Who owns what?

I found these graphics at thenation.com. They are simply shocking.

 

 

For me it seems bizarre that three television news stations be owned by the same people that sell light bulbs, run nuclear generators, create jet engines, and hand out credit cards, and yet such is the case for General Electric who owns NBC, MSNBC, and CNBC.
How are these things related? They aren't, except that they all reap profits.
But what if your station reports on another one of your products and the news isn't exactly going to sell more of this 'n that? That's when the difficulties arise.

We as Americans are afraid of big government, but what about big capitalism...? It hasn't done us much good, considering the state of the economy. In what ways do corporations influence our lives to the extent that government might? For one, we're being bombarded with ad's and we are given products  with no alternatives... and on the other hand we're becoming less of intellectuals in favor of  becoming consumers. Our media has degraded to selling itself to advertisers and entertainment as we stop asking important questions...
Like who is funding our news.
That's why I'm all about public radio, news, and television. Something that is relatively close to home and can be loyal, theoretically, to the public.