BLOG #6 Where are the Antiwar Voices?

I had never heard of Antiwar.com or The American Conservative or the writers on those sites. These writers have very strong points of view that probably go against the views of popular opinion or what mainstream news wants to report on. For this reason they need to report from more obscure websites and people who are interested in this need to actively seek it out. In a way they are being censored by being limited to where they can voice their reports and it results in their message not being widespread.

I believe that most of the mainstream news sources, whether it’s through their websites, news shows, social media sites or newspapers, try to do exactly that—stay within the mainstream. Antiwar voices may bring too much controversy and that is not what most of the big media companies want to promote. They usually want to report on what they think the majority of the country wants to see and hear about.

Another issue is that 6 large corporations own 90% of the main news channels. This will then limit what gets reported and it will likely be what those companies value and what they think the public really wants to hear. Big media companies may also want to stay on the government’s side so they may not report about antiwar protests or opinions for that reason. 

 

Also, media companies are looking to make profits and a big way they do is by revenue from ads. Some of these ads may even be from companies themselves who are involved in the war which has been the case in the past. Other companies that place ads may want to stay with the media companies that can reach the largest audience even if it means siding with the media that doesn’t report antiwar stories. That would be the big media companies. 

Reporting about war which can be graphic is not something people see everyday in news reports, so when it is, it grabs the attention of people and ends up bringing in more readers and viewers.

The anti war websites and news channels likely also don’t have the funding to be able to broadcast in a big way what their opinions and voices reflect. So they can’t compete with the main news sources and then they can’t get their anti war stories out to a large amount of people.