By Tom Payne, Wayside, Ga. | We can draw a direct line from the 1996 Telecommunications Act (the GOP’s gift to their big business benefactors), to Rupert Murdoch, to the creation of Donald Trump. This year, Fox News is 20 years old. In 1996, Roger Ailes, the molester of women in his employ, was hired to create Fox News.
Under President Reagan in 1984, the number of television stations one could own was raised from 7 to 12. Removing the rules of ownership of media in 1996 led to the wholesale control of all media by five or six groups/companies owning 80+ percent of all media.
Enter Murdoch with his Fox network/newspapers and their penchant for preaching bent facts and warped ideas. Repeat a lie or misshapen fact often enough and people will believe it; so they had a large part to play in creating Donald Trump the candidate, and pushed his rants day and night. I do not believe they thought Trump would get this far. Nor for that fact did Trump himself; he is the proverbial dog that chased a tire and caught it.
It all spun out of their control as the fire storm swept the industry and everyone got on the ratings and money train, and the GOP/NRC had waited too late to play their hand. Now we have corporations driven by profits, and their own agendas. No one looks at the right or wrong, the lies, or even if this is a good thing for the country.
There are no free thinkers at radio and TV stations as there was in 1990, no Cronkite to speak the truth. It is all canned news spun for the dollar, not to inform the public and let them (emphasis added) make an educated decision. No, they listened to the corporate talking heads, and now look what the GOP has – a losing idiot.
Yes, the GOP shot themselves in the foot by passing a bill to create big-media in 1996.
How in the world did we get two such sorry candidates?! I will vote for sanity, for I truly believe Trump has an emotional issue. He clearly cannot concentrate on one thing very long as has been witnessed on TV and reported on by interviewers.
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