Mainstream Media on Wikipedia

In the United States of America, all mainstream media is owned by the following corporations as of 2002 (possible further mergers have since taken place, reducing the number of media houses in control of all news and television programming even further): AOL/Time Warner, AT&T, General Electric, Viacom, Walt Disney, Liberty Media Corp., Sony, Vivendi Universal, Bertelsmann, and (Murdoch) News Corporation.

What does this mean? It means that American citizens are receiving a daily dose of news and entertainment from companies, not investigative journalists, not independent journalists or media houses. Why is this important? It is important because by definition corporations are created and run to make a profit. If American citizens and foreign citizens tuning in to American news programs and newspapers are getting daily news reports from profit-motivated media houses, many stories are being left out, and spins are being incorporated into the stories that are printed and reported on television; namely to the effect of supporting and promoting the profit motive of the corporations that operate the media houses in question.

It is relatively easy to step out of this box of manufactured news by looking for investigative journalism, magazines like Yes! and Rachel's Environment & Health Weekly are good starting points for finding alternatives to the mega corporate news.

Wikipedia

Boycott of McDonald's corporation

Submitted via McDonald's website:
I am writing to let McDonald's know that I pledge not to ever purchase or consume anything made by your company. If McDonald's corporation seeks to reverse my pledge it must actively halt its support of big corporate beef and chicken producers that treat animals horribly. To gain my patronage and that of my entire network, which I am actively advising a permanent boycott of McDonald's, McDonald's must stop abetting the rapid fattening of cows on corn in lots where they stand ankle deep in their own fecal waste and do not have green grass to eat. McDonald's must demand that the chickens used in its restaurants be treated humanely instead of being fattened rapidly in houses that lack windows and in which the birds cannot walk but must sit and lie in their own fecal waste and often die horribly. Your statement that: "Customers can trust McDonald's to provide them with food that is real and made with high quality ingredients. Our high quality food choices are made with fresh ingredients from the most trusted suppliers." is an outright lie, and I for one am disgusted at McDonald's irresponsible practices and will spread the word to my network about who McDonald's buys meat from and ask my network to spread the word to their network until McDonald's makes a necessary and major change in support of humane animal treatment and sustainable farming practices that include crop diversity, organic standards, and fair and legal treatment of workers.