Who Really Runs The World? Part I

“There is no such thing... as an independent press... There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job! We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes... they pull the strings and we dance. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
John Swinton, a chief of staff to the New York Times addressing the New York Press Club 1953.

“Journalism is grubbier, nastier and more trivial than ever before...” so said Polly Toynbee once, writing in the Independent. Look at the tabloids and a host of other publications, and see what a mass of trivial irrelevant material now passes for so called news, distracting us from thinking for ourselves about what really matters to us. The same applies to television - more and more channels turning out more and more soaps, quiz shows, comedy shows, chat shows, pop shows - an ever increasing diet of trivialisation, interspersed on commercial stations, with adverts that endlessly sell us all the things they tell us we have to have to make us happy - the dolly bird images that all women must live up to, and the macho images that all men must live up to. How miserable we can become if we don’t measure up to these smooth cultivated images, or can’t afford all the paraphernalia that goes with them. (And aren’t we always being persuaded to go more and more into debt by borrowing more and more money to get it, by “listening” banks and “action” banks who join in this orgy of advertising.)

Ms. Toynbee went on to imply that broad-sheets such as the Independent, the Guardian, the Telegraph and the Financial Times were highly reliable and informative. However newspapers like these and mainstream radio and T.V. networks cannot possibly give us a full picture, or a comprehensive analysis, of what is going on in the world. Look at the big corporate interests that own them and advertise in them. And even if they don’t actually own the BBC, look how these interests and their friends in government make and influence appointments to senior posts, and dominate the Board of Governors, ensuring that it is no more independent than any of the others. On top of this, it seems that a broad swathe of media people have a very limited view of the world – they get all their information from establishment sources – they don’t really pay attention to or investigate what protesters are saying. They enjoy good pay and lavish life styles and they simply can’t understand why anyone would see a problem with the world as it is – after all, it serves them well enough!

More than 200 years ago Thomas Jefferson said that he felt sorry for those who thought that they knew what was going on through reading the newspapers, and a little over 100 years ago Benjamin Disraeli made a similar remark, and the same applies today, in many areas, to the mainstream media. Look how so much of it still unquestioningly promotes the dual concepts of “economic growth” and “free trade” without ever stopping to examine the real effect of the unrestricted pursuit of these aims on the planet and the millions who inhabit it. Why not? Because it is owned and/or controlled by the wealthy elite who see the whole system as being to their benefit.

No doubt today many media people would vigorously contest these sorts of remarks, claiming newspapers such as the Independent and Guardian, and T.V. programmes such as Granada’s “World in Action” and Channel 4’s “Despatches” do produce some good investigative journalism. However as some journalists know deep down, they can only go so far, and some absolutely crucial subjects are definitely off limits, not only for them, but also for other publications that are generally regarded as radical. The problem is that many people see these programmes, newspapers and other publications as providing the full picture, however their investigations are invariably isolated and do not provide a full and coherent picture. In part two of this series we will take a closer look behind the scenes....

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Last updated 16/02/2003

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