Free Speech for Sale, a Bill Moyers Special (1999)

This documentary examines two disturbing trends in modern American politics: the growing influence of corporate money in political discourse, and the merging of media companies into larger and more powerful conglomerates. In American law, corporations have the same free-speech rights as individuals--in that respect, corporations are 'persons'. But corporations have an inherent advantage over the average citizen: they have much more wealth at their disposal. Thus, corporations are able to buy much more media (especially TV and radio) time to get their message across to the public, dominating the political debate. Also, media corporations have been merging into fewer (and larger) entities which are better able to control the flow of information to the public. Because of their size and power, they can prevent unfavorable coverage of their activities in the media outlets they own.