Friday, January 03, 2003

Randi goes on to say that this effects more then just talk radio:
Ask yourself, why does ADM (Archer Daniels Midland) advertise? Do they want to sell you a soybean? Why does Boeing advertise? Are you gonna' buy aircraft? Aircraft parts? GE the largest defense contractor wants to sell you a light buld and/or a missile? And then there's BASF -- they don't make anything! They just make it better. Uh huh. They're buying CONTENT. Millions and millions of advertising dollars DO affect the message you get. It controls the news that is reported and the news that is NOT.
I have often wondered about this myself. Seeing advertisements from ADM, GE, BASF, etc. on TB really makes very little sense. I am not their customer. Their customers are the manufacturers and retailers who use/resell their products that ultimately go into producing the consumer goods that I buy. Those customers are not going to be making those kind of purchasing decisions based on the fact that GE "brings good things to life". What benefit then does and ADM, GE, BASF or any other of a myriad of companies get from TV advertising? Randi puts her finger on it: by shovelling large amounts of money into the coffers of the TV and cable networks these companies have become, in effect, the suppliers to the information industry addicts. They string them out on a big supply of cash ("Give it to them for free kid. You'll get them to pay later."). Then they can use the dependency on that cash as leverage to keep the information suppliers from supplying information that they don't want supplied. Remember how the tobacco industry got 60 minutes to back down on the story that was portrayed in the movie "The Insider"? They did the same with ABC and their story on the spiking of cigarettes with nicotine additives. Big tobacco certainly knows the in's and out's of keeping addicts strung out. But they aren't the only ones.

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