Sheldon Adelson: Gingrich Donor, Casino Mogul, Israeli Hardliner

I would consider the following in any discussion of the inequity of participation by moneyed interests:

The excerpts below are from page 25 The Media Monopoly by Ben H. Bagdikian Fifth Edition paperback.

It is normal for all large businesses to make serious efforts to influence the news, to avoid embarrassing publicity, and to maximize sympathetic public opinion and government policies. Now they own most of the news media that they wish to influence.

Under law, the director of a company is obliged to act in the interests of his or her own company. It has always been an unanswered dilemma when an officer of Corporation A, who also sits as a director on the board of Corporation B, has to choose between acting in the best interests of Corporation A or of Corporation B.

Interlocked boards of directors have enormously complicated potential conflicts of interest in the major national and multinational corporations that now control most of the country’s media.

A 1979 study by Peter Dreier and Steven Weinberg found interlocked directorates in major newspaper chains. Gannett shared directors with Merrill Lynch stock brokers), Standard Oil of Ohio, 20th-Century Fox, Kerr-McGee (oil, gas, nuclear power, aerospace), McDonnell Douglas Aircraft, McGraw-Hill, Eastern Airlines, Phillips Petroleum, Kellogg Company, and New York Telephone Company.

The most influential paper in America, the New York Times, interlocked with Merck, Morgan Guaranty Trust, Bristol Myers, Charter Oil, Johns Manville, American Express, Bethlehem Steel, IBM, Scott Paper, Sun Oil, and First Boston Corporation.

Louis Brandeis, before joining the Supreme Court, called this linkage “the endless chain.” He wrote: “This practice of interlocking directorates is the root of many evils. It offends laws human and divine. . . . It tends to disloyalty and violation of the fundamental law that no man can serve two masters…. It is undemocratic, for it rejects the platform: ‘A fair field and no favors.”‘

* “When the first edition of The Media Monopoly was published in 1983, critics called Ben Bagdikian’s warnings about the chilling effects of corporate ownership and mass advertising on the nation’s news “alarmist”. Since then, the number of corporations controlling most of America’s daily newspapers, magazines, radio, television, books and movies has dropped from fifty to ten.” [ from the fifth edition of The Media Monopoly rear book cover] * The sixth edition says the number of corporations controlling most of America’s daily newspapers, magazines, radio, television, books and movies has dropped to six.

BenDoubleCrossed of FL 1:52PM January 26, 2012