Who Owns the Media & Who Owns the Companies Who Own the Media

There has been a great deal of discussion regarding major media outlets going from hundreds of independent companies to down to a handful of conglomerates. What has not been discussed in depth, and should be, is who owns the conglomerates. Comcast has, at least in my area, the biggest name recognition.

Most major corporations are publicly traded on the stock market and majorily owned by institutional investors. Institutional investors are money management firms such as Schwab, Fidelity, Vanguard, BlackRock, etc. or other major corporations with their own investors; those ads you see from companies talking about funds under management and growing your portfolio -- money management firms and institutional investors.

Mutual funds (think your IRA, ROTH IRA, & 401k plans) own 49.42% of Comcast followed by institutional investors hold 36.05% leaving 0.78% of Comcast being owned by individual stakeholders -- per CNN Business. These 3 categories total 86.25% of Comcast ownership. The top ten institutional holders from highest percentage to lowest are as follows: The Vanguard Group, BlackRock Fund Advisors, SSgA Funds Management, Capital Research & Management Co (International), Massachusetts Financial Services, Wellington Management Co LLP, Capital Research & Management Co (World), Dodge & Cox, ClearBridge Investments LLC, Fidelity Management & Research Co LLC.

So, why is this ownership categorization important? The majority of stock and mutual fund investors are not retail or regular working/middle class people. According to Michigan Law, only around 30% of investors are retail investors. This is important because there is a pervading myth that mainstream media outlets are inherently liberal or leftist or "fake news." Criticisms of major media outlets showing lack of coverage of common interest, upholding their responsibility as the Fourth Estate, covering ALL news and political movements and cadidates are at minimum dismissed if not smeared and deliberately undermined. In recent years it has been the irresponsible coverage of protests of police brutality, lack of credible coverage of left wing political movements and candidates, the pro-oligarchic coverage of protests of pipelines and other infrastructure through Indigenous Land. These editorial decisions directly reflect the ownership of the media outlets. It is the same Wall Street class owning the major corporations and funding political campaigns of pro-business politicians who own the media outlets through investments. It comes down to ratings and profits of how and what gets covered and how.

Bringing us to, which media outlets does Comcast own? NBCUniversal which owns NBC, CNBC, MSNBC, NBC Sports, NBC Cable, NBC affiliates, NBC Studios, etc., per Nasdaq. Think about how things are covered and the difference between now and thirty years ago. Now you get panels, pundits, and "news" coverage focusing on ratings and ad revenue feeding pieces of a story spread out without proper context. Before corporate centralization of news media, news was investigated and vetted before being reported. Yes, getting a scoop and being early/first on scene with a story was important, but it was MORE important to be factually correct. The story was usually reported with full context during at one time during the broadcast unless it was breaking.

Another big owner in news media is Disney. Yup, the House of Mouse, owner of Marvel, LucasFilm, 21st Century Fox Entertainment, also owns ABC, ESPN, co-owner of Hulu with Comcast. Making 2 of 4 major broadcast outlets & the majority of their local affiliates owned by 2 publically traded conglomerates.

CBS? Yeah, no. CBS is owned by ViacomCBS. CBS, CBSN, CW, CMT, Paramount Network (formerly Spike TV), CNET, GameSpot, local affiliates, MTV channels, POP TV, Smithsonian Channel, Nickelodeon networks, TV Land, VH1, et al, are ALL owned by ViacomCBS, a publically traded conglomerate. That makes 3 of 4 major broadcast brands in the United States.

That brings us to FOX. Yeah. . . That would be owned by the Murdoch Family under NewsCorp. They also happen to own the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post. They did sell off Sky to Comcast and the entertainment arm to Disney. Notably, prior to selling Sky to Comcast, Sky was mandated by British analysts to be insulated from the rest of Murdoch's Fox empire or sold to preserve its journalistic independence. These mandates were made due to the sexual harassment issues at the American cable network Fox News and the blurring of lines between news coverage and political influence from an anchor desk.

Local affiliates of the big 4 are not all owned by their umbrella brands. Per the Washington Post (no worries, they get covered too later on), as of an article in 2018, than 173 are owned by Sinclair Broadcasting in 81 markets. They were in the new because if the 1 minute long script they had anchors read parroting a pro-Trump message. Clips and additional details regarding corporate messaging can be found in the same article.

The irony of the Washington Post, currently owned by Jeff Bezos, reporting about corporate control of messaging is not lost on me. Bezos, of Amazon infamy, purchased The Post from the Graham family for around $250 million. Keep in mind Amazon Web Services contracts with the United States Intelligence Community runs around $600 million.

A bit of disclosure here is necessary. My family and WaPo have a messy history prior to Bezos purchasing the paper. My mom was 1 of the first women to get a Distributorship on MERIT. There were other women distributors, but they had inherited their areas. Kay Graham was in charge when mom broke the glass ceiling. Our world went to shit when the spoiled son, Donald Graham took over the paper. Middle management was allowed to run wild. Sexual harassment, stalking, physical attacks and threats to our safety drove her out in the mid '90s.

There are some solid journalists at the paper, but any reporting on Amazon's predatory business and labor practices are NOT credibly covered in the Washington Post. While Amazon's AWS contracts with the Intel Community and Bezos' ownership of a paper of record seems like a glaring conflict of interest, it is far from the first time the Post has been cozy with the IC. Alfred Friendly, managing editor of the Washington Post during that time, implicated in participating in Operation Mockingbird. As was Phil Graham, Katherine's late husband. These allegations were largely discredited in the Church Report. Ben Bradlee was Naval Intelligence Officer in WWII and friends with President Kennedy. A member of the intelligence community code named by Woodward and Bernstein as Deep Throat, was a primary source during the Watergate investigative reporting by the Washington Post. It is common for the IC to reach out to media outlets regarding whistleblowing and secrets to keep means and methods from publication even if the classified information itself gets published.

The New York Times is published by Sulzberger and publically traded. There is no conglomerate behind their missteps. They just need to get their shit together and stop catering to the right. Not all issues have middle grounds. Hopefully their editorial staff have that epiphany of principle and stop framing certain issues as having a common ground somehwere.

Radio. . . I am fairly certain a majority of the population knows of iHeartRadio, which digitally streams radio stations and artists similar to Pandora, Spotify, and Tidal. What many people do not know is iHeartRadio is owned by iHeartMedia formerly known as Clear Channel Communications Inc. and the holding company owns and operates the largest number of radio stations in the country at 850 AM and FM stations. Meaning 1 company decides what millions of people listen to on a daily basis, what artists get radio play and how much, and so on. Owned by Bain Capital (yes THAT Bain Capital co-founded by Mitt Romney) and Thomas H. Lee Partners, this media monster is also focused on ratings and ad buy dollars, not really caring about quality of information.

AT&T purchased Time Warner, which happens to own CNN. The telecommunications giant had also purchased DirecTV. From personal experience here, all AT&T did was rebrand DirecTV to AT&T TV, create a streaming version, and nearly double the prices. No real service improvement changes. Also, the streaming version is not campatible with specific network apps for on demand programming. You cannot credibly expect CNN to cover antitrust and regulation of telecommunications and internet service providers regarding their should be status as utilities protecting the American public from predatory pricing. To highlight how breaking these companies up and regulating them in a streamlined manner for their viewers, listeners, and readers would be showing the public that the corporate masters are profiteers. And that is strictly not allowed. AT&T is a publically traded conglomerate. Profits are the motive, not maintaining the Fourth Estate.

In light of the media consolidation over the past 25 years, where should we go for credible news coverage? Look for independent and not for profit news groups. The Associated Press is a non-profit cooperative of independent journalists. Reuters is owned by Thomson Reuters, but is still using the Reuters Handbook of Journalism. Human Rights Watch is a Non Governmental Organization (NGO) researching and advocating human rights around the globe. Agence France-Presse is the world's oldest news outlet and principles of the AFP Foundation, an organization promoting higher standards of journalism globally. Democracy Now! is an independent nonprofit online platform headed by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez. They are broadcast on more than 1400 stations, on their own YouTube channel, and via their website. There are, of course, YouTube personalities and outlets. While you can get some solid information from these outlets, it is exceptionally easy to get caught in information silos or bubbles and fall prey to confirmation bias. I do check out some of these platforms. The Young Turks (watch clips not the full show -- save your sanity) can give you a different perspective to build additional research on. They do not hide their bias. RT News is special. Their show Redacted Tonight with Lee Camp puts humor on otherwise depressing subjects, but be forewarned you are not getting fully contextual information and additional research is required. RT does have well respected journalists that ended up at RT because they would not follow corporate media party lines. A personal favorite, and I have shared his videos on social media and on this blog is Beau of the Fifth Column. He does not want you to take his word for it. He encourages you to do the research. His perspectives are unique and grounded with nuance.

The bottom line is this: get your news from multiple and varied sources and perspectives - no single outlet can give you all of the information and while I understand most of us are over stressed and information overload is a thing, it is crucial to curate your information to be the most credible and informative.