Have we allowed the national newsmedia to grow too influential in America? We know that they are in control of quite a bit of information -- but what does that mean to us as citizens of the United States?

The newsmedia have existed for centuries, but illiteracy would remain an obstacle to effecting huge political change through them until the late 19th century, when an increasingly lettered populace suddenly acquired an appetite for literature. It was the era of the penny dreadful, the serialized novel... and the well-read newspaper.

William Randolph Hearst, a newspaper magnate, got in on the ground floor: his papers offered him great political power and greater wealth through monopolistic practices and bribery. He used his influence heavily, and is said to have started two wars. This was a man who advised that McKinley be assassinated (a few months before he was shot and killed), and shot and killed a political rival -- and proceeded to get away with it scot-free. His long, sordid life stands as a stunning reproach to those who would trust the newsmedia with their great power.

But what about today? For the most part, people don't read the papers any more -- and if they do, they don't pay attention to much besides the funny pages. There's no niche in the world for a gigantic newspaper magnate any more with the emergence of movies and television, so Hearst is almost certainly one of a kind. Or is he?

For an example of a modern Hearst, we need look only to the modern newsmedia: huge broadcasting corporations, often with diverse holdings throughout the field of telecommunications. In the last decade alone we have seen such absurdities as MSNBC and AOL-Time Warner. These are newsmedia which are so surreal in their spread -- with holdings in the Internet, computing, all manner of paper media, movies, and who knows what else -- that the idea they are even capable of presenting an unbiased viewpoint beggars the imagination. These are corporations, not people, so it's unfair to charge them with maliciousness in bias -- but it does exist. Think for a moment about national politics: elections on a scale most people are incapable of concieving beyond the abstract, right? Without the concept of big newsmedia, it's hard to imagine that someone in San Diego and someone in Sacramento could even get the same story about a Californian candidate, to say nothing of national elections.

But the newsmedia exist! It is possible for two men on opposite sides of the country, let alone a state, to be given exactly the same story at exactly the same time -- what a wonder! As we live in an era where the world is growing smaller and smaller, it's often true that the only difference between local newscasters in Seattle and Atlanta working at satellites of the same company is one of accent. The incredible unity and reliability in information is something our founding fathers could not have dreamed of -- and something Hearst could only have dreamed of.

We live in a market economy, there is no doubt. So men, women, and corporations behave as normal for economic man: rationally, doing all they can to secure advantages for themselves. In not as many words, a rational economic entity would be willing to sell their mother for a few bucks, as long as she didn't have a better offer. The newsmedia, to a man, are run by big corporations, and corporations are economic man at his finest. A regular, rational man would never sell his mother -- he is bogged down by sentiments such as decency or principles. Corporations have none such; as a whole, they behave as indecently as the law allows, and show whatever principles are convenient at the moment. The corporate world is a battlefield, and as such only the ruthless will survive. That means that unless someone is watching them, corporate entities have no problems with dirty pool.

The newsmedia have next to no regulations -- besides regulations prohibiting them from displaying 'obscene' material. There exists no requirement to cover every story, or even every important story. If the newsmedia liked, they could devote an entire week's coverage to potato chips that look like people, if it only weren't for ratings. But ratings are important: for companies that make money through advertisement, the more people that see their programs, the better. In an anarcho-capitalist world, newsmedia, if they existed, would be governed by nothing BUT ratings -- whatever is spectacular will sell, so spectacular is put on the air 24/7 (excepting commercial breaks). There would be no motivation to meddle in politics or government or international affairs or economic policy, because none of those things would exist to meddle in.

It would be nice if we lived in a world where anarcho-capitalism were not an impossible dream.

But we don't. The United States is dominated by a binary political system: there is a bold line between conservative and liberal and people vote based on which side of the line they believe they stand on. Intellectual people, for the most part vote for the Democrat or they vote for the Republican, with a scant few heading for a third party. There exist a number of intellectual centrists, but generally they part down the middle each election year. Unless one party or another has done something intensely unpopular, the election is seldom decided by the educated voter; as a whole, they cancel each other out. So who decides elections?

The stupid undecided voters. Official terminology would refer to a 'non-issue vote' here, which is essentially a vote based on charisma. I like the term 'hair vote', because of the image it conveys -- a man or woman voting on the candidate's hair rather than what he will be doing for the country. They are not voting on the issues; they are voting on what they have heard about the candidate's family life, or which parts of their speeches they have heard, or how their hair looks on television.

Which, naturally, brings us back to the newsmedia. Since Bush Sr., we have lived in an age of 'soundbite politics' -- because of that very media institution, the best way to run an election campaign has been with short, peppy sayings that mean nothing but play very well on TV. Sometimes, the newsmedia run coverage on elections based solely on ratings. These are generally the best of times; they happen only because ratings offer more money than politics for the moment being. Again, economic man is utterly ruthless, with a greed that knows no bounds, and corporations are as close to economic man as they can legally get. That means that sometimes, the temptation to meddle in national politics grows too strong. Corporations, on the whole, will back whoever they consider the most favorable to themselves; companies which depend on the domestic market will support protectionism, companies which depend on cheap raw materials will support neo-imperialism. Wal-Mart would likely dig deep to support the opponent of a party which made support of unions a campaign plank.

All of that support is good -- it means more money for advertisement in exchange for plugging the donator's interests more vigorously. That is what politics is all about -- people helping people. Most of the money goes to advertisement -- again, nothing important, just 'Candidate X served valiantly in Y and will Z taxes -- vote X for freedom and integrity'. Nothing that will influence politically-interested ideologues. These advertisements make a huge impact on the hair vote, but generally that impact can balance itself out -- one candidate never makes enough more than the other to drown them in advertisements and carry an election. So how does a candidate win the hair vote?

The newsmedia! They will vigorously and subtly edit juxtaposition of stories -- and stories themselves -- to influence Presidential and other elections in their favor. Generally, they want reductions in corporate taxes, reductions in corporate restrictions, and most of all, news. A President who starts wars is the best thing the newsmedia could ask for; they do not care that American and foreign lives are lost, that billions of dollars are thrown into a wasteful conflict; they care that big explosions make for good 11:00 ratings. Does the loss of American lives or property overly concern them?

No. It is not their department.

And yet we persist on viewing any newsmedia as unbiased -- although they continuously air biased pieces designed to attack one opponent or another for their own eventual economic benefit; they have helped to shore up support for war in a country where it did not exist, because war would be good for business. There is nothing more dangerous to the American political scene than companies which have potentially useful and powerful influence, realize it, and exercise no morality whatsoever in using it.

It shows a chilling disregard for any concept of decency, and it is something the newsmedia are guilty of even when they are not meddling in politics. On a day hundreds of children died of starvation -- some barely out of infancy -- all of the major news networks could not get over new evidence from the Neverland Ranch. The next day, the story was the same -- there existed sorrow around the world which we could easily put an end to if people only KNEW that it EXISTED, and the men and women responsible for bringing information to the masses would obsess over an over-the-hill pop singer who had more issues than the New York Times.

It is disgusting, and it needs to be changed.

National standards could help this problem: a governmental overview board which determines if news content is accurate and relevant, or if it's trying to pander to either ratings or corporate interests. We could go a step farther, as has been done in Britain, and create a national news network run by the United States government, or an independent committee overseen by it -- and completely independent of advertisements or the necessary biases of a corporation.

If we don't, who knows what amazing things the next Hearst might accomplish?