In Inventing Reality, Parenti analyzes the impact that the news media, specifically the major American corporate print and broadcast organizations, have on the political process, as well as the impact that political power holders have on media-organization policy and operations. The fundamental theme is that the news media make a project of either distorting or censoring information, for the purpose of serving both corporate and entrenched political interests. Why that is significant goes to Parenti's observation that the media cultivate an image of objectivity, comprehensiveness, and truth (1993, p. 5). The discrepancy between the news media's self-presentation of integrity and independence and the insatiable corporatist profit motive that is always in the background is Parenti's real subject. Corporate ownership of media outlets implies that media operatives are meant to function according to corporate policy rather than according to principles of journalism, history, morality, or even the academy.
In a corporatist-media context, then, such issues as liberal or conservative bias pale in comparison to the implications of corporate bias. Furthermore, the corporations that do compete with one another belong to a highly exclusive group, which basically means that there is an enormous concentration of wealth informing media operations, which "interlocks" with concentrated power over information that includes only one more major entity of any consequence: the government (pp. 26-7). In that context, it becomes perfectly possible for media and government (policy, intelligence) operatives to commingle their activities. Equally, there surfaces a certain sameness to the reportage of supposedly competing mainstream media outlets. One key consequence of this is that complex and important issues are edited to a simplistic level, or overlooked, or ignored, to be supplanted by easy-to-understand "fluff" or feature material or by altogether false ...