In the following article, Ralph Nader reports on the Control the Corporation conference he organized April 2, 2012. OCA political director Alexis Baden-Mayer spoke at the conference. Click here to read her speech or watch the video of the panel she participated in, “
Creating New Economic Models and Launching Initiatives,”
embedded here. Videos from the entire conference are available here.
March Madness comes once a year. Media Madness is year-round. What the mass media choose to cover and feature try to turn the priorities of any sane society upside down.
People of vice, war, money, spectator sports and business receive media attention — oftentimes ad nausem. People of virtue, peace, civics, health, labor and community engagement have to beg for media attention. Which of these two groups represents the most basic values of a civilized society that would restrain the excesses of the other group? You can guess!
There are many reasons for this chronic bias, beyond the power of commercial advertisers. The media believe that wrongdoing and greed and violence get readers and ratings while their opposites are dull soup.
But aren’t these opposites vital to the survival and well-being of a just society? Aren’t people who wage peace to prevent war, or demand health/safety over sickness/injury, more newsworthy when they expose people or companies that cause danger, damage and deaths?
Big-Time Greed is headline material, while Big-Time Thrift (e.g. efficiency for consumers) is boring, even when it concentrates on exposing Big-Time Greed. Aetna, Pfizer and avaricious middlemen are sometimes in the news when they exhibit gouging practices. But have you ever heard of Harvard researcher/lecturer Malcolm Sparrow, who for years has shown that at least ten percent of your healthcare spending goes down the drain due to preventable, computerized billing fraud and abuse? That amounts to $270 billion this year alone!
When news editors are asked why the media overwhelmingly cover the utterances of warmongers like William Kristol (The Weekly Standard) but ignore peace-advocates like Coleman McCarthy (The Nation and Progressive Magazine), they respond that Kristol has more influence.
But who gave Kristol influence? Why, the media who quote and interview him incessantly. Coleman McCarthy, a formerly syndicated columnist for the Washington Post, works to have colleges and high schools around the country adopt peace studies. He could give a lively interview on “Meet the Press” or “This Week” on the superiority of waging peace over waging war in advancing national security in countries around the world.
The New York Times reports the crazed outbursts of bigots such as Ann Coulter and Pam Geller, even devoting entire pages, with numerous photographs, to both of them in one October 2010 Sunday edition. Yet the great labor advocate, writer and pamphleteer, Harry Kelber, has been on top of the most important worker-management issues of our time for a mere 75 years and remains unknown to New York Times readers, even though he resides in New York City, just like the Times.
These contrasts were at work at our Control the Corporation conference held in Washington, DC earlier this month.