If I could shed a tear for every home that bombs destroy, 

I’d never stop crying

“If I could hold each shattered body, each baby stilled at birth, 

I’d have no time for loneliness, 

I’d spend all my days embracing the people of this savaged earth, 

“And the billionaires are laughing somewhere in America.”

(Song for Basra, David Rovics.)

If you have ever mentally yelled at the screen, radio or hard copy when looking for truth, fact and balance in the news and wondered how much of the mainstream media is bought or biased, the answer is simple.

Just two examples, the US and UK. In the US six corporations own 90% of the media – but these corporations in turn must satisfy their shareholders – each one who holds them financial hostage to the tune of million of dollars.

The list of investors is long (1) but a few examples (2013 figures):

*  Oppenheimer funds Inc  $67,258,000

*  BlackRock Institutional  $89,631,000

World’s largest asset manager; also owns 4.7 million shares NY Times

*  Mellon Capital Management Corp. $50,205,000

*  JPMorgan Private Bank $47,750,000

Gannett owns USA Today and local newspapers & TV stations in 37 US states including the Detroit Free Press, Indianapolis Star and Cincinnati Inquirer. Just one of many mega investors is JP Morgan Asset Management  who hold  21,915,328 shares at a 2013 value of $330,702,000.

In the UK there are twelve major newspaper groups:

“Over a quarter (27.3 per cent) of the press is owned by Lord Rothermere and 24.9 per cent by Rupert Murdoch  – between them these two men have over 50 per cent of the printed press.” (2) Figures are also from 2013.

Nine of these groups are supporters of David Cameron’s Tory Party which enjoined in murdering Libya’s Leader, near all his family and small grandchildren, reducing the formerly flourishing country to a ruined, failed state – with large swathes of the British public buying into the murderous carnage thanks to the war fever drummed up by the Cameron backing media.

This pattern of ownership is broadly replicated throughout the West where now the same misrepresentation of Syria is in journalistic overdrive.

The BBC is vying to be leader of the pack talking of “civil war” with one Middle East correspondent even dropping the last vestige of “impartiality” and declaring “Assad must go.” The entire organization long abandoned any pretense of professionalism and impartiality even ditching his status and title of “President.”

Consider Donating to Global Research

In contrast to the Mainstream media, Global Research has no $multi-million donors, but as the world again reaches yet another manufactured and most dangerous crisis, truly independent analysis is the vital weapon for the non-partisan truth, knowledge and a tool for prevention from repeating the tragedies of the past. It is, as Dr Binoy Kampmark, distinguished GR contributor and lecturer at RMIT University, Melbourne has said: “a vital democratic forum.”

Of course, as Global Research writers pointed out (3) there is no “civil war” in Syria, the country’s nightmare was plotted from inside the US Embassy in Damascus in 2006 with terrorists from over ninety countries committing unspeakable atrocities, then returning to their own countries with impunity, as recent events in Paris demonstrated. 

http://www.globalresearch.ca/and-the-billionaires-are-laughing-somewhere-in-america/5491445