Many may consider this a bit of a "duh" piece, and to those I apologize. However it’s a way to kick off into my first diary entry with one of my favorite nits to pick.

First, self disclosure: I worked in radio (a university NPR affiliate station in the early 80s of the last century), was formally educated in the ways of TV and radio, worked for half a decade in a marketing/pr department, and currently develop "electronic media" (web, audio and video editing/packaging) for a Native American tribe.

I have a feel for the subject matter. I won’t claim any particular expertise, but I have spent a large part of my life thinking about The Media, and not just as a consumer.

Second, this post is actually directly drawn from a "reply" comment I made on another FDL article, where someone made a statement and raised a question. I butted-in with my opinion, and that opinion follows my quoting this FDL commenter:

Comment/question: "Health should not be measure over the stock exchange because it is simply not a commodity. When will that fact become part of the debate with all the talking heads on tv & radio?"

My response:

Um…(with the exceptions of Rachel Maddow and Bill Maher) maybe never?

I know referring to them as the “MSM” is all virulent, just all that, but I fear it validates those media and gives them credit for that which they are not due.

They are not mainstream. They do not represent the mainstream of public positions or general opinion. Edward R. Murrow is, sadly, dead.

I understand there are maybe 5-6 media giants that own almost all of the mass electronic TeeVee machines and a lot of radio. Media Giant = Large Corporation. As a result (and it’s a bit lonely so far) I go for the CMM shorthand that calls them exactly what they are:

Corporate Mass Media.

Opinion: We are not in a very civil war here already, and it’s not even a red v. blue, left v. right, or maybe even (specifically) liberal v. conservative — though it works out the way of the latter “versus.”

I believe it is the multinational corporatocracy v. all the rest of us.

The CMM are just corporate mouthpieces pretending neutrality, hiding behind excuses of having to chase ratings, but really keeping up the noise and distraction to help maintain the status quo.

Paddy Chayefsky was hugely prescient with his script for Network way back in 1976. Go back and (re?)watch the scene where the CEO character Arthur Jensen corners the Mad Prophet of the Airwaves Howard Beale:

“There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today.”

1976. There is no humanity in their greed. Health, to corporate leaders, backed up by opinions of the CIGNA whistleblower Wendell Potter, is nothing but a commodity to most every one of them and the United States is just their largest profit center. Yes, these are real people, but the Milgram experiments demonstrated what can be done to “regular” people who have an elevated need to conform.

I did not include the following in the original reply, but do so here in case you may have missed Wendell Potter’s appearance on Bill Moyers’ Journal. It runs a little over 6 minutes and represents Potter’s moment of "grace," the point at which he realized he could no longer serve up PR (his role with CIGNA) to the corporate media on behalf of the inhumane insurance industry (read that: The moment he grew a conscience, and blessings be upon him for it):