And of course the mainstream media desperately does not want you to look at “the man behind the curtain”.  They just want you to stay plugged into the “programming” that they are feeding you without asking any questions.

Fortunately, a growing minority of Americans are waking up and are starting to reject the mainstream media.  An increasing number of people are beginning to recognize that the mainstream media is the mouthpiece of the establishment and that it is promoting the agenda of the establishment.

So why is the mainstream media so bad?  The following are 7 things about the mainstream media that they do not want you to know…

#1 The Mainstream Media Has Very Deep Ties To The Establishment

Did you know that the president of CBS and the president of ABC both have brothers that are top officials in the Obama administration?

The big news networks have developed an almost incestuous relationship with the federal government in recent years.  But of course the same could be said of the relationship that the media has with the big corporations that own stock in their parent companies and that advertise on their networks.

This is one of the reasons why we very rarely ever see any hard hitting stories on the big networks anymore.  The flow of information through the corporate-dominated media is very tightly controlled, and there are a lot of gatekeepers that make sure that the “wrong stories” don’t get put out to the public.  As a result, many of the “big stories” that have come out in recent years were originally broken by the alternative media.

#2 The Mainstream Media Gets Things Wrong Very Frequently

Even prominent members of the mainstream media admit that this is the case.  For example, during a recent speech at Quinnipiac University CBS anchor Scott Pelley confessed that journalists in the mainstream media “are getting big stories wrong, over and over again”…

“Let me take the first arrow: During our coverage of Newtown, I sat on my set and I reported that Nancy Lanza was a teacher at the school. And that her son had attacked her classroom. It’s a hell of a story, but it was dead wrong. Now, I was the managing editor, I made the decision to go ahead with that and I did, and that’s what I said, and I was absolutely wrong. So let me just take the first arrow here.”

#3 The American Public Does Not Consider The Media To Be Very Trustworthy

Trust in the mainstream media has definitely been slipping.  In fact, a Gallup poll taken last year found that distrust of the media had reached an all-time high.  According to that poll, 60 percent of Americans “have little or no trust” that the media is reporting the news accurately.

A separate Rasmussen Reports survey found that only 6 percent of all Americans consider the news media to be “very trustworthy”.

Hopefully this trend will accelerate and a lot more people will stop trusting the media blindly.

#4 The Mainstream Media And The Politicians That They Worship Hate The Fact That They Cannot Control Internet News Sites

In the old days, the mainstream media had a virtual monopoly on the news.  But these days, anyone with an Internet connection can put up a news site, and this is driving the establishment absolutely bonkers.

For example, Barack Obama is known to have a great dislike for the alternative media.  The following is from a recent WND article…

NBC News Political Director Chuck Todd says President Obama was making it “clear” at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner over the weekend how he feels about the rise of Internet news sites like Politico, Buzzfeed and … well, WND.

“He hates it.”

Appearing on “Meet the Press” Sunday morning following Saturday night’s media, politics and celebrity soiree, Todd explained the president’s disdain for independent online news sources was showing during his speech.

“It did seem … I thought his pot shots, joke-wise, and then the serious stuff about the Internet, the rise of the Internet media and social media and all that stuff – he hates it, OK? He hates this part of the media,” Todd said. “He really thinks that the, sort of, the buzzification – this isn’t just about Buzzfeed or Politico and all this stuff – he thinks that sort of coverage of political media has hurt political discourse. He hates it. And I think he was just trying to make that clear last night.”

#5 The Mainstream Media Is Extremely Liberal

When it comes to politics, the mainstream media is far more liberal than the general population is.

For example, one survey found that 41 percent of American voters believe that the average reporter is more liberal than they are, while only 18 percent believe that the average reporter is more conservative than they are.

A very disturbing UCLA study on media bias discovered that the vast majority of media outlets are “left of center”…

Of the 20 major media outlets studied, 18 scored left of center, with CBS’ “Evening News,” The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times ranking second, third and fourth most liberal behind the news pages of The Wall Street Journal.

And even MSNBC has confirmed the liberal bias of the media.  According to MSNBC, mainstream journalists are far more likely to donate their own money to Democrats than they are to Republicans…

MSNBC.com identified 143 journalists who made political contributions from 2004 through the start of the 2008 campaign, according to the public records of the Federal Election Commission. Most of the newsroom checkbooks leaned to the left: 125 journalists gave to Democrats and liberal causes. Only 16 gave to Republicans. Two gave to both parties.

#6 Six Mammoth Media Corporations Produce About 90 Percent Of The Media That Americans Consume

As I mentioned at the top of this article, there are six giant media behemoths that control almost all of the media that we consume.  These corporate giants own television networks, cable channels, movie studios, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, video game makers, music labels and even many of our favorite websites.

The media ownership chart posted below originally comes from a previous article that I authored entitled “Who Owns The Media? The 6 Monolithic Corporations That Control Almost Everything We Watch, Hear And Read“, but it has been updated to reflect some of the latest information.  The power that these companies have is so vast that it is hard to put into words…

Time Warner

• CNN
• Home Box Office (HBO)
• Time Inc.
• Turner Broadcasting System, Inc.
• Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
• CW Network (partial ownership)
• TMZ
• New Line Cinema
• Time Warner Cable
• Cinemax
• Cartoon Network
• TBS
• TNT
• America Online
• MapQuest
• Moviefone
• Castle Rock
• Sports Illustrated
• Fortune
• Marie Claire
• DC Comics
• People Magazine

Walt Disney

• ABC Television Network
• Disney Publishing
• ESPN Inc.
• Disney Channel
• The History Channel
• SOAPnet
• A&E
• Lifetime
• Buena Vista Home Entertainment
• Buena Vista Theatrical Productions
• Buena Vista Records
• Disney Records
• Hollywood Records
• Miramax Films
• Touchstone Pictures
• Walt Disney Pictures
• Pixar Animation Studios
• 277 Radio Stations
• Buena Vista Games
• Hyperion Books

Viacom

• Paramount Pictures
• Paramount Home Entertainment
• Black Entertainment Television (BET)
• Comedy Central
• Country Music Television (CMT)
• Logo
• MTV
• MTV Canada
• MTV2
• Nick Magazine
• Nick at Nite
• Nick Jr.
• Nickelodeon
• Noggin
• Spike TV
• The Movie Channel
• TV Land
• VH1

News Corporation

• Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
• Fox Television Stations
• The New York Post
• TV Guide
• Fox Searchlight Pictures
• Beliefnet
• Fox Business Network
• Fox Kids Europe
• Fox News Channel
• Fox Sports Net
• Fox Television Network
• FX
• My Network TV
• MySpace
• News Limited News
• Phoenix InfoNews Channel
• Phoenix Movies Channel
• Sky PerfecTV
• Speed Channel
• STAR TV India
• STAR TV Taiwan
• STAR World
• Times Higher Education Supplement Magazine
• Times Literary Supplement Magazine
• Times of London
• 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment
• 20th Century Fox International
• 20th Century Fox Studios
• 20th Century Fox Television
• BSkyB
• DIRECTV
• The Wall Street Journal
• Fox Broadcasting Company
• Fox Interactive Media
• FOXTEL
• HarperCollins Publishers
• The National Geographic Channel
• National Rugby League
• News Interactive
• News Outdoor
• Radio Veronica
• ReganBooks
• Sky Italia
• Sky Radio Denmark
• Sky Radio Germany
• Sky Radio Netherlands
• STAR
• Zondervan

CBS Corporation

• CBS News
• CBS Sports
• CBS Television Network
• CNET
• Showtime
• TV.com
• CBS Radio Inc. (130 stations)
• CBS Consumer Products
• CBS Outdoor
• CW Network (50% ownership)
• Infinity Broadcasting
• Simon & Schuster (Pocket Books, Scribner)
• Westwood One Radio Network

Comcast

• NBC
• Bravo
• CNBC
• NBC News
• MSNBC
• NBC Sports
• NBC Television Network
• Oxygen
• SciFi Magazine
• Syfy (Sci Fi Channel)
• Telemundo
• USA Network
• Weather Channel
• Focus Features
• NBC Universal Television Distribution
• NBC Universal Television Studio
• Paxson Communications (partial ownership)
• Hulu
• Universal Parks & Resorts
• Universal Pictures
• Universal Studio Home Video

#7 The American People Are Absolutely Addicted To The Mainstream Media

In a previous article about the media, I noted that the average American watches 153 hours of television a month.

When you allow that much information to be downloaded into your brain, it is going to have a dramatic impact on how you think.

Americans are more “connected” than they ever have been before.  This is especially true of our kids.  They are constantly on one sort of electronic device or another.  The following is a brief excerpt from a recent article by Daniel Taylor…

According to a 2010 LA Times report, young people spend on average 53 hours a week watching TV, playing video games, and sitting at the computer.

Facebook users spend about 15 hours a month on the social networking site.

People are walking – and driving – blindly while texting, sometimes walking into fountains and evenfalling off cliffs.

If that Los Angeles Times report is true, that means that our young people are spending more than 200 hours a month connected to the media.

But we are only awake for about 480 hours a month.

When it comes to influencing the American people, nobody has more power than the big media companies do.

And until we can break this sick addiction to the mainstream media and get people to start thinking for themselves, we will never see widespread changes in our society.  As long as people are being “programmed” by the mainstream media, they will continue to express the opinions, attitudes and beliefs that have been downloaded into their minds.