When I first started reading this piece, I was confused as to why exactly Chomsky and Herman decided to include financial information of the 24 big media corporations. When I stopped just skimming and started to read more in-depth, I realized the authors were not just placing financial information at our fingertips, they were prodding us to see a bigger perspective. Just as the Frontline reporter investigated in the video we watched, news sources are being more and more controlled by their parents ("parent companies.") This reminded me of Lakoff's book, in the sense that a strict controlling father tells the young disobedient child what to do, and if they choose not to listen, they will bear the consequences.
On one hand, I am not fully against this growing trend of large-corporation monopolistic ownership. Postivitely speaking, this "new blood" into the tainted family-owned big media businesses sometimes brings new ideas and a new way of thinking. Even if the desired outcome is profit, that's what makes our economy work! However, this isn't really how it works. Usually, these large-corporation's who own the media empires are like Rupert Murdoch--who offered to pay an ungodly amount for the Wall Street Journal ensuring his success in the takeover-- and gave over $1 billion of his sold-stock money to his kids. This unhealthy focus, obsession even, turns the perspective from making a living in America to making more money than most families ever will see in their entire lifetime. Through this shift of focus, it's concerning because the next thing that is coming is the dumbing down of our news medias. And honestly, do we really need any more coverage of people being famous for doing nothing?
We are too close for comfort in the marriage between media & money.
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