(Socialist Standard- March 2008) Since the early twentieth century American journalists have been fascinated by the uneasy relationship between democracy and a media industry that has grown immensely powerful and profitable. The opinion that the democratic process has been undermined – epitomised by declining electoral turnout – by an industry more concerned with increasing corporate profits than the meaningful dissemination of information has repeatedly led to demands for media reform. In the first part of the twentieth century the American writer and journalist Upton Sinclair drew attention to the corrosive influence of advertising that led newspapers to adapt content...
