Yes, it is most likely true, I’m not kidding and I am ecstatic about it. Ever since the late 1970’s the sources of unbiased, calm, in-depth, productive journalism in the U.S. has been whittled away by big-money and news privatization. The beginning? The Supreme Court Landmark decision of Buckley vs Valeo followed up by Citizens United vs FEC which threw open the money-bribe flood-gates.

Through the Reagan years and after, U.S. news consumers had only a few television news providers in which to select: CBS, NBC, and ABC, called The Big Three. There were major news publications in print such as the Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and the New York Times. There were a few major weekly news magazines: U.S. News & World Report, Newsweek, and Time Magazine. There were also a few major business journals: Business Week, Forbes, and Fortune Magazine. Perhaps less popular were the news radio broadcasts such as NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered. My father regularly enjoyed PBS shows, both news radio and TV entertainment. Often while driving his Chrysler Plymouth Sedan with adolescent me he’d listen to the Paul Harvey News and Comment show on the radio. I can never forget Harvey’s sign-off, “Paul Harvey… Good day.” or “Paul Harvey… Good night.” Growing up I was exposed to a lot of excellent news journalism because of Dad. He taught me the methods of core critical-thinking skills using analysis, identifying biases, inference, evaluation and problem-solving, all while being open-minded and inquisitive.

However, as I began reaching my 40’s and 50’s I noticed something in U.S. news broadcasting that had changed. Time and pejorative tones and manners. News commentary had become in-house discussion panels (cheaper costs) rather than out in the field and investigative. Propaganda had increasingly crept in more and more and I had to know why.

Ironically enough, last week as I watched and listened to my usual dose of varied news sources, I happen to catch an excellent segment on Al-Jazeera called Let’s Focus, hosted by Josh Rushing. His two guest were Emily Jashinsky, host of After Party and an anchor at Breaking Points, and Cenk Uygur, founder of The Young Turks show. Rushing was asking them, What future is there for podcasts and have podcasts become political powerhouses? It was an utterly informing, fascinating 47-minute discussion by the three of them I had to share it here! It was just too good to pass up. If any of you have problems watching the show, let me know. It’s viewable on the Al-Jazeera website as well as on YouTube, here.

The portion of the show I found very engrossing and profound was at the 28:45-minute mark or 29:15 mark when they discussed the inevitable death of private, corporate, traditional news goliaths to the rising popularity of the individual podcasting circuit. Catch it. Cenk Uygur begins with “lying to the audience” as goliath mass media such as FOX News and Newsmax as well as MSNow wants/wanted versus, “not lying to the podcast audience” because they will call you out and permanently burn you! The podcast audience do not want lies and propaganda.

Around the 29:50 mark (and following) is when the discussion got even better! Uygur went on to speak about the Podcast Era today “is a much better media ecosystem” because the host/provider is “audience responsive” as opposed to the cement guardrails the mega-corporate media giants surround the host/anchor(s) and reporters like a slip-knot noose. Then Emily Jashinsky and Cenk Uygur both agree the traditional news media giants cannot buy-out or control the discussion content with their millions or billions of dollars, their private, political interests or agendas, and more importantly with their self-imposed strict time-limits of 2-3 minute snippets or 8-10 minute short discussion panels before breaking off for more advertising dollars. They are themselves heavily restrained by Time=Money in advertising, commercials, and especially during election years their high-yield profits from super-pac campaign ads take the number one priority, forever, as long as they chain themselves to that business model.

The mainstream media behemoths are addicted to, enslaved to more money (greed), more monopolizing mass media buy-outs (popularity reach), and more high-paying super-pacs with special interests (power, authority) that appease the individual corporate owners’ or their Board of Executives’ swayed mission statement. Simply put, the traditional news media goliaths—CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, FOX News, etc.—don’t have the irreplaceable time (in ads and campaign funds/donations) that the podcast circuit is free from and not enslaved to. And Goldwater-conservative podcast co-host Emily Jashinsky stated unequivocally that “We [podcasters] don’t need access; FOX News, MS, CNN, they need access” because those small regular audiences want to see the hosts/anchors talking to the politicians. But “our audience,” Jashinsky says, “don’t give a damn if we talk to politicians. They do not care.” As Cenk Uygur stated correctly, we news consumers are no longer in the past era of a small pond of providers. “But now,” he says “we are in an ocean of content” due to the evolving, advancing tech-online ability to be everywhere at once, repeatedly.

But no more spoilers for the short attention spanners.😉 I strongly urge my followers and readers to watch this episode of Let’s Focus. You won’t regret it. In my opinion, taking away the propaganda-biased mega-profit machines of media and putting it back into the hands of We the People is the best thing ever for this very divided country. After all, the power belongs to the people in a true democracy our Core Founding Fathers intended in the first place.

Live Well – Love Much – Laugh Often – Learn Always

The Professor’s Convatorium © 2025 by Professor Taboo is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0