I am not out to deride large corporations and their motivations. People need power, and people need fuel. I am only trying to warn against the mindless acceptance of a corporate−owned media. Let us return to the case of General Electric: This company admits to being a potentially responsible party at more than 70 Superfund sites, has dumped 2.5 million gallons of radioactive waste water into the Gulf of Mexico and has dumped 500,000 pounds of PCBs into the Hudson River. This is the company that employs the newscaster you watch every night.

NBC's entertainment program, "Extra," ran a special on the nuclear accident that featured a nuclear power industry expert, and it hosted no scientists critical of nuclear power. Not surprisingly, the cancer−ridden adults and children living near the plant were also not adequately represented. If this is not an example of a corporate−driven agenda, I don't know what is. This "scientist" featured on "Extra" is just the kind of scientist who will disagree with the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (a panel of the top scientists in the world, who gathered to work with the United Nations Environment Program and came to the consensus that global warming is happening and is having drastic negative effects). Patrick Michaels, a previously little−known scientist, was funded by Western Fuels Association (a consortium of coal interests) to edit the World Climate Report. You can believe it was not in agreement with most of the top scientists on the issue. Such an opinion is likely to get widespread media coverage without any mention of funding sources, especially because it seems like a hot new finding.

Let us turn our attention to advertising. You may be familiar with Sea World; Shamu is somewhat of a national icon. As one strolls through the walkways, green spaces and plazas of Sea World, one is confronted with countless messages from corporations who wish to spread their message to animal lovers from all walks of life. I will focus on Budweiser because the park itself gives out free beer. This is a brilliant marketing strategy for Bud because not only are they parading around a happy−go−lucky image, they are also doing it in the presence of families with children. In Sea World, everything down to the last bench is calculated by teams of researchers in order to make the park as efficient and profit−friendly as possible. The vice president of food services puts this message bluntly in terms of his position: "The point of the food in the landscape is not to satisfy needs but to produce and differentiate desires." So Budweiser hops on the train. In an atmosphere where everything has been calculated to perfection, corporations plant their names in order to latch onto that image of a perfect, friendly environment. Despite complaints from animal−rights activists and the fact that Sea World has been responsible for the deaths of countless killer whales over their decades of capturing the animals, they put this image across quite effectively.

In the same vein, despite that alcoholism is a destroyer of lives, Budweiser puts across the same kind of positive image quite effectively. Corporate−driven news takes a story and sells it. It is the business of intriguing, exciting, scaring the viewer into watching or into reading. For this reason, most major headlines or broadcasts will describe an event, an emergency, a declaration of war or maybe a celebrity wedding. On television or the radio, it may sound something like this: "We come to you live at the scene, where fires raged just last night through a downtown apartment building! No one has been reported injured — now we turn to local residents for their story of what happened." What may be a more important issue for the public to know about, such as the impact of car exhaust on the health of inner−city residents, is too long−term for newscasters to cover. Can you imagine a reporter saying something like this? "We come to you live at the scene, where for the past five years, a steady increase in traffic congestion has built up an unhealthy level of ground level ozone. We turn now to residents, who are unhappy that more people aren't carpooling." I don't think so.

What is the final upshot of all of this? If private agendas and corporate greed drive most of the information that crosses our path, where shall we go for truth? Hopefully we can seek it out within all of these messages and behind all of these veils. If not, the public will continue its consumptive patterns, ensuring riches for few and ruin for many.