Sunday, February 21, 2010

News Corporation

Did you know there are only six corporations which own all the media distributed in the United States? Needless to say it is a sign of corporate control and a cry for Americans to consider the purpose behind the mass media they consume. I could go on and on about how independent journalism is neglected and often disregard but that’s not what this blog is about- it’s all about going green!

Although I have my opinions about corporations, they are not all bad. In one of my advanced Justice Courses at ASU, my teacher assigned us a 15 page paper about a corporation. We had to find the environmental, economic, and social good and/or bad about the corporation. Press releases, news stories, and the company’s finances were areas of interest for this project. But large corporations have great Public Relation teams and considering they control the media they can pretty much control their image. But beyond this there are independent organizations that uncover the truth about corporations. These organizations provide information about corporations who treat their employees poorly, damage the environment, or do not give back to their communities. One website which was very helpful to me was CorpWatch.


My teacher assigned me The News Corporation, which I had never heard of before this paper. But she assigned topics based on our interests; somehow she knew I was interested in pop culture. To be honest, I went into the project with the intent of exposing all the environmental wrong doings of the News Corporation. But what I found was the complete opposite. The News Corporation is really striving to contribute to the green revolution. Their main goal is to reduce carbon emissions by 2010 but also to use renewable energy sources, and educate their employees and audiences on environmental issues. Here are some ways they will meet their goals:


24
is the first ever carbon neutral television show. In the filming of season seven, they reduce their carbon footprint by 43% through green practices.


Futurama
seasons are sold on DVDs which are carbon neutral when manufactured.


Fox Entertainmen
t manages the FOX Green Guide which is a website dedicated to green practices in the media realm; FOX is owned by the News Corporation
.


Overall, the News Corporation seems to have a pretty good grasp on embracing the green revolution. Thus far I have been unable to locate any reports on how close there are to reaching their goal of zero carbon emissions hopefully some information will be released soon. I will report any data found on the News Corporation but as of now they seem to be making great strides to go green. Since the News Corporation own much of the media in the United States, they can help educate and influence Americans to be environmentally conscious.

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