ABC’s “Good Morning America” is running Amazon propaganda, and they’re not even trying to hide it. In a segment on Tuesday, the corporate media program ran an almost two-and-a-half-minute ad disguised as news about how the Big Tech giant actually helps small businesses, ignoring the ways it hurts them by dodging income taxes and undercutting prices.
“Good Morning America” admits the segment is sponsored by Amazon, but it’s not the type of old-fashioned commercial you’d see during the Super Bowl. News-like chyrons along with narration and interviews by the network’s hosts complete the video’s propagandist tone.
“These small businesses are shifting to online sales, teaming up with our sponsor Amazon and now seeing big returns,” the narration runs. “This upcoming Prime Day, Amazon is finding a way to put all small businesses in the spotlight.” What a comfort ABC is committed to such unbiased, hard-hitting journalism!
How Amazon Prime Day helps you shop small; @amazonnews helps to support small businesses and save yourself money at the same time during the "Summer Black Friday" event. pic.twitter.com/KijqEmBuUD
— Good Morning America (@GMA) June 8, 2021
Sure, many small businesses can sell their products through Amazon, losing their independent branding and direct connection to customers in the process. But what Amazon and “Good Morning America” don’t tell you is that Amazon is to blame for forcing these small businesses into such a deal in the first place.
“By using Prime to corral an ever-larger share of online shoppers, Amazon has left rival retailers and manufacturers with little choice but to become third-party sellers on its platform,” notes a report from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. “In effect, Amazon is supplanting an open market with a privately controlled one, giving it the power to dictate the terms by which its competitors can operate, and to levy a kind of tax on their revenue.”
That’s what happened to Bill and Joan Keller, who explained to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance how Amazon’s dominance of online sales forced them to operate the online side of their travel store through the tech giant.
“It became clear that if you were going to sell online you had to go [through] Amazon,” the Kellers said. But a few months after starting as a third-party seller on Amazon — and subsequently losing their ability to personally connect with customers — the Kellers had to shut their 37-year-old business down.
In 2017, Amazon accounted for 37 percent of the gross merchandise volume of the American online retail market. In 2021, it’s projected to account for 50 percent.
The sellers in the “Good Morning America” promotional video are happy to use Amazon to reach their customers, for now. But what about small business owners like the Kellers, who are forced to close the places they’ve spent their lives building because of Amazon’s growing monopoly?
What about people like scholar Ryan T. Anderson, who had his book banned by Amazon because it entertained ideas about transgenderism that didn’t fit the corporate media narrative? Or former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson, whose booklet pointing out the ineffectiveness of face masks against COVID-19 Amazon censored? Or Abigail Shrier, whose book “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters” Amazon refused to allow sponsored ads for, flooding searches for the book with ads for pro-trans-ideology books instead?
Not only is Amazon censoring speech and smothering many of its retail competitors, it’s also directly expanding in other sectors. Since 2013, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has owned corporate media outlet The Washington Post, which the leftist outlet Jacobin Magazine noted was “festooned with native ads from Amazon” last month after Amazon received criticism for mistreating its employees. Now Amazon is reaching into the entertainment industry, acquiring MGM Studios in an $8.5 million purchase.
There’s a host of reasons not to trust Amazon or the corporate media. When they collude together to sell you propaganda instead of news, you shouldn’t be surprised — but you should be concerned.
Source: The Federalist
