In their seminal work, "Manufacturing Consent," Professors Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky observed: "Leaders of the media claim that their news choices rest on unbiased professional and objective criteria .... If, however, the powerful are able to fix the premises of discourse, to decide what the general populace is allowed to see, hear and think about, and to 'manage' public opinion by regular propaganda campaigns, the standard view of how the system works is at serious odds with reality."

It is a problem that has been magnified by increasing levels of media consolidation. When Ben Bagdikian first published "Media Monopoly" in 1983, 50 giant firms dominated almost every medium.

Dec. 1, 2003, Howard Dean informed viewers on "Hardball with Chris Matthews" that "11 companies in this country control 90 percent of what ordinary people are able to read and watch on their televisions."

Actor Tim Robbins wrote in the foreword to "Tragedy and Farce: How the American Media Sell Wars, Spin Elections, and Destroy Democracy," by John Nichols and Robert W. McChesny: "The very structure of our conglomerated media system conspires against real journalism, and hence, the truth. And without access to the truth, democracy withers."

Nowhere is the problem more acute than the manner in which we operate elections. The corporate media, especially electronic media, have a vested interest not only in whom we elect but how we elect. By failing to provide in-depth, meaningful coverage of links between candidates and issues that truly matter to the vast majority of Americans, i.e., the middle and working classes; by focusing solely on those candidates whose electoral success will not threaten the media conglomerate bottom line; even then limiting coverage to poll numbers and abstract observations about "viability," the media conglomerates have enhanced the existence of a corrupt electoral system in which candidate access to the public can only be secured by the expenditure of millions of dollars spent on expensive, 30-second spot ads, and where only those candidates who are backed by wealthy corporations need apply.

The system's devaluation of democracy is perhaps no better demonstrated than it was during the last election in California, where the electorate was given the choice of choosing between ads that had the state treasurer walking backward and the governor driving his motorcycle backward; where the governor was able to limit access to "issues" by participating in a single debate, moderated by an ally and scheduled to run at the same time as the Dodger/Met playoff game. With form exalted over substance, is it any wonder that the governor's star power produced a sweeping electoral victory?

Then there was the battle over Proposition 87. The proponents produced an impressive ad — segments of a speech by former President Clinton that captured the need for imposition of an extraction tax on oil that would be earmarked for the development of alternative energy. The opponents, with substantial financial backing from Big Oil, put out a slick ad, using a man in firefighter garb who claimed that Proposition 87 would take tax money away from schools, police and fire services. Had the corporate media, as the price of their monopoly licenses to broadcast over the public airways, been required to broadcast a debate on this important measure, the proponents of Proposition 87 could have made short work of the opponents' claim. This was a "new" tax. It did not exist then and does not exist now. It did not and could not have "any" effect on the tax money received by schools and public safety.

It is not the proponents of Proposition 87 who lost. It was the members of the voting public who were duped into opposing it. So long as the public is deprived of the option of viable alternatives, such as electric cars, Big Oil can literally hold all of us over a barrel. When a wealthy elite controls the scope and content of the public discourse, democracy is defeated.

Ernest A. Canning, of Thousand Oaks, is an attorney.