Media Bias, Right

Political Economy

Those who identify right-wing media bias examine ownership and economic pressures on the media, based on a theoretical position that looks for the economic dimension underlying social and political life. When applied to the media, political economy seeks to highlight the fact that it is the business of newspapers to make money. A political economy perspective emphasizes the need to examine the ownership of the press and the economic influence on the press by its for-profit nature. The political economy perspective argues that the media is directly or indirectly affected by the social forces of our society—social forces that frequently are the expression of dominant economic power.

Media ownership is important because it addresses the adage that “freedom of the press is for those who own one.” Researchers in this area explore how much influence a media owner exerts on the content of the news, either directly through edict or indirectly through the creation of an ideological climate that shapes the presentation of journalists' work. In the case of direct impact by owners, we have seen examples of this in Canada where a corporate tycoon, such as Conrad Black, bought media outlets in a conscious effort to disseminate his worldview through his newspaper chain. Australian-born Rupert Murdoch, president and CEO of News Corporation, is also frequently cited in the same regard.

Ben Bagdikian (1992) notes that the lack of competition has resulted in a homogenous media product that serves the interests of a small number of owners. He argues that in the United States, the national news media have been remarkably inattentive to the growing economic and social failures induced by government policies benefiting large corporations and other powerful segments of society at the expense of the general population. Bagdikian maintains that owners have always wielded enough influence that stories involving their own interests are reported in their favor. But now when a large corporate owner intervenes, alterations in coverage and analysis affect reports reaching millions. He points to the example of Lawrence Grossman, the former [Page 759]president of NBC News, who when speaking at Brandeis University, said that when the stock market crashed in 1987, he received a phone call from Jack Welch, chairman of General Electric, owner of NBC, telling him not to use words in NBC news reports that might adversely affect GE stock.

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