“Perhaps the most obvious political effect of controlled news is the advantage it gives powerful people in getting their issues on the political agenda and defining those issues in ways likely to influence their resolution.”

Sadly true. It’s simple; wealthy conglomerates start to own the news media, they need legislation to benefit their empire and personal desires; so, to get what they want they pander to the politicians with grand donations and news that benefits their political position, in return the politicians push through an individual's corporate and personal legislative agenda. What we are left with is a news media without any backbone, and an animal without a backbone cannot fight for the people. We must regain the Founding Fathers dream and free ourselves from this current road to disaster.

I defer to Washington (or was it Jefferson?) who said the Republic (and its people) could best be served by a revolution every twenty years - turf out all the existing politicians (and bureaucrats - especially the bureacrats) and instal a fresh slate.

Yep, enough qualifiers, I like it

And the Liberals want to eliminate conservative talk radio when they are the ones with what 4 times as many outlets as conservatives with TV and newspapers? bnyoung@metrocast.net

As to a recent example of controlled media how about the last election. The news media , with rare exceptions, was sold out to Obama. Nary a negative on B.O. ever made it to the TV screen or the front page.

Why is there a Hannity's America on Fox but there is not a Colmes' America? Talk about control and bias Fox is thy name. Thank God Colmes is quitting this fraud of an org. Politics is all about agenda. Human nature is such that most can only work on so many projects at a time. The agenda setting aspect of politics may be its most important aspect. People argue about what we should be talking about, and the media feeds into that and sometimes does more than just report but tries to change the agenda. Thankfully it appears to me that the agenda being addressed has improved since the November election. PS: I do not beleive that news is controlled by an over arching czar, but by editorial types at all levels, someone must choose what to print, what to read, and what to report, we are incapable or reading and hearing everything.

Absolutely. Check out Columbia Journalism Review's 'Who Owns What?' section: http://www.cjr.org/resources/ . A handful of corporations own ALL media in America. Editors still have to please their bosses. Robert is very much on target above. Remember that advertisers ultimately control what we see and hear. Marketers are experts in human psychology -- mass psychology in particular. A lot has been learned in the past 25 years about how to influence people and 'opinion-making.' That is how a person can become elected to high office without experience or qualifications -- and there are a great many 'front men' our attention is meant to be focused upon while behind the unreported scenes the 'REAL' business is taking place.

Yes Archer and Robert, you said it for me - by the way it is a different Robert and not me. Robert are you the Robert I know (your son is Larry)? Another aspect to all this is "Projectionism" a strategy to cover perpetrators same crime - the media and politicians use it all the time especially Fox (faux) News.

I don't read, I don't think, I am the American public I voted twice for the man, what more proof do you need?.

" We hold these Truths to be self evident..."