Corporate Corruption News Articles

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Global capitalism is an incredible machine for extracting fossil fuels from our planet, refining them, shipping them to every corner of the Earth and making staggering amounts of money doing so. Unfortunately the machine is also poisoning us all. But one of its exquisitely evolved functions is to make it almost impossible to turn it off. Oil and gas profits in the most recent quarter were astounding. Exxon Mobil made $18bn in profits in the past three months. Shell and Chevron each made nearly $12bn. Those are all record numbers. A recent study showed that for the past 50 years, the oil industry has made profits of more than $1tn a year, close to $3bn a day. These profits are driven [by] cartels, mega-corporations and the regulatory capture of governments, conspiring to create a market free of both competition and of a price that reflects the actual cost to the world of the product that is being sold. These profits are illusory. They are plagued by an externality large enough to outweigh a trillion dollars a year – the costs that the climate crisis will impose on billions of people who are alive now and many generations to come. The fossil fuel industry as a whole is not just another business, providing a service to meet a demand; it is a predatory drug dealer that works every day to keep the world addicted to its poisonous product, knowing full well that it will eventually prove fatal. It fights to keep the population fooled. It is a problem to be solved.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and climate change from reliable major media sources.

The US Supreme Court let stand an $87 million award against Bayer AG, rejecting the company for the second time in a week as it tries to fend off tens of thousands of claims that its top-selling Roundup weedkiller causes cancer. The justices, making no comment, on Monday left in place a jury's finding in favor of Alva and Alberta Pilliod in a California case. Bayer argued that a federal law precluded the suit and that the $70 million punitive damages award was so large it violated the Constitution. The court last week rejected Bayer's appeal in a case the company was trying to use to scuttle billions of dollars in potential claims. The company's liability could be the full $16 billion it has set aside to resolve the litigation, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Holly Froum. Earlier this month, a federal appeals court ordered the US Environmental Protection Agency to take another look at whether glyphosate - Roundup's active ingredient - is a carcinogen. Studies have linked it to some cancers. The German chemicals giant said it "is fully prepared to manage the litigation risk associated with potential future claims in the US as previously communicated in July 2021, including a voluntary claims program, transition of active ingredients for glyphosate-based products in the US." Bayer inherited the legal mess in 2018 when it acquired Monsanto Co., the herbicide's maker. Bayer has won four of seven Roundup trials so far, with all its losses occurring in California courts. The case is Monsanto v. Pilliod, 21-1272.

Note: Instead of relying on independent science, the EPA used industry studies to determine that glyphosate was safe. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and health from reliable major media sources.

Federal charging documents unsealed Tuesday describe how the company, FirstEnergy, spent $60 million to get House Speaker Larry Householder and his favored candidates elected, securing in return a $1.3 billion bailout, paid for by Ohio ratepayers. Householder and Jeff Longstreth, a top aide ... set up Generation Now, a secretive political nonprofit that could raise and spend unlimited amounts of money. “Having secured Householder’s power as Speaker, the Enterprise transitioned quickly to fulfilling its end of the corrupt bargain with Company A — Passing nuclear bailout legislation,” the complaint reads. After Gov. Mike DeWine signed the bill ... opponents, allied with natural-gas and environmental interests in the state, got to work trying to repeal it. They cleared an initial hurdle, collecting 1,000 valid signatures from voters. They had until Oct. 21 to gather hundreds of thousands more signatures. FirstEnergy and FirstEnergy Solutions sent $38 million to Generation Now. The campaign spent millions on mailers and ads discouraging Ohioans from signing the petitions. It also hired petition firms to prevent them from working for the repeal side. “For example,” the complaint reads,” in a meeting on July 24, 2019, which was recorded, [lobbyist Neil] Clark stated that he wired about $450,000 today hiring signature collections people to not work.” Some of the petitioners worked as “blockers,” disrupting the other side’s signature gathering efforts by following them around and making possible signers uncomfortable.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and nuclear power from reliable major media sources.

Moderna set off a frenzy on Wall Street earlier this month when it announced positive, preliminary results from its coronavirus vaccine trial. As the hype grew, the young biotech company and its leading investor wasted no time capitalizing on the briefly surging stock price. Even as critics accused Moderna of overhyping the results released on May 18, a series of transactions were executed before its share price fizzled over the next week. The timing of those deals, former SEC officials said, appear to be "highly problematic" and should be investigated for potential illegal market manipulation. Just hours after revealing the promising vaccine results, Moderna (MRNA) sold 17.6 million shares to the public. That share sale, unveiled after the closing bell on May 18, was priced at $76; Moderna traded at just $48 as recently as May 6. The deal instantly raised $1.3 billion. Two of Moderna's top executives also cashed in on the boom at their company, which had suddenly amassed a $29 billion market value despite the fact it has no marketed products. By the time the selling was disclosed to the public via securities filings, Moderna's stock price had crashed back to Earth. The timing of the transactions - coupled with concerns from some medical experts that Moderna overstated the significance of its Phase 1 vaccine trial - should be investigated by authorities. Thomas Gorman, [a] former SEC official, said the agency should "absolutely" be investigating the situation at Moderna.

Note: Why didn't the media report that the Moderna vaccine trial had a 20% serious injury rate in the high dose group? Learn about this and much more in this revealing article. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on Big Pharma corruption from reliable major media sources.

When the Indian government bowed to powerful food companies last year and postponed its decision to put red warning labels on unhealthy packaged food, officials also sought to placate critics of the delay by creating an expert panel to review the proposed labeling system, which would have gone far beyond what other countries have done in the battle to combat soaring obesity rates. But the man chosen to head the three-person committee, Dr. Boindala Sesikeran, a veteran nutritionist and former adviser to Nestle, only further enraged health advocates. That’s because Dr. Sesikeran is a trustee of the International Life Sciences Institute, an American nonprofit with an innocuous sounding name that has been quietly infiltrating government health and nutrition bodies around the world. Created four decades ago by a top Coca-Cola executive, the institute now has branches in 17 countries. It is almost entirely funded by Goliaths of the agribusiness, food and pharmaceutical industries. The organization, which championed tobacco interests during the 1980s and 1990s in Europe and the United States, has more recently expanded its activities in Asia and Latin America, regions that provide a growing share of food company profits. It has been especially active in China, India and Brazil, the world’s first, second and sixth most populous nations. In addition to its far-flung offices, ILSI runs a research foundation and an institute focused on health and environmental issues that is largely funded by the chemical industry.

Note: Check out a great article on how lobby groups like this cause the media to become industry lapdogs. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on food system corruption from reliable major media sources.

In a direct challenge to California regulators and Bay Area environmentalists, the Trump administration Thursday ordered companies to ignore state requirements that businesses warn customers if their products contain glyphosate, a weed killer that has been linked to cancer. The decision flies in the face of three California court rulings against Monsanto, which markets the chemical as Roundup. The agricultural giant faces more than 13,000 suits nationwide by users of Roundup, the world’s best-selling herbicide. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced it would no longer approve labels saying glyphosate is known to cause cancer. The state requires companies to warn customers about chemicals known to cause cancer under the Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act. Glyphosate was classified as a probable human carcinogen in 2015 by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which is part of the World Health Organization. Lawyers for sick clients who were awarded tens of millions of dollars after suing Monsanto introduced evidence that glyphosate can cause genetic damage that leads to non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. They claimed Monsanto ignored that information and published information “ghost written” by staffers denying the toxicity of the chemical. Superior Court Judge Winifred Smith said there was clear evidence that Monsanto, after learning of the dangers, “made efforts to impede, discourage or distort scientific inquiry” by regulators.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.

In May 2008, as the opioid epidemic was raging in America, a representative of the nation’s largest manufacturer of opioid pain pills sent an email to a client at a wholesale drug distributor in Ohio. Victor Borelli, a national account manager for Mallinckrodt, told Steve Cochrane, the vice president of sales for KeySource Medical, to check his inventories and “[i]f you are low, order more. If you are okay, order a little more, Capesce?” Then Borelli joked, “destroy this email ... Is that really possible? Oh Well...” Those email excerpts are quoted in a 144-page plaintiffs’ filing along with thousands of pages of documents unsealed by a judge’s order Friday in a landmark case in Cleveland against many of the largest companies in the drug industry. A Drug Enforcement Administration database released earlier in the week revealed that the companies had inundated the nation with 76 billion oxycodone and hydrocodone pills from 2006 through 2012. Nearly 2,000 cities, counties and towns are alleging that the companies knowingly flooded their communities with opioids, fueling an epidemic that has killed more than 200,000. The filing by plaintiffs depict some drug company employees as driven by profits and undeterred by the knowledge that their products were wreaking havoc across the country. Plaintiffs in the case argue that the actions of some of America’s biggest and best-known companies - including Mallinckrodt, Cardinal Health, McKesson, Walgreens, CVS, Walmart and Purdue Pharma - amounted to a civil racketeering enterprise.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on pharmaceutical industry corruption from reliable major media sources.

Facebook on Thursday banned conspiracy theorist and InfoWars founder Alex Jones and the accounts of other controversial figures. The company, citing violations of its policies on hate speech and promoting violence, is also blocking religious leader Louis Farrakhan, who is known for sharing anti-Semitic views; Paul Nehlen, a white nationalist who ran for Congress in 2018; far-right figures Milo Yiannopoulos and Laura Loomer; and conspiracy theorist Paul Joseph Watson. Those individuals and accounts that represent them are also banned from photo-sharing app Instagram, which Facebook owns. “They have rules, but enforcement is completely random,” said Roger McNamee, a high-profile Silicon Valley investor who has become a sharp critic of Facebook. “They don’t do anything about it until massive harm has been done and they can no longer find a dodge. Facebook is clearly feeling pressure.” McNamee said Facebook’s business model depends on amplifying content that stimulates fear and outrage, and banning a few influential figures doesn't change that. "It is sacrificing a handful of the most visible extreme voices in order to protect a much larger number of users it needs to maximize profits," he said. The Menlo Park, Calif., company didn’t say what specific posts or actions led to the bans, though a spokesperson said that Jones, Yiannopoulos and Loomer have all recently promoted Gavin McInnes, founder of the violence-prone far-right group the Proud Boys, whom Facebook banned in October.

Note: What happened to freedom of speech guaranteed in the US Constitution? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and the manipulation of public perception.

Matt Litrell, a 22-year-old Amazon employee, was distributing union fliers outside the warehouse where he works this month when the cops showed up. An Amazon manager had called the sheriff's office in Campbellsville, Ky., that afternoon to report that protesters trying to start a union were trespassing on company property. While the officers eventually determined that Litrell wasn't on Amazon's property and left, Litrell plans to add the incident to the illegal-intimidation charge he filed with the National Labor Relations Board in May. Employees at Amazon facilities around the country whose union hopes were buoyed by the labor victory at a warehouse in Staten Island in April say in labor board filings and interviews that the company has been calling police, firing workers and generally cracking down on labor organizing since that historic win. Amazon has been accused of illegally firing workers in Chicago, New York and Ohio, calling the police on workers in Kentucky and New York, and retaliating against workers in New York and Pennsylvania, in what workers say is an escalation of long-running union-busting activities by the company. It's a sign that, even as lawmakers demand Amazon drop its objections to the union win in Staten Island ... the nation's second-largest private employer will continue to put up fierce opposition to any wave of union momentum. Eric Milner, a lawyer representing the Amazon Labor Union, called the company's objections to the election "a frivolous sideshow."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.

A former director at the tobacco giant Philip Morris International (PMI) was handed a role on an influential expert committee advising the UK government on cancer risks. Ruth Dempsey, the ex-director of scientific and regulatory affairs, spent 28 years at PMI before being appointed to the UK Committee on Carcinogenicity of Chemicals in Food, Consumer Products and the Environment (CoC). The committee's role is to provide ministers with independent advice. Yet since taking up the position in February 2020, Dempsey has continued to be paid by PMI for work including authoring a sponsored paper about regulatory strategies for heated tobacco products. She also owns shares in the tobacco giant ... and receives a PMI pension. But her appointment, unreported until now, raises questions about the potential for undue influence and possible access to inside information on policy and regulatory matters that may be valuable to the tobacco industry. PMI has a long history of lobbying and influence campaigns, including pushing against planned crackdowns on vaping. It has also invested heavily in promoting heated tobacco as an alternative to smoking and expects to ship around 140bn heated tobacco units in 2024, a 134% increase on its 59.7bn sales in 2019. Sophie Braznell, who monitors heated tobacco products as part of the University of Bath's Tobacco Control Research Group, said Dempsey's position on the committee risked undermining its work. "In permitting a former senior tobacco employee and consultant for the world's largest tobacco company to join this advisory committee, we jeopardise its objectivity and integrity."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health and government corruption from reliable major media sources.

Once upon a time, you could have yourself a nice little Saturday of stocking up at Costco (using your sister's membership card, naturally), before hitting up a museum (free admission with your 15-year-old expired student ID) or settling into a reality TV binge sesh (streaming on your college roommate's ex-boyfriend's Netflix login). Thanks to the fine-tuning of the tech that Corporate America uses to police subscriptions, those freeloading days are over. Costco and Disney this month took a page from the Netflix playbook and announced they are cracking down on account sharers. Want to put on "Frozen" for the kids so you can have two hours to do literally anything else? You're going to need a Disney+ login associated with your household. The tech that tracks your IP address and can read your face has gotten more sophisticated. Retailers and streaming services are increasingly turning to status-verification tech that make it harder for folks to claim student discounts on services like Amazon Prime or Spotify beyond graduation. Cracking down on sharing was hugely successful for Netflix. For years, the streaming giant turned a blind eye to password sharing because doing so allowed more people to experience the product and, crucially, come to rely on it. Netflix kept growing and growing until 2022, when [it] cashed in on its brand loyalty, betting that it had made itself indispensable to enough viewers that they'd be willing to cough up $7-$15 a month to keep their access.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.

On July 16, the S&P 500 index, one of the most widely cited benchmarks in American capitalism, reached its highest-ever market value: $47 trillion. 1.4 percent of those companies were worth more than $16 trillion, the greatest concentration of capital in the smallest number of companies in the history of the U.S. stock market. The names are familiar: Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Nvidia, Meta, Alphabet, and Tesla. All of them, too, have made giant bets on artificial intelligence. For all their similarities, these trillion-dollar-plus companies have been grouped together under a single banner: the Magnificent Seven. In the past month, though, these giants of the U.S. economy have been faltering. A recent rout led to a collapse of $2.6 trillion in their market value. Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs issued a deeply skeptical report on the industry, calling it too expensive, too clunky, and just simply not as useful as it has been chalked up to be. "There's not a single thing that this is being used for that's cost-effective at this point," Jim Covello, an influential Goldman analyst, said on a company podcast. AI is not going away, and it will surely become more sophisticated. This explains why, even with the tempering of the AI-investment thesis, these companies are still absolutely massive. When you talk with Silicon Valley CEOs, they love to roll their eyes at their East Coast skeptics. Banks, especially, are too cautious, too concerned with short-term goals, too myopic to imagine another world.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on AI and corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.

Real estate companies are making an explicit appeal to wartime patriotism, leading with the conflict as a selling point and a reason to invest. In late June, a company called My Israel Home hosted an expo at a Los Angeles synagogue catering to a specific clientele: Jewish Americans looking to buy a new home in Israel – or on illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Similar real estate fairs have popped up across North America this year ... and several have faced protests as the war on Gaza has brought the issue of Israeli settlements and Palestinian sovereignty to the fore. On websites largely tailored for Jewish American buyers looking to move to Israel, prospective homeowners can browse properties that include listings for homes in settlement communities, which offer the typical trappings of suburban life. Around a dozen real estate firms have participated in real estate fairs organized by My Israel Home across North America this year. Six of these firms are actively marketing at least two dozen separate properties for sale located within eight different West Bank and East Jerusalem settlements, according to their online listings. Other real estate firms commonly list dozens of West Bank properties on their sites. West Bank settlements have long drawn criticism from the international community, which regards the settlements as illegal, in violation of Article 49 of the Geneva Conventions. Criticism of settlements have only intensified in recent months amid a spike in settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied territory.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corruption in government and in the corporate world from reliable major media sources.

The tobacco company Philip Morris International has been accused of "manipulating science for profit" through funding research and advocacy work with scientists. Campaigners say that leaked documents from PMI and its Japanese affiliate also reveal plans to target politicians, doctors and the 2020 Tokyo Olympics as part of the multinational's marketing strategy to attract non-smokers to its heated tobacco product, IQOS. A paper from researchers at the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath said that Philip Morris Japan (PMJ), funded a Kyoto University study into smoking cessation via a third-party research organisation. The researchers said they could find no public record of PMJ's involvement, although a PMI spokesperson said its involvement had been attributed when the results were presented at a scientific conference in Greece in 2021. PMJ paid about Ł20,000 a month to FTI-Innovations, a life sciences consultancy run by a Tokyo University professor, for tasks such as promoting PMI's science and products at academic events. In one internal email, a PMJ employee claimed they had been told "to keep it a secret". Dr Sophie Braznell, one of [the paper's] authors, said: "The manipulation of science for profit harms us all, especially policymakers and consumers. It slows down and undermines public health policies, while encouraging the widespread use of harmful products."

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on health and science corruption from reliable major media sources.

Research from the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL) details the widespread burdens that plastic pollution places on US cities and states, and argues that plastic producers may be breaking public-nuisance, product-liability and consumer-protection laws. It comes as cities such as Baltimore have begun to file claims against plastic manufacturers, but the authors write that existing cases "are likely only the beginning, as more states and municipalities grapple with the challenges of accumulating plastic waste and microplastics contamination." Taxpayers foot the bill to clean plastic pollution from streets and waterways, and research shows people could ingest the equivalent of one credit card's worth of plastic per week. From 1950 to 2000, global plastic production soared from 2m tons to 234m tons annually. And over the next 20 years, production more than doubled to 460m tons in 2019. As the public grew concerned about plastic pollution, the industry responded with "sophisticated marketing campaigns" to shift blame from producers to consumers – for instance, by popularizing the term litterbug. Plastic has clogged sewer grates, leading to increased flooding. It has also exposed populations to microplastics. The report outlines different legal theories that could help governments pursue accountability. Nuisance could account for the harms themselves ... and consumer-protection law could be used to combat deceitful marketing practices.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and toxic chemicals from reliable major media sources.

Emotion artificial intelligence uses biological signals such as vocal tone, facial expressions and data from wearable devices as well as text and how people use their computers, promising to detect and predict how someone is feeling. Over 50% of large employers in the U.S. use emotion AI aiming to infer employees' internal states, a practice that grew during the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, call centers monitor what their operators say and their tone of voice. We wondered what workers think about these technologies. My collaborators Shanley Corvite, Kat Roemmich, Tillie Ilana Rosenberg and I conducted a survey. 51% of participants expressed concerns about privacy, 36% noted the potential for incorrect inferences employers would accept at face value, and 33% expressed concern that emotion AI-generated inferences could be used to make unjust employment decisions. Despite emotion AI's claimed goals to infer and improve workers' well-being in the workplace, its use can lead to the opposite effect: well-being diminished due to a loss of privacy. On concerns that emotional surveillance could jeopardize their job, a participant with a diagnosed mental health condition said: "They could decide that I am no longer a good fit at work and fire me. Decide I'm not capable enough and not give a raise, or think I'm not working enough." Participants ... said they were afraid of the dynamic they would have with employers if emotion AI were integrated into their workplace.

Note: The above article was written by Nazanin Andalibi at the University of Michigan. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption and the disappearance of privacy from reliable major media sources.

The Los Angeles County coastline is renowned for its stunning views and famous beaches. But move into deeper waters and another legacy comes into view: industrial waste dumped on a scale we're just beginning to understand. Using a deep-sea robot, UC Santa Barbara scientists discovered an eerie graveyard of leaking barrels in 2020, spread out on the seafloor near Santa Catalina Island. DDT, a powerful pesticide that was banned 50 years ago, was found in high concentrations near the barrels, leading scientists to suspect they were full of it. (Scientists later discovered that companies didn't even bother putting DDT in barrels – they dumped it directly into the sea.) The barrels may actually contain low-level radioactive waste. "From the 1940s through the 1960s, it was not uncommon for local hospitals, labs and other industrial operations to dispose barrels of tritium, carbon-14 and other low-level radioactive waste at sea," [Rosanna Xia] reported. That was a key finding in a new study. Researchers found clues while reviewing hundreds of pages of records, which indicated that a company tasked with pouring the DDT waste off the L.A. coast had also dumped low-level radioactive waste. The radioactive waste sitting down there is unequivocally terrible, but the "concerning concentrations" of DDT in the deep ocean are worse. Researchers have found high levels of DDT across an area of seafloor larger than the entire city of San Francisco.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on toxic chemicals from reliable major media sources.

Erik Prince has been many things in his 54 years on Earth: the wealthy heir to an auto supply company; a Navy SEAL; the founder of the mercenary firm Blackwater, which conducted a notorious 2007 massacre in the middle of Baghdad. Last November, Prince started a podcast called "Off Leash," which in its promotional copy says he "brings a unique and invaluable perspective to today's increasingly volatile world." On an episode last Tuesday, [he said] that the U.S. should "put the imperial hat back on" and take over and directly run huge swaths of the globe. Here's are Prince's exact words: "If so many of these countries around the world are incapable of governing themselves, it's time for us to just put the imperial hat back on, to say, we're going to govern those countries ... 'cause enough is enough, we're done being invaded. You can say that about pretty much all of Africa, they're incapable of governing themselves." Prince's co-host Mark Serrano then warned him that listeners might hear his words and believe he means them: "People on the left are going to watch this," said Serrano, "and they're going to say, wait a minute, Erik Prince is talking about being a colonialist again." Prince responded: "Absolutely, yes." He then added that he thought this was a great concept not just for Africa but also for Latin America. Previous bouts of the European flavor of colonialism led to the deaths of tens of millions of people around the world.

Note: Erik Prince's Blackwater served as a "virtual extension of the CIA." Learn more about how war is a tool for hidden agendas in our comprehensive Military-Intelligence Corruption Information Center.

Our new report for the Groundwork Collaborative finds that corporate profits accounted for more than half – 53 percent – of inflation from April to September 2023. That's an astronomical percentage. Corporate profits drove just 11 percent of price growth in the four decades prior to the pandemic. Businesses have been quick to blame rising costs on supply chain shocks from the pandemic and the war in Ukraine. But two years later, our economy has mostly returned to normal. In some cases, companies' costs to make things and stock shelves have actually decreased. A recent survey from the Richmond Fed and Duke University revealed that 60 percent of companies plan to hike prices this year by more than they did before the pandemic, even though their costs have moderated. Corporations across industries, from housing to groceries and used cars, are juicing their profit margins even as the cost of doing business goes down. Since the summer of 2021, Groundwork began listening in on hundreds of corporate earnings calls where we heard CEO after CEO boasting about their ability to raise prices on consumers. Now we hear something slightly different: CEOs crowing about keeping their prices high while their costs go down. PepsiCo raised its prices on snacks and beverages by roughly 15 percent twice in the last year while bragging to shareholders that their profit margins will grow as input costs come down.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on corporate corruption from reliable major media sources.

It wasn't so long ago that the traditional film and television business was thriving. The Big Six media conglomerates–General Electric, Time Warner, Sony, Disney, News Corporation, and Viacom–ruled the industry. But the double whammy of streaming and the pandemic toppled the old-media oligopoly. So most of the legacy media giants now are struggling simply to survive, while a new breed of digital-age behemoths, led by Amazon and Apple, gauge their film and television prospects, and Disney and Netflix lead the way into an uncharted online landscape. The failure of the conglomerates to adapt is none too surprising. Spurred by Reagan-era economic policies and the FCC's deregulation campaign, the media industries converged in a series of M&A waves that began in the 1980s with the News Corp–Fox, Time-Warner, and Sony-Columbia mergers and culminated in the acquisition of Universal by GE, NBC's owner, and the launch of NBC Universal in 2004. At that point, the Big Six owned all the major film studios, all the broadcast networks, and most of the top cable networks. They dominated other media industries as well, but their key assets were their film and television holdings. The Disney+ launch was a tipping point in the streaming era, prompting the ramp-up of Warner's HBO Max, NBCU's Peacock and ViacomCBS's Paramount+. It also came just before the outbreak of Covid-19, which accelerated the global move to streaming.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on censorship and media corruption from reliable sources.

Important Note: Explore our full index to revealing excerpts of key major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.