Media, entertainment industries not exactly neutral

Perhaps I am just paranoid lately because Attorney General John Ashcroft is virtually authorized to watch me while I sleep, but there seems to be a clearer pattern than ever of the mass-media and entertainment industries, which are basically the same thing, promoting political and economic corporate agendas.

For example, while the impending war against Iraq distracts people from the elitist get-together of the rich at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland and the anti-corporate globalization movement's World Social Forum in Brazil, police in Genoa, Italy, have admitted to planting and faking evidence against protesters during the 2001 G8 meeting held there. A Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR) article reported the Genoa cops' brutality -- which the "evidence" was used to justify -- resulted in a nighttime assault that injured 72 sleeping activists, some of whom were hurt so badly they were hospitalized. Later, a protester was killed by a gunshot to the head and subsequently run over, and there were literally fascist conditions for arrestees. TV news programs and newspapers in general did not have a problem with any of this back then, nor, apparently, do they now. At the time the FAIR article came out, no mainstream U.S. media had even touched this story. The New York Times does not have anything recent about Genoa in its search engine, or if it does, you have to pay to read it. However, the paper does seem to think that the Grammy nominations are important.

Which brings me to the realization that, regardless of music's quality or relevance, Grammys are granted in proportion to album sales. Only this can explain why Britney Spears and Ludacris received nominations, but the socially conscious (and damn talented) Jurassic 5 and Dilated Peoples did not. Meanwhile, Nelly, who I am sure you are all familiar with, received five nominations. The fact anyone would even consider honoring Nelly's music this much is mind-boggling, illustrating in graphic detail the decadence to which this consumer culture has sunk. How I have cringed at that corporation-imposed, Band-Aid-wearing, pop-music-spewing, walking Nike advertisement's horrible attempts to sing and rap on such inescapably crappy songs as "Country Grammar," "Hot in Herre," "Dilemma" and "Air Force Ones." Hip-hop legend KRS-ONE deserves a Grammy for verbally pounding him last year in a song that mentioned Nelly's "style sounds like an 'NSYNC commercial." But of course that would run the risk of offending the consumer base of "Best Rap/Sung Collaboration" nominee Justin Timberlake, who was also recently on the cover of Vibe for some reason.

In short, the fact that a lot of people get their news from The New York Times or watch the Grammys does not necessarily make them exemplary models of objectivity and truth. Often, what is not publicized is much more important than what is, and it is not hard to see that the wealth of a few people is one of the largest reasons why this happens.