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Less than ten corporations control almost all of American media outlets. In effect, only a few companies are the source of almost all of our information and entertainment and infotainment.

So it bothers people that the news isn’t objective? Why? Media is a business. As anchor Jack Cafferty said on CNN's "American Morning" program August 5, 2002, “This is a commercial enterprise. This is not PBS. We’re not here as a public service. We’re here to make money. We sell advertising, and we do it on the premise that people are going to watch. If you don’t cover the miners because you want to do a story about a debt crisis in Brazil at the time everybody else is covering the miners, then Citibank calls up and says, ‘You know what? We’re not renewing the commercial contract.’ I mean it’s a business.”

That’s how the media works. They’re bringing a product to customers. We must be careful with that statement, however, because it is often misunderstood. The product is not what the advertisers are selling, and the customers are not the viewers. We are not giving money to the media, but advertisers are. The media’s customers are the advertisers.

So what is the product? We are. Or rather, access to us. We are potential customers to the advertisers, and the way they reach us is through the media. The more consumers the media can reach, the more they can charge advertisersčand the more advertisers are willing to pay. This is why it is so important for media outlets to measure viewers, listeners, and website hits. It’s how they determine how much to charge advertisers.

Thus we have sweeps, sensationalism, Survivor, and the Superbowl. Media is designed to attract consumers and keep them watching, not to educate or inform them. Make the news entertaining but not informative, because if it’s informative, it might offend paying advertisers. Democracynow.org reports how Fox News went so far as to fire investigative reporters Jane Akre and Steve Wilson for refusing to broadcast documented lies on behalf of biotech firm Monsanto.

And why are people outraged over product placement on news programs and in movies? Isn’t selling products what they’re there for? All it’s doing is cutting out the step of creating commercials between the ‘content.’ It’s more efficiently connecting the productčusčwith the customers: paying advertisers.

Often, the paying advertisers actually have direct links, as when Warner Brothers Studios advertises a movie on the WB. And there are other, more insidious connections. For instance, NBC is owned by General Electric, which, in turn, is one of the nation’s largest defense contractors. Why would NBC have critically examined the Bush administration’s case to attack Iraq when its parent company stood to profit immensely from that invasion?

It also pays to note the sources of information to which the news turns. News (particularly television, but also in other media like newspapers), relies almost exclusively on government and business sources. Sometimes they turn to “experts” who are usually industry spokespersons. And on rare occasion, they cite independent sources, but usually to act as a foil to support the official story.

There is a “TV Turn-Off Week” that happens every year. I recommend a “TV Turn-Off Year.” But you can go further than that. Challenge the information you encounter every day. Look to alternative means of information, whether it be the independent press, overseas presses, or going directly to the source. And hold the mainstream media accountable for everything they publish. Analyze their advertising instead of trying to tune it out. Stop consuming.

Democracy needs a pluralism media to stay democratic. It is not as important to have objective media as it is to have many voices, so that any inaccurate or deceitful information can be challenged before it becomes “common knowledge.” Many sources make it much more difficult for any one to have a monopoly on the truth.

It is our responsibility to hold the media, and their government and business sources, to account, and to find out things for ourselves. Let’s turn off our TVs and start working towards a healthier, more informed democracy.