Who Are The Powers That Be?

David Halberstam Wrote a book in 1979 about four of the most powerful news outlets in the country titled The Powers That Be. They were the Washington Post, CBS, Time and the LA Times. He did not include the New York TImes, perhaps because Gay Talese had done a book on that paper. So let's go with those five as the most powerful news outlets in the country in the pre cable, pre television era.

Today I think the top five are in this order:

Fox News
The New York Times
The Washington Post
CNN
The Wall Street Journal


I also think that Fox News ahs vastly more power than any entitly on wither list. I think conservative politicians worry far more about gaining the endorsement and good favor of Fox News than liberals do about currying the good favor of the New York Times.

I also think that the news departments of the three networks are basically irrelevant as is Time.

Discuss.

 

"Most powerful" by what definition(s)?

 

A very good and very complicated question. For the purposes of this discussion whatever you definition want to use.

I put Fox News at the top of my list because I think it influences many of its viewers, i.e. Republican primary voters. Because of this I think that most national Republican politicians worry about what the opinion of Fox News is.

The Wall Street Journal is further down the list but I do think most conservative politicians do read it and worry about it. I think the Republican Party's worship of tax cuts for the rich is influenced in part by the feeling of the leaders that they do not want to earn the wrath of the editorial page by deviating from the gospel.

I think the New York Times is important because it is widely read by media and political elites. I think as a result its coverage it tends to drive the coverage of a lot of other media outlets. I put the Washington Post on my list because I think the Post serves much the same role as the NYT but to a far lesser extent. I think the Graham;s decision to run the paper post Watergate as basically a local, not national paper, has reduced its influence in the past 40 years.

I put CNN on my list rather than MSNBC because I do not think the latter has the same sway over Democrats as Fox does over Republicans but it was a close call.

 

Seems like you put both.

 

Murdoch
Comcast
Facebook
NYT
Twitter

If you are talking about shapers of opinion. Though, I'm not sure about Comcast, For whatever reason, I don't see a lot of people retweeting/posting stuff from MSNBC or NBC. I'd also say the "avenues" of how info is communicated these days is more important than whatever is being communicated.

 

I meant to put the Washington Post. I was vacillating about CNN or MSNBC and and wound up deleting the wrong outlet.

 

My definition of powerful as it relates to media is: What would cause the most chaos in society if it went down?

Facebook is the runaway winner by that criteria.

 

If all social media sites shut down forever, it wouldn’t affect me one bit.

 

The thing about MSNBC is their most popular shows are led by displaced former Republicans
Many of their contributors are the same
CNN inflames the right more but all its internal problems have taken a toll

 

It's not even close. MSNBC's viewership is a fraction of Fox's. And MSNBC viewers have brains and can think for themselves, unlike the lemmings who take their marching orders.

 

Tik Tok

YouTube

Instagram

Facebook

Twitter

Substack

Linkedin

Joe Rogan

Reddit

The Avengers

WWE

Duck Dynasty

Chik-fil-A

church

Little Richard

that guy at work

Animaniacs

Chevrolet Silverado Custom Trail Boss

the voiceover from those Home Depot commercials





























The New York Times

















Doug Marcaida




















Teen Vogue

 

Alphabet/Google is near the top of that list as well.