". . . we made a mistake in the '20s. We let broadcasting in this country develop with commercial broadcasting taking the lead and all other kinds of information on radio or television secondary or tertiary. But the protection of money at the center of everything, including news to the degree that it is now, is that as long as you make the money, they don't care what it is you put on the air.
"They don't care. There are people I know in the hierarchy of NBC, the company, and GE, the company, who do not like to see the current presidential administration criticized at all.
"Anybody who knew anything about American history and stepped out at any point in American history and got an assessment of this presidential administration would say, 'Yeah, I don't know how much they need to be criticized, but they need to be criticized to some degree.'
"There are people who I work for who would prefer, who would sleep much easier at night if this never happened. On the other hand, if they look at my ratings and my ratings are improved and there is criticism of the president of the United States, they're happy."
Media consolidation -- the ownership of all news media by a relatively small number of giant business corporations -- is the single most serious threat to Democracy in the United States. It is the foundation stone for oligarchic control of all politics by the corporate executive class. It is why the Democratic Party is in permanent minority status, and every Democratic Presidential candidate is trashed.
Olbermann is right, and wrong. Ratings and profits are the only thing, which keeps the corporate executive class from turning the screws even tighter. But, at a time when the country is split 50-50, and most of the major media markets are heavily liberal and Democratic, all of the major cable news networks are competing to be more conservative, all of talk radio -- with one exception -- is competing very hard to be more right-wing. This is not accidental. And, the obvious profit incentive is not enough to get these corporations to zig to the right-wing zag of their competitors. MSNBC is not going to put on a bunch of liberals -- Olbermann is not liberal -- just because its market share is poor compared to CNN and FOX.
Big Media will have to be destroyed.
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