What is the liberal elite media we hear so much about?

In an effort to divert the truth from the valid claim that most of America’s media time is pro-right wing — time spent listening to the radio, watching TV or reading print media like newspapers (after all, you cannot argue with the Nielson Ratings as reported to the Wall Street Journal) — the right-wing candidates, led by Newt Gingrich, have requalified the word media from its current iteration as liberal media to liberal elite media.The intent here is to not only label media as liberal — media that is far removed from the right’s point of view — but to throw in elite, meaning rich, haughty, not “of the people.” Their goal is to make listeners and readers believe that anything from the media not openly affiliated with the right wing is false, lies and is not “of the people.”So let’s look at the words individually. A dictionary says that “elite” means a group of people considered to be the best in a particular society or category, especially because of their power, talent or wealth. “Liberal” means open-minded, and “media” refers to the main means of mass communication. So elite liberal media refers to publication or speech from the best, most open-minded people in America. And this is a bad label for the nonright-wing media?But, according to conservatives, the liberal elite media is “the clique of highly paid, left-leaning executives and journalists who directly control most output of the main newspapers and broadcasting organizations. They are epitomized by the staff of such organizations as the BBC, CNN, The Guardian, The Independent, The New York Times and the Washington Post.” Most of the output? Really? Another fabrication.Let’s drill down and see just who owns the biggest slice of media — and gets the fattest paychecks — in America. Wall Street, hardly a bastion of support for anything liberal, controls all the companies and media outlets in America. And standing, front and center, is Rupert Murdoch, a right-wing mogul who clearly doesn’t care about individual rights or the law in some cases. He’s the main leader of the far-right media here and abroad. He controls Fox, the Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones (that’s Wall Street’s measuring device of wealth and power), almost 20 percent of book publishing in America, about 15 percent of all movies made and, well, another 800 companies around the world with influence approaching $200 billion.Then there’s Rush Limbaugh — owner of “the most listened to radio talk show in America” — Glenn Beck, David and Charles Koch (with an Internet media platform) and so on. Hardly an open-minded person amongst them.And as for elite — well, as these people, and Newt Gingrich (with a $500,000 credit account at Tiffany’s), are all stinking rich, it is funny to see them using the term “elite” in a derogatory way. They are the elite — when it comes to money and power anyway. Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, now lives in New Mexico.