The news media environment in the U.S. is marked by considerable consolidation, with a small pack of major corporations controlling a significant share of media outlets. This results in a limited range of subjects being addressed, and those through a constricted perspective, especially with respect to the military occupation of Palestine.
The Pack
- Comcast Corporation: Owning NBCUniversal, Comcast is a major player in both television and film. NBCUniversal includes NBC and Telemundo, multiple cable networks, Universal Pictures, and Universal Parks & Resorts.
- The Walt Disney Company: Disney owns ABC, ESPN, Pixar, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, and a significant share of streaming services like Hulu, aside from its own service, Disney+.
- AT&T: Through its subsidiary WarnerMedia, AT&T owns CNN, HBO, Warner Bros., and a variety of other cable networks. However, it’s worth noting that there have been ongoing discussions about WarnerMedia being spun off and merged with Discovery, Inc.
- ViacomCBS: A result of a merger between Viacom and CBS, ViacomCBS owns CBS, MTV, Nickelodeon, Paramount Pictures, Comedy Central, and Showtime, among others.
- News Corp and Fox Corporation: News Corp owns The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, and other publishing assets, while Fox Corporation, separately managed, runs Fox News, Fox Sports, and the Fox television network.
- Alphabet Inc.: While not a traditional media company, Alphabet, the parent company of Google, owns YouTube, which is a significant platform for news and media content.
- Amazon: Amazon owns The Washington Post and Amazon Studios, and it also provides streaming content through Amazon Prime.
These corporations have a substantial influence over what is produced and disseminated in the U.S. media market, both in news and entertainment. Their ownership of various platforms and outlets means they impact public discourse and cultural trends significantly.
Pack Journalism
The phenomenon where news media outlets rush to report a story and end up echoing or parroting similar views and narratives is often referred to as an “echo chamber” or “pack journalism.” This can happen when media outlets prioritize being first over being thorough, leading to a lack of diverse perspectives and critical analysis. Here’s a brief explanation of each term:
- Echo Chamber: This term is used more broadly to describe situations where information, ideas, or beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a defined system. In the context of news media, it refers to the situation where different news outlets end up presenting the same viewpoints, thereby reinforcing a narrow range of perspectives.
- Pack Journalism: This refers specifically to the practice in journalism where reporters from different outlets collectively cover the same news stories, often following similar narratives or angles, and thereby producing homogeneous reports. This is common in scenarios where multiple journalists are covering breaking news or specific events like press conferences.
The U.S. news media, especially with respect to Palestine, appears to be an echo chamber filled with pack journalism that contributes to a lack of diversity in reporting and analysis, which is a concern for the quality and reliability of news dissemination in the United States.
U.S. News Media Outlet Rating
Rating the U.S. news media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 representing perfectly diverse coverage and 1 representing a homogenous, “Big Brother” style of coverage, and considering a situation where the media consistently supports one side (Israel in this case) and labels all others as “terrorists,” with little to no representation of opposing views or the international community’s stance, the rating would lean towards the lower end of the scale.
Given this scenario, U.S. news coverage might be rated around 2 or 3. This rating reflects a media landscape where there is significant bias and a lack of diverse viewpoints, leading to an imbalanced and potentially misleading portrayal of the conflict. Not just for this specific uptick in 2023, but consistently and over multiple decades.
