Corporate Media & Voting Systems Ownership: Follow the Money

[Amaryllis]

Compare notes with http://www.ecotalk.org/VotingMachineCompanies.htm
on ownership of voting systems companies.

Big Media Interlocks with Corporate America

By Peter Phillips

July 4, 2005

Mainstream media is the term often used to describe the collective group of big TV, radio and newspapers in the United States. Mainstream implies that the news being produced is for the benefit and enlightenment of the mainstream population-the majority of people living in the US. Mainstream media include a number of communication mediums that carry almost all the news and information on world affairs that most Americans receive. The word media is plural, implying a diversity of news sources.

However, mainstream media no longer produce news for the mainstream population-nor should we consider the media as plural. Instead it is more accurate to speak of big media in the US today as the corporate media and to use the term in the singular tense-as it refers to the singular monolithic top-down power structure of self-interested news giants.

A research team at Sonoma State University has recently finished conducting a network analysis of the boards of directors of the ten big media organizations in the US. The team determined that only 118 people comprise the membership on the boards of director of the ten big media giants. This is a small enough group to fit in a moderate size university classroom. These 118 individuals in turn sit on the corporate boards of 288 national and international corporations. In fact, eight out of ten big media giants share common memberships on boards of directors with each other. NBC and the Washington Post both have board members who sit on Coca Cola and J. P. Morgan, while the Tribune Company, The New York Times and Gannett all have members who share a seat on Pepsi. It is kind of like one big happy family of interlocks and shared interests. The following are but a few of the corporate board interlocks for the big ten media giants in the US:

New York Times: Caryle Group, Eli Lilly, Ford, Johnson and Johnson, Hallmark,
Lehman Brothers, Staples, Pepsi
Washington Post: Lockheed Martin, Coca-Cola, Dun & Bradstreet, Gillette,
G.E. Investments, J.P. Morgan, Moody's
Knight-Ridder: Adobe Systems, Echelon, H&R Block, Kimberly-Clark, Starwood Hotels
The Tribune (Chicago & LA Times): 3M, Allstate, Caterpillar, Conoco Phillips, Kraft,
McDonalds, Pepsi, Quaker Oats, Shering Plough, Wells Fargo
News Corp (Fox): British Airways, Rothschild Investments
GE (NBC): Anheuser-Busch, Avon, Bechtel, Chevron/Texaco, Coca-Cola, Dell, GM,
Home Depot, Kellogg, J.P. Morgan, Microsoft, Motorola, Procter & Gamble,
Disney (ABC): Boeing, Northwest Airlines, Clorox, Estee Lauder, FedEx, Gillette,
Halliburton, Kmart, McKesson, Staples, Yahoo,
Viacom (CBS): American Express, Consolidated Edison, Oracle, Lafarge North America
Gannett: AP, Lockheed-Martin, Continental Airlines, Goldman Sachs, Prudential, Target,
Pepsi,AOL-Time Warner (CNN): Citigroup, Estee Lauder, Colgate-Palmolive, Hilton

More: http://globalresearch.ca/PrintArticle.php?articleId=632

[MelissaB]

1. I'm sick.

This is shameful! Follow the money, indeed.

[paineinthearse]

6. Thank academia for conducting such an investigation

3rd nomination. And I'll be forwarding this to my "good guys" media contacts.

[AuntiBush]

8. You took those 2 works right out of my mouth!

Me too. We'll be sick together, MelissaB.

Now what!?! Shameful is right!

Oh. Oh... sick! Speechless... Halliburton, GE, O.M.G.!

[Amaryllis]

17. Damn, Melissa, I didn't mean to make you sick!

[peacetalksforall]

2. So these are the people who pay for and manipulate the exit polls.

i.e., the CEOs of these companies and their stockholders.

These are the people who call the election any which way they want.

These are the people who secure the loyalty of some of our leaders.

[peacetalksforall]

3. There is Echelon - the spy system of the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia,

and a fifth - is it India? There is supposed to be five. They spy on us and our so-called enemies.

[peacetalksforall]

4. I thought Target was supposed to be a blue company? n/t

[AuntiBush]

10. Same here!

[peacetalksforall]

5. I can't seem to be able to avoid four of them. I'll have to see how I

can come up with some alternatives.

I'm making a little list to carry with me. A cheat sheet of some cheaters. Predators of our freedoms and thieves of our vote.

[Peace Patriot]

7. Of all of these, I would single out Knight-Ridder as the only worthy

news organization. They've done some fine investigative work on the war and other issues, and virtually stand alone among the bigger U.S. news organizations in doing so.

Where is the connection to Diebold, ES&S, etc.? Is it at the eco-talk link? How do the voting machine companies interlock with the news organizations and other corporations?

-----

Yes, these are the people who FALSIFIED the exit polls (Kerry won) to fit Diebold and ES&S's "official results" (derived using secret, proprietary software) on everybody's TV screens on election night--thus depriving the American people of major evidence of election fraud, and squelching protests and calls for investigation. The "results" went from Diebold and ES&S machines to AP to the networks and other news monopolies, where they ALTERED the exit polls--which had been showing a Kerry win all day--to fit the Diebold and ES&S numbers. (These two corporations controlled about 80% of the vote tabulation.)

Slimebags.

[Peace Patriot]

9. Here's the answer to my question--it's at the ecotalk link, which is a

goldmine of information on these election companies, their CEOs, owners, financial connections and history.

From the ecotalk link (Lynn Landes):

"Ownership:  There are no government standards or restrictions on who can sell and service voting machines and systems. Foreigners, convicted criminals, office holders, political candidates, and news media organizations can and do own these companies. It appears that these companies are dominated by members of the Republican Party and foreign investors. Jack Kemp, a former GOP candidate for vice president in 1996 and a possible candidate for Governor of California this year, is on the board of directors for Election.com, while Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) was the past president of the company (AIS) that counted the votes in his first election and an investor in the company (ES&S) that counted the votes in his second election. At least four companies are foreign-owned: Sequoia (UK), Accenture/Election.com (UK Bermuda), EVS (Japan), and N.V. Nederlandsche Apparatenfabriek (Netherlands). Election.com was formerly owned by Osan, Ltd., a Saudi Arabian firm. Many voting machine companies appear to share managers, investors, and equipment which raises questions of conflict-of-interest and monopolistic practices."

[AuntiBush]

11. Oh, Jeez... Feelin' Sicker By The Minute here.

Re-reading. In major shock right now. Shew.

"Election.com was formerly owned by Osan, Ltd., a Saudi Arabian firm." oh and all the rest!

118 people run it... for the most part. How many investors are making $$$$$$$$$$$ while running buck-shod over our only pure freedom: Our VOTES!!

How do they sleep at nights, and smile into the camera's w/American flags flying all around in digital-TV-land!?! And they call "US" un-American and fill-in the blanks.

[intheflow]

12. I've known about this for years, but

this is the first time I've seen so many specific companies listed all in one place. I bookmarked and recommended this thread.

[Amonester]

13. In 2 words:

BIG BROTHER
:nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke: :nuke:
:cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry: :cry:

[snot]

14. I wonder if, below radar, we cd buy up stock in key companies . . .

an amusing fantasy, anyway.

[Melissa G]

15. Wow Amaryllis! thanks for the post!

Kind of turns my stomach though... what a train wreck for democracy!

[EC]

16. New York Times: Caryle Group

Papa ** - there's your Judy Miller connection, Caryle Group...

[Amaryllis]

18. Bechtel is ringing a bell but I can't place them...Iraq contracts?

[FogerRox]

19. All the more reason to fight back-- dont be sick

[rman]

24. yes, and there's a connection with Rumsfeld

google it

[pauldp]

20. Names. We need a list of names

for the 118. Then we can do a bit more digging. These are THE BASTARDS who are strangling our democracy.

[Amaryllis]

21. Ideas on how to get names?

[pauldp]

22. I emailed Project Censored at Sonoma State.

Hopefully they'll get back to me with some more specifics.

I suppose we can dig for names on the web as well.

[progressoid]

23. Thanks Amaryllis - I'm saving this for the next time my RW M-I-L

goes on about the librul media.

[Joanne98]

25. OMG

privatizing, monopolizing, & politicizing the voting process... around the world
(not all the information on this page has been updated)

The voting technology business is dominated by Republican-leaning U.S. and foreign corporations. Today, two Republican-controlled corporations, Election Systems and Software ( ES&S) and Diebold Voting Systems, and a British-based company, Sequoia, control about 80% of the vote count in the U.S.. But many other corporations are also involved in the elections industry (see below). Meanwhile, the long history of election upsets due to voting machine "glitches", that overwhelmingly favor Republican candidates, continues to grow. See:http://www.ecotalk.org/VotingMachineErrors.htm

Will future elections feature The Battle of the Backdoors to voting software? Military defense contractors that also provide election services include: Accenture (a business partner of Halliburton, also a defense contractor), Diebold Voting Systems, Northrop Grumman/Diversified Dynamics/TRW (partners with Science Applications International Corporation, SAIC, also in defense industry), General Dynamics/Computing Devices Canada, Unisys (partners with ES&S), National Semiconductor Corporation, Hart Intercivic, Booz-Allen & Hamilton, and Perot Systems Government Services, Inc..

Government Oversight: There is no federal agency that has regulatory authority over the elections industry according to Brian Hancock, spokesperson for the Federal Election Commission (FEC), and Jorge Martinez, spokesperson for the Department of Justice (DOJ). No agency or organization even has a complete list of voting machine companies. Using a rough estimate, there are about 70 voting machine companies worldwide, with at least 48 based in the U.S.. The FEC lists only 19, the Texas-based National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) lists 16 that are 'industry certified' (which are outmoded and voluntary guidelines), while the IFES Buyers Guide lists about 64 companies worldwide that appear to be engaged in electronic voting. Meanwhile there is one company that is 'flying under the radar' of both the FEC and NASED, that is the Bermuda-based Accenture (formally Andersen Consulting) that has the contract for the online military vote in 2004.



Ownership: There are no government standards or restrictions on who can sell and service voting machines and systems. Foreigners, convicted criminals, office holders, political candidates, and news media organizations can and do own these companies. It appears that these companies are dominated by members of the Republican Party and foreign investors. Jack Kemp, a former GOP candidate for vice president in 1996 and a possible candidate for Governor of California this year, is on the board of directors for Election.com, while Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) was the past president of the company (AIS) that counted the votes in his first election and an investor in the company (ES&S) that counted the votes in his second election. At least four companies are foreign-owned: Sequoia (UK), Accenture/Election.com (UK Bermuda), EVS (Japan), and N.V. Nederlandsche Apparatenfabriek (Netherlands). Election.com was formerly owned by Osan, Ltd., a Saudi Arabian firm. Many voting machine companies appear to share managers, investors, and equipment which raises questions of conflict-of-interest and monopolistic practices.