The increasing control of the U.S. media by corporations and wealthy private owners is a threat to the principles of democracy, particularly free speech and access to information. According to Gore Vidal (11), this concentration of media ownership by the wealthy "makes information and education so tightly controlled that very little news about the actual U.S. situation ever gets through to consumers." Such a condition allows a handful of wealthy individuals to shape and control mass opinion in the U.S. One example is Rupert Murdoch's FOX Network, which has been reluctant to disseminate any negative information about the Bush Administration or Iraq War.
             In his book Rich Media, Poor Democracy, Robert W. McChesney argues that this power to shape and control information and education has also led to other phenomena, like more campaign spending for negative TV ads in the face of a sharp decline in news coverage of political issues and campaigns. In his review of McChesney's book, Greg Thompson notes that the right to vote provides little actual control over the course of government. According to Thompson (14), "This thin reed of democracy is all that separates the U.S. from being a political oligarchy." The control of the U.S. media by an increasingly concentrated group of wealthy individuals is a negative development for democracy. Future legislators need to impose controls on media ownership in order to give the right to unrestricted and comprehensive information and education back to U.S. citizens. If not, the media will lose all of its power as a check and balance on government.
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