Relationship Between Business Corporations and Politicians

Chapter 6 discussed the role of news media in our democratic system. The news media has three main roles: being the watchdog over government officials, informing the public of their choices and what the parties and candidates believe, and presenting facts and ideas about public policy. Even though in the current digital age there are countless avenues of information through technology, the news media mainly connects to the public through “mainstream” media, which consists of national newspapers, national news magazines, TV network news organizations, local newspapers, and local TV news operators. Often times with the big news outlets, “media monopolies” emerge, which are the media corporations that are so large that the less economically and politically powerful cannot have their views aired.

News media is essential to democracy as it ensures that the people are informed, which is necessary for participation, and it keeps the government in check to make sure that officials cannot get away with misconduct. While those elements of news media are beneficial to democracy, the media monopolies present significant threats to the sanctity of our democratic system. We like to think that although some news stations may be biased toward one party or the other, we are still getting accurate information. However, with corporations like Disney owning news sources like ABC, it is hard to distinguish between what is truly hard news and what is put out for the sole purpose of making money.

The intertwinement of business and politics has long been a part of our political system, particularly in campaigns. While there are laws in place to deter businesses playing too large a role in politics, large corporations have been known to contribute huge amounts to super PACs. The problem with this is that such huge donations can relate to corruption and the government working for the corporations instead of the people. For example, companies are legally allowed to donate unlimited sums of money to trade associations and social welfare programs without disclosing their donors, which is known as “dark money”, as it can be used for business and politicians to form covert relationships that benefit each other (“How Companies Spend”). Obviously, businesses giving illegally to political organizations undermines democracy as it takes the sovereignty away from the people and gives it to huge corporations.

While corporations contributing to politics is a separate issue from the news media, it illustrates the mutually beneficial relationship between businesses and politicians that frequently goes on without the American people knowing. In 2011, only 6 companies were in control of 90% of media (Lutz). Each of those 6 are in control of multiple major news media sources, such as NBC, Fox, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, ABC, Time, etc. This shows the insanely huge role of business in the political spectrum. When the two realms are so interconnected, it changes the nature of democracy and forces us to question whether democracy is really run for and by the people, or if business corporations play such a large role that genuine political facts and stories are lost behind the business-politician relationships.

“How Companies Spend.” Center for Political Accountability, Center for Political Accountability, politicalaccountability.net/political-spending-information/how-do-companies-spend.

Lutz, Ashley. “These 6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America.” Business Insider, Business Insider, 14 June 2012, www.businessinsider.com/these-6-corporations-control-90-of-the-media-in-america-2012-6.

Montgomery Thornburn says:

October 29, 2017 at 4:30 pm

Great Post! You bring up some really important points about the possibly dangerous increase in corporate ownership of the Mainstream News Media. While this is definitely something Americans should be aware of, I believe that we have already started to respond to this with the increasing use of internet sources like blogs that offer new opinions on a huge range of issues. In the Anderson reading it was mentioned how these “citizen journalists” can disrupt the traditonal gatekeepers and help determine what is newsworthy and what opinions are acceptable and this will be increasingly important as more mainstream media outlets become part of huge corporations who see profits and not the three roles of media as their priority. I personally would like to see a little more pushback to the influence of businesses in politics, because it has undoubtedly reached a concerning level in our government that people like the founding fathers would have been appalled by.