The Corporation-A Documentary that looks at the role business plays in our lives

It was just a throw-away line in a Dateline NBC report on Elian Gonzales and how he’s doing four years after returning to Cuba. Correspondent Keith Morrison was describing a Cuban –born American who was visiting Cuba .In describing the gentlemen, Morrison said while the man loved his homeland, he was grateful he had grown up in the United States-- a country with a free press.

Normally, a line about America and its free press would have been a line that just skimmed my consciousness.

Context is an interesting thing.

When I was watching the story, it was in the context of having just returned from watching the Canadian documentary, The Corporation, which looks at the role business plays in our lives.

It’s not flattering look.

If your cause is the environment, you’ll be concerned.
If your cause is human rights, you’ll be concerned.
If your cause is the manipulation of young children by advertisers, you’ll be concerned. And, if you believe in a free press, you’ll be concerned.

However, this is not a movie review. I’ve never written one, not sure how to do it. Besides, there are already plenty of reviews.

The thing that was most haunting to me about this documentary was a story about two reporters in Florida who had done an investigative series on the potential risk of milk containing a Monsanto product called Posilac-- a genetically engineered dairy hormone(rBGH) that turns regular dairy cows into super milking machines.

rBGH is banned in Europe and Canada because there have been some studies linking it with increased risk of breast and prostate cancer.

The story never aired. Monsanto threatened Fox with pulling all its advertising at all Fox stations-- not just the one in Tampa, Florida. That’s millions upon millions of advertising  dollars.  Lawyers got involved. There were 83 rewrites. The reporters refused to air the story as edited.

They got fired. They sued. One won $425,000 in damages. An Appeals court overturned the award saying it’s not against the law for news organizations to air false reports. 

If this were a stand alone case, it would be distressing on its own. But, it's not. Unfortunately, the power that business plays on what stories get on the air is indeed frightening to anyone who cherishes the concept of a free press.

The 2002 anthology, Into The Buzzsaw, showcases 18 journalists and their stories about corporate and government interference.

As one reviewer said,

“In various ways, all the submissions in this book prove how the "Free Press" in America is not always so free.”

As Publishers Weekly said in its review,

“Indeed, if members of the general public read this book, or even portions of it, they will be appalled. To the uninitiated reader, the accounts of what goes on behind the scenes at major news organizations are shocking. Executives regularly squelch legitimate stories that will lower their ratings, upset their advertisers or miff their investors. Unfortunately, this dirt is unlikely to reach unknowing news audiences, as this volume's likely readership is already familiar with the current state of journalism.”

The right to report a story without interference from advertisers is a core principle of American journalism that may not be as core as it used to be.

In the 1970s, I was a reporter at WWBT-TV in Richmond, Virginia.
One of my news directors was so adamant about the separation of advertising and news that he forbad us to mention anything that even had the hint of advertising.

Like many television stations, we ran a local morning talk show. One day,I was hosting the show and a B movie starlet was in town promoting her movie.

My news director gave me very strict instructions. The starlet could notmention the name of the movie or where it was playing.

When I explained the situation to the starlet,she was dumbfounded. The truth is, at the time, I thought my news director had gone a bit overboard about the separation between news and promotion.

I didn’t see the harm in mentioning her movie. I was a naïve 23-year old. Now, I understand that when you cross that line in the sand, the line disappears--forever.

Business has no business in the newsroom. The more it's there, the more the “free press” becomes little more than a mirage.

Visit http://www.thecorporation.com/ to find out when the documentary is playing in a town near you. If it’s not scheduled, you can reserve a copy of the film on Netflix.

Image added: 8/09/07