Petrusenko, Vitaly. The Monopoly Press. Prague: International Organization of Journalists, 1976. 143 pages.

The Prague-based International Organization of Journalists, according to a 1980 Congressional report that cited a CIA study, is an arm of Soviet propaganda with a staff of 15 and budget of a half-million dollars. It was formed in 1952 to "further revolutionary proletarian journalism." Politics notwithstanding, the point of this book -- that a small number of giant corporations monopolize the U.S. media -- has also been made by numerous other observers (see, for example, Ben Bagdikian's "The Media Monopoly").

Despite the use of words like "state-monopoly control," "ideological coercion," and "domestic government propaganda," Petrusenko tells the story in some detail with names, places, and events, and draws almost exclusively on accepted U.S. sources. From his 1976 perspective, he welcomes the "muckraking" that began with Ramparts magazine and the 1960s alternative press, and continued with Ralph Nader and then with reporting on Watergate. But Petrusenko was too optimistic too soon. Within several years everything shifted back: Carter launched the second Cold War with a defense buildup, and then Reagan finished it. By 1993 the alternative press in the U.S. was nonexistent, and U.S. media were more centralized than they had ever been in the past. After a brief flurry of Iran-contra pack journalism and George Bush bashing, the term "investigative reporter" finally became an oxymoron.
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