U.S. broadcast TV ratings slide pressures ad rates at 'upfronts' … The increased competition will force ABC, CBS, Fox and NBC to settle for their lowest average rate hikes in three years during the "upfront" selling season, Wall Street analysts say. During the upfronts, networks preview shows for their fall schedules, trying to persuade advertisers to buy billions of dollars worth of commercial time in advance. The broadcasters still command premium ad prices because they reach an audience that is far bigger than the viewership of any single cable channel. Upfront rates likely will rise by 6 percent on average, as the broadcasters. – Reuters

Dominant Social Theme: Everything is OK and the networks are making a lot of money.

Free-Market Analysis: We continue to chart the downturn of the mainstream news media. In this case, it is the upfront ad fees that are slumping for television companies. But in the past, we have seen along with everyone else on the Internet that mainstream media of all kinds is slumping.

Ads are slumping in the US and throughout the West; rates are coming down; newspapers are closing and magazines are merging or going on line. Twenty years ago no one would believe that two of the biggest magazines in the world, Newsweek and BusinessWeek, were going to end up shuttered and only delivered electronically.

But even worse, the mainstream media's reputation continues to suffer in comparison to the alternative media. It is painfully obvious that the media in the US and throughout the West has become merely a support mechanism of a larger globalist agenda.

Left or right, big or small, the mainstream media supports and promotes dominant social themes that are meant to frighten the middle class into adopting or endorsing international solutions such as those provided by the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, etc.

Here's a short article that appeared in the Weekly Standard showing just how concerned those who run the large news corporations have become:

CBS Anchor: 'We Are Getting Big Stories Wrong, Over and Over Again' … CBS anchor Scott Pelley said at a speech at Quinnipiac University that journalists "are getting big stories wrong, over and over again."… "Our house is on fire," said Pelley … "These have been a bad few months for journalism," he added. "We're getting the big stories wrong, over and over again."

The CBS newsreader was quick to take at least partial blame. "Let me take the first arrow: During our coverage of Newtown, I sat on my set and I reported that Nancy Lanza was a teacher at the school. And that her son had attacked her classroom. It's a hell of a story, but it was dead wrong. Now, I was the managing editor, I made the decision to go ahead with that and I did, and that's what I said, and I was absolutely wrong. So let me just take the first arrow here."

And Pelley said the republic relies on the quality of the news business. "Democracies succeed or fail based on their journalism," said Pelley. "America is strong because its journalism is strong. That's how democracies work. They're only as good as the quality of the information that the public possesses. And that is where we come in."

The reason the mainstream press is sinking lower and lower in the public's estimation is because it is increasingly seen as purveyors of – mostly – globalist propaganda rather than truthful information.

The current paradigm of the news media that has to do with "objectivism" is also responsible for the slide in journalism's credibility. No group is or can be objective, but by pretending to be so, Western journalism is constantly confronted by reporting that doesn't live up to such high standards.

But mostly it is the Internet itself that is doing the damage. As people are able to compare and contrast mainstream media reporting with the alternative media, the lack of objectivity and truthfulness of Big Media becomes increasingly apparent.

This lack of veracity is crucifying the value of some of the largest corporate franchises in the US and abroad. It literally amounts to corporate malfeasance as the value of the equity that has been lost continues to mount.

No one seems to point this out to the West's biggest media franchises, but someday perhaps individual shareholders shall start to sue these conglomerates for incompetence or worse.

There is no alternative to this trend but to speak the truth.