P. J. O'Rourke Quotes

There is no independent American print or TV media.

The problem that we've had is four media companies run media, globally. And some say they're on the Right and some say they're on the Left; look, they're all afraid of losing Ford as a client. So they're all, by definition, huge companies that are going to be inherently conservative.

Virtually every magazine, newspaper, TV station and cable channel is owned by a big corporation, and they've squashed stories that they don't want the public to know about.

And we've become very doubtful of our information sources, because they're all controlled by these huge multilateral corporations.

As the mainstream media has become increasingly dependent on advertising revenues for support, it has become an anti-democratic force in society.

Having a few companies controlling everything we read, see or hear is destroying our culture.

Almost anything is better than three network TV outlets completely controlling the national discourse with their nightly broadcasts. We've moved a long way from that, and that's important.

A city with one newspaper, or with a morning and an evening paper under one ownership, is like a man with one eye, and often the eye is glass.

I do not believe in censorship, but I believe we already have censorship in what is called marketing theory, namely the only information we get in mainstream media is for profit.

The American people should be made aware of the trend toward monopolization of the great public information vehicles and the concentration of more and more power over public opinion in fewer and fewer hands.

In a hyper-capitalist environment dominated by media giants, the means available to independent journalism have narrowed considerably.

It's very hard to find critics or a magazine today that will publish material that is genuinely independent and written without any concern about being cut off some distributor's list or not be invited or flown into screenings.

The freedom of the press throughout the world where the capitalists rule, is the freedom to buy up papers, the freedom to buy writers, to buy and manufacture public opinion in the interest of the capitalists.

The media is controlled.

The media is too concentrated, too few people own too much. There's really five companies that control 90 percent of what we read, see and hear. It's not healthy.

The media in America has become so cowed and compromised.

And the big issue here, I think, is that the publisher took over the editorial pages, a guy named Jeff Johnson. He's an accountant from Chicago, doesn't know anything about what newspapers are supposed to be about, and he made a decision to get rid of the column.

Common sense tells us that this explosion of media sources should eliminate any concern over a lack of diversity of views in the marketplace and competition.

To be honest with you, I worry about concentration of ownership in media, where you have a handful of media conglomerates largely controlling what we see, hear and read.

The United States, along with other major democracies, is moving swiftly toward media control by a handful of gigantic multi-national corporations.

All over the world, wherever there are capitalists, freedom of the press means freedom to buy up newspapers, to buy writers, to bribe, buy and fake “public opinion” for the benefit of the bourgeoisie.

I really do think we're going through a period of concentration of ownership of media, and we're starting to see the effects at the editorial level, and it's all bad. This increased pressure for profits every quarter, smaller news hole, less coverage of important stuff - the extent that it's become one giant infotainment industry.

We have to be very cognizant of the fact that 90 percent of the electronic media in this country is owned, operated, programmed, and controlled by conservatives. They made a concerted effort during and before the Reagan years that they were going to get the microphone.

I noticed that mainstream western TV channels, especially CNN and ABC, show the same thing.

The handful of corporations that own most of the media outlets have an interest in reflecting establishment views.