VITAMEDIAS
PBS President Speaks On U.S., World Media: "The power center of America has shifted from the military complex to the media-entertainment centered empire," she said.
Mitchell suggested the marginalization of "hard" news was prompted by the past decade's three biggest news stories, the deaths of Princess Diana and John F. Kennedy Jr. and the O.J. Simpson trial.
Her speech focused on the negatives aspects of this shift and the domination of the media by a handful of multi-national conglomerates, such as Disney, Bertelsmann, Newscorp, GE and AOL Time Warner.
"These corporations are the gatekeeper's for us and the rest of the world, determining what we and they see," Mitchell said.
She did not only blame the media conglomerates though.
She also commented on this summer's success of American Idol, pointing out the fact that more people voted online for their favorite pop idol than those who voted in last week's national elections.
"We didn't spend the last hundred years fighting for freedom of press and freedom of access to merely sell products, so that we can beam to the entire world an image of a bachelor picking a wife," Mitchell said.