites. And for the moment, Breitbart and the evil Murdoch press. But as Rupert loses control to his children, expect it to make a shart left turn into Climate Change, BLM and Systemic Racism and how wonderful the Chinese government is really and why we shouldn’t say anything which might offend President Xi.

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    • #
      James Reid

      I clearly remember when The Australian newspaper was the darling of the Whitlam supporters, far to the left of the SMH. Now not so much. I don’t think the Oz have shifted much on the political spectrum, can’t say that for the rest of the mob.

      Don’t you just love the latest ABC slogan? “Know the story”. More like “Make the story”. They used to claim to be advertising free… now all they do is ad nauseum self-promotion. I call it brain-washing.

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      • #
        Dennis

        Rupert Murdoch started The Australian newspaper because Australia had no newspaper of its kind and coverage of national and international news and current affairs, I understand that The Australian and The Weekend Australian have never been high profit earners for his holding company and has always been considered to be a service to the community.

        Despite the cries of bias his media empire has from time to time supported both major sides of politics here and overseas. For example, when Labour Opposition Leader Tony Blair was preparing to campaign for the UK election it was reported that he had been in Australia and spent a weekend at Hamilton Island Queensland with Rupert Murdoch and ALP Leader Paul Keating.

        Murdoch employees that I have heard speaking about the politics of their place of employment have always claimed that they are not controlled and edited to stick to a particular side.

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    • #
      John R T

      From beautiful Appalachian mountains: BBC beams Socialism [via National Public radio], sixty hours each week.
      I watch no TV; Joanne and her commentors help me. Thank you all.

      10

  • #
    David Maddison

    https://townhall.com/columnists/victordavishanson/2021/09/30/orwell-and-the-woke-n2596696

    Orwell and the Woke

    Victor Davis Hanson

    Epigraph: “Twelve voices were shouting in anger, and they were all alike. No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs. The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.” George Orwell, “Animal Farm”.

    What were we to make of multimillionaire Barack Obama’s 60th birthday bash at his Martha’s Vineyard estate, and the throng of the woke wealthy and their masked helot attendants?

    Was socialist Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) suffering for the people when she wore a designer dress to the more than $30,000-a-ticket Met gala? Her entourage needs were certainly well-attended to by masked Morlock servants.

    Did the leftist celebrities at the recent Emmy awards gather to discuss opening Malibu beaches to the homeless when the (unmasked) stars virtue-signaled their wokeness?

    For answers about these hypocritical wokists, always turn first to George Orwell. In his brief allegorical novella, “Animal Farm,” an array of animal characters – led by the thinking pigs of the farm – staged a revolution, driving out their human overseers.

    The anti-human animal comrades started out sounding like zealous Russian Bolsheviks (“four legs good, two legs bad”). But soon they ended up conned by a murderous cult of pigs under a Joseph Stalin-like leader. And so, the revolution became what it once had opposed (“four legs good, two legs better”).

    Our own woke, year-zero revolution is now in its second year. Yet last year’s four-legged revolutionaries are already strutting on two legs. They are not just hobnobbing with the “white supremacists” and “capitalists,” but outdoing them in their revolutionary zeal for the rarified privileges of the material good life.

    The Marxist co-founder of BLM, Patrisse Cullors, is now on her fourth woke home. She has moved on from the barricades to the security fences of her Topanga Canyon digs in a mostly all-white, all-rich rural paradise – the rewards for revolutionary service.

    Professor Ibram X. Kendi has evolved from the edgy revolutionary work of flying all over the country, hawking his Orwellian message of “All racism bad! But some racism good!” Now he has mastered the art of zooming the wannabe woke for his $20,000 an hour avant-garde hectoring.

    SEE LINK FOR REST

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  • #
    David Maddison

    Video: Could Google Become Skynet?

    Duration 2:39

    https://youtu.be/2BMQoN5FLU0

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  • #
    R.B.

    I was looking for somewhere to have a whine about News.com. It’s, apparently, a rightwing media outlet that the Australian government needs to spend $1b to balance. Yet, people who would have considered themselves centrists get annoyed with the leftwing bias. It’s only rightwing because some conservative opinions are tolerated.

    I’ve become so annoyed with the media that when I play their In The Know Quiz, I do really badly at the recent news category despite doing extremely well in most other categories (except ones on a TV show I have never even heard of).

    I brought this up because today I started with the news category, did poorly, saw a couple of questions pushing leftwing talking points, then in the next category I got asked which fruits are sultanas made from? “Sultanas” is the answer, you spotty git. Not “grapes”. Not shiraz, not Muscat nor any other seedless grape. They are raisins made from sultanas.

    Ten years ago, every dim witted journalist got the memo that scepticism was like those who told Columbus that the world was flat. It died down after i sent a letter to the editor of the Age pointing out that nobody tried to convinve Columbus that the world was flat. It’s fiction made up by a fairytale writer 200 years ago and most people think it’s true because it’s a lie been told often enough for long enough. Kind of apt for pushing global warming propaganda.

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    • #
      David Maddison

      Yes, the idea of a (roughly) spherical earth has been known by Greek philosophers of the 5th century BCE and proven in the 3rd century BCE.

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      • #
        R.B.

        I think that the only evidence needed for it being a lie is that Columbus wrote that he was always taught that the world was round. That should have been the end of the myth of the myth.

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        • #
          PeterS

          That is true. Actually, people who followed and believed in the Scriptures knew the world was not flat but round since the beginning. They just couldn’t prove it – that came later.

          Yes, the Columbus story was a myth. The much-parroted flat-earth myth about him comes not from history but from the tales of Washington Irving (1783–1859), The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (1828). Irving was probably America’s first genuine best-selling writer, but he admitted that he was “apt to indulge in the imagination.” Flat-earth belief was certainly a figment of his imagination. Columbus and everyone else at the time understood the earth was round.

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      • #
        TdeF

        They calculated the circumference well enough in 240BC.. With shadows of sticks on the equinox on the Tropic of Cancer and pacing out the distance.

        So the myth that sailors or scientists thought the world was flat is just nonsense. Even the Church knew it, but they were dead against the idea that the earth went around the sun rather than the sun around the earth. Actually both are true.

        On the open ocean you can see the curve easily enough. You can see boats disappear over the horizon. And they reappear if you climb a cliff. Similarly if you climb the mast to see further, something everyone knew. You can even see the dramatic curvature on land, particularly in parts of Australia.

        The only thing which is puzzling about Columbus is that he claimed to have sailed to India, which led to an unfortunate misnaming of so many people. Otherwise they would all be aboriginals. But you have to think he was happy to see any land, the crew were near mutiny and the penalty for failing to find India would be disastrous. Like Climate Change. It had to be there. Somewhere. And being wrong by half a planet would hardly be noticed.

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        • #
          Serp

          Inspired by Columbus’s geographical misunderstanding people migrated there from India, a curiosity I first saw explained in V.S. Naipaul’s “A House For Mr Biswas”.

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        • #
          TdeF

          And Egypt is significant because it includes the Tropic of Cancer. At midday on the equinox, there is no shadow of a vertical stick. As you head north, this never happens. A questioning mind can derive a great deal from this and other simple observations. Latitude was able to be measured very accurately. Longitude though required an accurate time measuring device and this was not possible until the 1700s with Harrison’s clock.

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        • #
          Ronin

          If the Earth was flat, you wouldn’t need a crows nest.

          90

      • #
        M Allinson

        Seen on a web meme:

        “The only thing flat earthers have to fear is Sphere itself.”

        10

  • #
    Greg in NZ

    Left/right left/right…
    the supra-national business model marches on as the audience (taxpaying guinea pigs) clap and bark like trained seals in their own entertainment show.

    Pedant alert: kudos to the Revolver author’s correct usage of possessive apostrophes, ie. Bezos’ and Murdoch’s – two names I try never to speak, yet a pleasure to read such rare, well-structured, comprehensible language.

    Did I hear correctly: Gladys non-Emmanuel has resigned due to being caught with her pants down? Being found in an uncompromising position? Couldn’t happen to a more-deserving tyrant. Maybe last week’s earthquake omen was a true sign indeed.

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    • #
      PeterPetrum

      I think you are mixing Gladys up with Despot Dan. Nothing has been proved against Gladys, yet, and unfortunately because under ICAC you are guilty unless you can prove your innocence, some dirt always sticks.

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  • #
    Dave in the States

    The antidote is free speech. We have seen an assault on free speech in any form and across all platforms in recent years such as never been seen before.

    In America during the later twentieth century they were three main TV networks. They presented the same narrative. They quickly displaced the print media and they had little accountability to the people. The public really had no access. The first big test of TV narrative influencing controlling popular opinion was the reporting of Walter Cronkite on the Tet Offensive. The spun narrative quickly turned a massive defeat for the communists in Vietnam into a victory and to eventually winning the war.

    Then came talk radio and Rush Limbaugh (RIP) during the 80s and 90s and the big three media lost their stranglehold on the narrative. But radio doesn’t have the power of TV in pop culture.

    Cable TV expanded the reach of the big 3 rather than providing competition. During the Obama years the daily narrative would be dispensed by the Whitehouse to CNN and MSNBC, and like parrots the rest would repeat the talking points throughout the rest of the day. The same words and phrases would be repeated to the point of even repeating any errors. The exception was Fox news. That changed by 2020.

    However, the internet which gave voice and free speech to anybody did provide competition. Then came social media. It wasn’t long after the 2016 election that social media became an exclusive club of left wing propaganda. You can be on social media but you better watch you say.

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  • #
    Binny Pegler

    Like the various activist groups. ‘Save the ……..’ They run advertising campaigns, to raise money to pay for the advertising campaigns. Skim X% off for your ‘Salary’ and repeat.
    Media love them good reliable repeat costumers.

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    • #
      R.B.

      A few years ago, the only advertising for the NFL on 7 was industry super and charities. Bordering on zero benefit for them. Without some rich footballers watching, zero benefit because the rest were not working and didn’t have the money to splash, and real companies knew that. But money was needed for advertising so charity and super investments were diverted.

      PS I didn’t see any Vinnies or Salvo ads. Just the new and fashionable charities.

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  • #
    PeterS

    I couldn’t helped but laughed when I saw this thread. Of course most who are awake already knew this to be so many years ago. So, what’s new? It was confirmed during the elections and after Trump lost what the MSM was all about with only one or two exceptions. I thought for example Bolt would stand up for the truth but instead folded and moved to the dark side. More often than not I get closer to the truth watching Russian News on Foxtel than watching Sky News. Outsiders still is unique but I suspect its days are numbered as it goes dead against the agenda of the elite so they must be thinking of ways to change it or to get rid of it.

    Still, doing ones own research is the only way to cut through the BS no matter what news service one watches, as long as they don’t start content filtering across the board on the internet, which would be the next big step for the evil elite to accomplish.

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    • #

      But often it was/is declared as conspiracy theory if I remember well.

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      • #
        PeterS

        Many people still do, or at least don’t care or give a damn as they prefer to remain ignorant of the real word surrounding them. They prefer to remain in their comfort zone by rejecting anything that hurts their feelings or brain. Eventually though they won’t be able to keep ignoring it as it will impact them directly, leading to much greater pain with most not be able to handle it because they kept on pretending it isn’t real when in fact it is. The shock to their system will be overwhelming.

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    • #
      John R T

      C.1973, newly-wed,I became NPR-addicted. We moved to Seattle, where a guerrilla-radio producer convinced me that Government propaganda was NOT any better. Mind- numbing TV: even worse.
      For years, I read international print digests. Back in Virginia, 1980s, a neighbor shared Utne and science/tech publications. Internet [?remember Wang software?] and USAR Intel service widened my scope.
      Blessings continue.

      10

  • #
    David Maddison

    In general, the Left are terrified of new useful ideas, hence the relentless demands and actualisation of censorship and control and the unwillingness to try new things such as we see with the ineffective treatment of the virus. Unless the idea comes from a Leftist-accepted “authority” like Big Pharma or the WHO it is automatically unacceptable, no matter how many people die. In fact, lost lives are utterly of no consequence to the Left, except their own.

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  • #
    Travis T. Jones

    Clive Palmer tells the world that Gladys Berejiklian has been directed by lobbyists, who themselves were being paid 10s of millions of dollars by AstraZeneca & Pfizer to drive policy …

    https://mobile.twitter.com/CliffCliffybabe/status/1443911016010723328

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    Simon

    One example is the voting shares (Class B) for News Corp is effectively controlled by the Murdoch family and Saudi oil interests. Normal (Class A) shares have no voting rights at all.

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      clarence.t

      That’s because Murdoch wants to keep far leftists from destroying the balance that the Murdoch press at least makes an effort to present.

      Unfortunately the Australian public don’t get a vote on what the ABC/SBS produce, so the ultra-left bent continues..

      .. and we are all shareholders.

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      James Murphy

      What’s your point, Simon? Is this practice illegal under company law…anywhere?

      As I said in another comment, it’s not biased media, or even the perception of biased media that is a problem, it’s biased taxpayer funded media that should be of concern to anyone with any brains.

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      • #
        John R T

        ‘biased taxpayer-funded’ propaganda propagated across the fruited plains: NPR shares the air with UK’s oh-so-authorative accents.

        00

  • #
    rob dinn

    [Off topic]AD

    00

  • #
    Catherine

    How will our future look like?

    We need critical thinking.
    We need a society where it is still allowed to do that.

    We need debate.
    We need a society where it is still allowed to do that.

    We need strong, honest, courageous leaders who care more about people than they care about power and money.

    https://www.bariweiss.com/resignation-letter

    https://jpehs.co.uk/why-i-left-academia/

    As I have said, there are still plenty of critical scholars in musicology. All of my academic friends are, as are my PhD students and the scholars I have collaborated with on various projects, and there are also very many critical thinkers I have never had the good fortune to meet.
    But in recent years the dogmatic mode of thinking, in which uncritical commitments are enforced by mechanisms involving public humiliation, no-platforming, and attempts to have scholars fired, has become to seem like it has become endemic. Now, too many humanities scholars move in lock step with the general ideology of our time, dogmatically echoing the opinions of politicians, the media, and business.
    Universities should be places where the commonplace ideas of a particular time and place are subjected to remorseless critical interrogation. That does not necessarily mean that scholars should disagree with everything about the way their contemporary world makes sense of its reality. Scholars might often agree with large parts of everybody else’s opinions. But if universities become a place where that basic commitment to scepticism and a critical mode of thinking is increasingly impossible, they will have ceased to serve a useful function.

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      PeterS

      How will our future look like? Reading 1984 and a few other similar books have already given us a fairly good idea of what it will be like.

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    Kim

    500 years ago – 1st Reformation – the establishment’s control of information via the scriptoriums supplanted by the printing press. Displaced by The Anglo Enlightenment – Democratic capitalism. Fought back by academicising feudalism as socialism. Tried both fascism and communism. Fascism massively defeated. Communism limped along. Reinvented itself as wokism – ethno fascism (CRT) on top of Soviet and Mao era communism. 25 years ago – 2nd Reformation – establishment now controls the MSM, is being rapidly displaced by the new media – Internet channels etc – and are fighting back. The Definitive List Of How We’re Living In ‘1984’.

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    Old Goat

    My 10 cents worth. Follow the money . Look at where the censorship is happening . Power is the end game here and money is power for now . The media controls politics because its a popularity contest and the media can influence public opinion . When Trump coined the phrase “fake news” he became enemy no 1 . Governments worldwide have been printing money for some time and most of it has been sucked up by big business (amazon/facebook/google/media ) – they have been incredibly profitable. At some point the bubble will burst – there are some signs now , and the essentials for living will be scarce . Venezuela is the poster child for this process. Only the most ruthless swamp creatures will retain a good standard of living . The $64 question is can we stop it ?

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    PeterS

    Chris Hedges tells it the way it is. He says on his program on RT:

    Our culture is awash in lies, dominated by streams of never ending electronic hallucinations that merge fact and fiction until they are indistinguishable. We have become the most illusioned society on earth. Politics is a species of endless and meaningless political theater. Politicians have morphed into celebrities. Our two ruling parties are, in reality, one party – the corporate party. And those who attempt to puncture this vast, breathless universe of fake news, designed to push through the cruelty and exploitation of the neoliberal order, are pushed so far to the margins of society, including by a public broadcasting system that has sold its soul for corporate money, that we might as well be mice squeaking against an avalanche, but squeak we must.

    https://www.rt.com/shows/on-contact/

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      Kneel

      Epoch Times is also good – when Youtube demonetises and censors you enough that you need to create your own video streaming platform, you’re on the right track.

      http://epochtv.com

      “American Thought Leaders” and “Facts Matter” (the latter is mostly available on youtube as well, except for some “controversial” things like US election audits etc) are both very good. I have been considering a subscription – $4.50/week for a single paper edition (“Australian” edition, so local news) plus unlimited access to epochtv.
      You can “sign up” and see 10 full episodes of any show for free, or check out the youtube channels they have – “Facts Matter” is still mostly available, American Thought Leaders is now mostly “teasers”, but go back through the vids on youtube for some full shows, including Sidney Powell and Kash Patel interviews etc. ATL in my view is one of the few “media” shows that still treats both sides equally and with respect, allowing you to make up your own mind by listening to what each side thinks, instead of cutting off “badthink”. That alone is enough to tempt me to subscribe…

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    Forrest Gardener

    Most would agree that big business, big government, big media, big woke, big pharma, big climate and other “bigs” have aligned. And each has become to big to be allowed by the others to fail.

    As with HG Wells’ Time Machine there are echoes of the eloy and the morlochs with big morloch apparently viewing the great unwashed as eloy. The parallel is that the great unwashed are nothing more than opportunities to greater power and influence.

    It is at times like these that those who view altruism as a virtue will come to shine. Those who do unto others as they would have others do unto them have their moral compass. And it is at times like this that it pays to remember how every empire eventually falls. It also pays to remember those persecuted, tortured and killed by big religion.

    Do what you know is right, but make yourself scarce when the smell of burning martyrs is in the air.

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      PeterS

      Yes, and ironically the only nation where they recognise that environment is not a good thing is China where they are kneecapping big businesses because the CCP is worried they are gaining too much power. So, the question is, which of the two evil cabals will come on top? The West with their big bullies or China with the CCP as one bully? Only time will tell. In the end of course it makes no difference and both will lead to very similar forms of tyranny.

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    All hail the sacred narrative.
    In an age of universal deceit,words are worthless.
    Promises are noises in the wind.
    Actions.
    These still speak true.
    Never mind what they tell you they intend,reward them for what they have done.

    Individual rights freedoms and property are all diminished.
    Your children’s children indebted for their entire lives.
    The nation can no longer defend its self,in fact can barely stand itself..
    And the people who did this?
    They demand a pension for their “Public Service”.

    We have been promised heaven and delivered into ruin.
    These are the acts of the “Oh So Well Intentioned”.

    Mostly because we voters are too stupid to recognize Snake Oil salesmen.

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    PeterS

    Western MSM and their social media platform censor specialists are not just targeting people in the West. Russia is also a target. Even leftists in Germany are speaking out against the leftists in the West. Snakes eating themselves? Or have we been fooled all along and the left in the West are not really leftists but fascists? Hopefully we will find out sooner rather than later.
    ‘Declaration of media war’ | YouTube bans two RT’s German-language channels

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    Brian the Engineer

    And Malcomb Trumball set up the Guardian in Australia

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      Kalm Keith

      I heard him commenting on the car radio this morning.

      The “need” to limit Wobal Glorming to less than 1.5 degrees, delivered in a voice that minded me of a 50 metre high wall of putrid yellow brown sludge coming down a slight incline at me.

      Absolute Sle Aze.

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    David Maddison

    This is how “news” is constructed.

    Merck has released a new anti-viral drug to treat covid.

    There are concerns about its mutagenic potential in mammalian cells, even the World Homicide Organisation hosts a paper that expresses that concern (link below).

    The media will report this new “wonder drug” but not the downside (mutagenic potential), just like they won’t report adverse covid vaccine events and anything else that doesn’t fit the narrative.

    https://pesquisa.bvsalud.org/global-literature-on-novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov/resource/pt/covidwho-1250916

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    TdeF

    And Egypt is significant because it includes the Tropic of Cancer. At midday on the equinox, there is no shadow of a stick. As you head north, this never happens. A questioning mind can derive a great deal from this and other simple observations. Latitude was able to be measured very accurately. Longitude though required an accurate time measuring device and this was not possible until the 1700s with Harrison’s clock.

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    Kalm Keith

    A question on “interaction” between radio/TV companies and the Government.

    Does the media charge_get paid for broadcasting government announcements?

    If money does change, hands would that be likely to make the media company owners ensure that their benefactor was seen by the audience in the best possible light?

    This is a government announcement.

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      PeterS

      What “our” ABC? Does the government pretence that it believes the ABC is fair and unbiased sincere or a lie? If it’s sincere then I don’t buy the argument there is nothing they can do. The fund the ABC with our money so by legislation they can do something about it, and they should.

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    Doc

    Some of the problem with media is coverage of FTA, ability to pay for ‘cable’, and digital ability to use online sources. In Australia, coverage is great in cities, poor in rural areas where ABC can dominate on program variety and lack of adds. Quality of programs can end so bad that video shops, online downloads, books or procreating early to bed dominates. The most views of news one hears are ABC sourced by captive audience. Similarly in cities amongst older folk without alternative choices.

    I believe the main distorting factor from all this is politicians seeking votes where principles are tossed aside . It’s where Parties no longer represent a side related to their political perceptions. In other words they stand for little of what we think they do, and they preselect to cover all sides of a debate in their ranks, boast as being ‘broad Church’ as though this is great thing.

    In fact it’s a weakness , and it has resulted in spinelessness against fighting the WOKE. The search for ever increasing power has led to a bevy of politicians more interested in forcing the nation into acting in the international movement’s interests and suborning the nation to those interests eg Climate and international governance. This is where the External Affairs powers are so dangerous. The danger now is to have the antinational grouping of convenience of Government, Big Business and Big Media of all description eg as in handling COVID-19 where we see effectively Brownshirt policing, compulsion, confinements , destruction of small business, massive debt positions and one wonders what happens to our banks when home mortgages etc fold as businesses die.

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    Ross

    As you go through teens and 20’s we are all a bit gullible really. We tend to believe in what the “media” tells us or simply cant be bothered questioning. There are far more important things to be worried about than if Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post. Or what Chris Kenny wrote about in the Australian yesterday. It’s all about the opposite sex, sport, earning some $ and having a good time. My first stage of media disbelief ( mid to late 20’s) was when there was a story written about a subject I was expert in and the journalism was inaccurate and biased. Then you realise that all those other stories about subjects you were not familiar with – could be just as inaccurate and biased. So now, I have gone full circle. I dont believe first reports of anything in the MSM, social media or what my mate down the pub told me. Grains of salt with everything. I now have a highly accurate BS meter with loads of cynicism and skepticism thrown in. I can smell ” narrative” from 1.6 km away. That also applies to this blog as well.

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    Serge Wright

    “Tucker Carlson and Fox are scoring super high ratings, and competing on uncontested territory. Why does no one seems to want to mimic that and compete for those viewers?”

    The other side are working hard to take down Tucker and Murdock, because they are obviously creating a sizeable resistance movement. The fact that CNN draws only a sixth of Tucker’s audience is evidence that people are fed up being fed BS propaganda but they don’t care about ratings because they get funding from sources other than advertising and like the rest of the MSM, they are no longer news outlets, but rather propaganda outlets for their masters. Their job is to hide the sins of their masters and lie to create fake news that harms their oponents, such as the fake Russian conspiracy and the Hunter Biden laptop. This propaganda is then presented by the Democrat ruling elites as the truth and all those that question this fake truth are censored, cancelled or discredited.

    When you look at the prospect of 3.5 more years of this hard left hate fueled and divisive regime it’s hard to see how democracy and the free world can survive, but obviously it won’t go down in the USA without a fight. It is now evident that the vaccine mandates are aimed at extending the COVID lockdowns into next years mid terms, because they only provide protection for 3-6 months. This is why the anti-virals are being cancelled, as they would provide a means for ending the lockdowns and removing the opportunity of another round of fraudulent mail in ballots. The Net Zero push is the other major policy being pushed as it will create a big energy and food shortage, as we already see in Europe and create the scenario of government dependency, along with the huge 3.5T welfare bill which will fund the dependency.

    On the democracy clock we are 3 minutes to midnight and Green communism awaits. However, there is a sniff of hope with the big infrastructure bill now uncertain, the Glasgow Net Zero commitments looking shakier with the energy crisis and China being caught up in its own web of sanctions aimed at crippling us, causing its own energy crisis.

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    Dennis

    Saturday Extra – Daily Telegraph

    Story about Electric Buses soon to be built in Sydney for government transport fleets in Australia, Australian firm Nexport partnered with French firm Gaussin.

    Nexport is backed by Australian billionaire Trevor St Baker’s The St Baker Energy Innovation Fund in the amount of $20 million invested …. “Mr St Baker said the Fund was doing all it could to increase the uptake of body passenger and commercial electric vehicles.

    FYI

    No doubt all concerned realise that our electricity grid is supplied 70% to 80% from coal fired power stations? Maybe they are also so called renewables business investors?

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      Dennis

      Not of major importance unless you are a motor racing fan but EV is providing racing industry people with problems, not in this order but;

      * Weight of batteries needed to hold equivalent energy to a tank of liquid fuel is much heavier.

      * Under hard racing conditions and particularly long distance racing the heat build up in electric motors and the batteries is a potentially serious reliability problem.

      Not stated but I wonder about the fire risk, exothermic reaction in Lithium ion batteries from heat, collisions and crashes?

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      Doc

      The WA government trialed hydrogen-powered buses a couple of years ago and gave them away.

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    Chris

    This is from today’s edition of the Epoch Times .
    It is very detailed and covers the development of Sars-Cov-2 from the bat cave , the involvement of the Americans, the Dutch ,the Chinese the lies , the half truths, the gain of function, the main players etc.

    Infographic: COVID-19 Outbreak

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    Chris

    Sorry It won’t load .

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    RoHa

    “What if the media was just the lobbying agency for bigger profit making ventures?”

    Did you ever think it wasn’t?

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      Dennis

      Book: The Electronic Whorehous by Paul Sheehan 2003

      “I think we are dealing with an octopus …. Advertising as news. It’s very skilfully done. The methods of seducing the media, the ingenuity of the spin has reached point where we, as a general public, have never been lied to by such sophisticated means as now.”

      John le Carre to Paul Sheehan

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    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10031855/Leunig-Controversial-artist-slammed-Tiananmen-Square-vaccines-post.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ns_campaign=1490&ito=1490

    Cartoonist Leunig is slammed for comparing life-saving vaccines to Chinese Communists killing protesters in Tiananmen Square massacre

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    Phil O'Sophical

    This was obviously made soon after Trump pulled out of the Paris Accords, and shows just how right he was to do so.

    Doddery Joe, well his puppeteer, has since re-engaged America and no wonder because this so clearly lays out the entire money-making/stealing scam. Simply and brilliantly presented.

    https://www.pscp.tv/w/1yoKMBMPeNnGQ

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    CHRIS

    You know that if Biden claims that “Climate Change is a fact”, then it must be a lie. By the way, ever noticed how in recent times, every person and their dog talks about ” Climate Change” and not about AGW? As HADCRUT shows, the world has not warmed since 2000. The alarmists like Gore, Kerry and Flannery are painting themselves into a corner (and a good job, too).

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    Tim+Spence

    This is the Bootleggers and Baptists scam all over.
    Bloomberg finance and Bloomberg news can co-exist without being compromised, of course, they’re set-up to appear autonomous.

    The pages that don’t allow you to read content with the addblock working are probably the most honest, at least you can have some confidence they only want you to see the adverts.

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    OldOzzie

    A ‘news’ report that encapsulates what’s wrong with today’s media

    As noted, the headline and subtitle are damning:

    Houston Rep. Dan Crenshaw fined $5,000 for dodging Capitol metal detectors

    The Republican leader failed to comply with security measures installed after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, despite hammering Democratic Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi for the same infraction in April.

    Although the “journalist” behind the story, Ariana Garcia, may not be personally responsible for the headline and subtitle, she’s certainly responsible for the article’s contents.

    The article refers to the police report and the House Committee on Ethics statement about Crenshaw’s wrongdoing. It then explains how the extra security was necessary “following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 during which five people were killed.”

    Wait! What? Insurrection? Five people killed?

    Well, not quite, Ms. Biased “Journalist.” All the evidence, including admissions from the FBI, is that there was no planned insurrection, that the FBI was involved well in advance and may have been encouraging events, that the Capitol Police invited people into the building, and that those who entered treated the People’s place of law with respect.

    And as for those “five people killed,” implying that the insurrectionists were murderers, only one person was killed when a Capitol Police officer cold-bloodedly shot a woman who was manifestly not a threat to him or anyone else. No other Capitol Police officers even drew their weapons (some insurrection!). The other people died either of natural causes (including a police officer) or, in the cases of one person, from an apparent drug overdose.

    We now know that Garcia, the “journalist,” is both biased and dishonest, in my opinion.

    I know I’m picking on Ariana Garcia, but it’s important to understand that this young woman (who graduated in 2017 from the University of Texas at Austin with a journalism degree) has been trained, not in journalism, but in advocacy. Presented with facts showing a congressman taking a principled stand against a rule with which he disagrees and his showing that the rule’s author flagrantly violates her own rule without any consequences, this leftist activist abandons logic to attack the congressman as a hypocrite. Moreover, to justify the rule at issue, she lies about the facts.

    People like Garcia are toxic because too many people accept this fact-free, logic-free, dishonest narrative as actual news. Therefore, they drive the divisions in society, along with aggressively policing any deviations from their narrative. They’re perfectly happy to destroy people along the way, so I think it’s only right and proper to call her out.

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    CHRIS

    The release of the Pandora Papers should put the cat amongst the pigeons.

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