A few weeks ago, I noted with disgust the cover of Time magazine, headlined Why Israel Doesn't Care About Peace. I suggested that their editorial line had of late become so frankly hostile to Israel that it would be worthwhile to ask who their advertisers were. An old friend of mine, with whom I've been arguing about politics literally since I was fifteen years old, wrote to me to object. I'll call him "Red Sean." Red Sean felt my suggestion was analogous to precisely the kind of ugly conspiracy theory I would usually deplore:
--My dear friend, I don't think it's wise to question the motives of every news organization that disagrees with you. Take it at face value and dispute it on its merit. Otherwise it gets ugly. It is usually my Jewish friends who get uncomfortable at the mention of the close connection of various individuals in government and media with Israel. Those who point out the close ties are deemed anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists. We can't have it both ways.
A fair point. I generally agree that we'd all be well-advised to begin by arguing with an article's facts, not with the ethnicity or nationality of the newspaper's advertisers. In the case of the article in question, there are more than enough facts with which to argue.
That said, media consumers have every reason to ask who's funding the newspaper they're reading or the television show they're watching. News magazines run on advertising, and of course publishers gear content toward the advertisers' preferences, both consciously and unconsciously. This is why you'll never see a fashion magazine running an article titled, "Actually, all that makeup just makes you look shallow, garish and phony."
Is it anti-Semitic to intimate that Jews control the American media? Yes, because they don't. Jews are statistically over-represented in journalism, as they are in all the professions. They're still very much the minority. Most of the major media (what's left of it) is now owned by publicly traded international corporations, who answer to institutional investors and advertisers. They follow the money, not the dictates of the International Zionist Conspiracy, because they have no choice.
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My understanding as a descendent of a Jew, but adopted at a young age, is that Jewish descendents own the media. I think there is a fair case for that. But they aren't Jews. There were descendents of Jews who were bolsheviks, who founded Israel, who influenced the neocons (Leo Strauss), whose parents were Jewish or ancestors were practicing Jews, but they were not. You could not be a bolshevik and a practicing Jew at the same time.
This distinction is lost on many people. I am a Christian, but I claim my Jewish heritage by birth.
The neocons, for example, were made up of a combination of Jewish descendents and oil men. The Jewish apostates in Bolshevism were a large minority but were not practicing religious Jews.
You cannot be a Jew in this age without being a practicing one, or better yet a Christian called out of Jewish descendency.
But don't be fooled. Families with ties to Israel have a huge influence on media. Ownership, not employment is what matters. While this article makes the mistake of not distinguishing between descendents of Jews and Jews, it is interesting. http://pakalert.wordpress.com/2009/03/16/six-jewish-companies-own-96-of-the-worlds-media/
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