In June, Congressman Sanders wrote an op-ed, published in Washington's The Hill newspaper and widely circulated on the internet including by Common Dreams, titled "Congress Can No Longer Ignore Corporate Control of the Media."

Then Thursday, July 11, an overflow crowd came to the US Capitol for Bernie Sanders' Symposium on Corporate  Control of the Media with US Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Robert McChesney, author of "Rich Media, Poor Democracy," John Nichols, co-author of "It's the Media, Stupid" and The Nation magazine's Washington correspondent and Linda Foley, president of the Newspaper Guild.

One of our best-kept secrets is the degree to which a handful of huge corporations control the flow of information in the United States. Whether it is television, radio, newspapers, magazines, books or the Internet, a few giant conglomerates are determining what we see, hear and read. And the situation is likely to become much worse as a result of radical deregulation efforts by the Bush administration and some horrendous court decisions.

Rep. Bernie Sanders (I) Vermont

Thanks to Congressman Sanders you can hear an audio tape of the symposium here on Common Dreams. It's 1 hour and 27 minutes long (5.5 MB) and Real Player is required to listen.

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Also See:

Symposium on 'Corporate Control of the Media' to be Webcast Nationally

Congress Can No Longer Ignore Corporate Control of the Media

Articles by Robert McChesney on the Web

Articles by John Nichols at The Nation

Website of the Newspaper Guild

Website of Rep. Sherrod Brown (D-OH)

Website of Rep. Bernie Sanders (I-VT)

FAIR's Corporate Ownership website

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