“The power to define reality is the most abused power of the media. Period. End of tweet.” - John McAfee (2021)
How do we know what we think we know? How much of each of our internally constructed views of the world originates from information delivered from behind the opaque walls of media institutions of which we are not privy to their own internal goals, ideals, objectives and biases?
What is presented to us as independent thoughts and analysis often seems to lack significant diversity of thought and opinion. Having typically only one and at most two points of view, which is often the media’s limit of its expansive analysis of the world, signals an abject failure to have a rich set of free-thinking investigative journalists all independently attacking a problem or idea and bringing forward a plethora of perspectives to consider.
There is additionally an abysmal lack of nuance in the coverage of any particular topic. There are predefined narratives for nearly every public issue. You are told you must fit into one of them and that is your side and you must adhere to all the perspectives of that side. Media coverage of nearly everything of public interest is distilled into neatly summarized talking points intended to avoid thought-provoking discussions and instead encourage thought compliance.
The “Trusted” Sources
Acclamations, popularity, industry awards, credentials, reputation, precedent, certifications, labels of official status and circles of references are facets by which many determine reliable from unreliable sources of information. It is all a monument of good-sounding criteria that presents itself as impressively convincing. It should be, but reality often and unexpectedly surprises theory.
The larger an organization grows the more bureaucratic it becomes. Its primary function begins to shift to protecting the order of the organization versus the outward stated goals. The process of ascending to positions of significance and influence begins to filter out individuals inclined to unaligned thought patterns with the organization. There isn’t necessarily direct intent for this outcome, but homogeneous organizations are easier to manage, direct and understand their operations which favors this evolution over time.
Groupthink begins to emerge in dominance and is a self-reinforcing phenomenon that bolsters confidence in perpetually wrong ideas, decisions and objectives. Alliances and partnerships form among disparate large entities that create momentum behind initiatives, constructed from a top-down approach, which resists feedback coming from lower levels directed upward as commitments have already been made to executives, shareholders or other high-level interested parties. Which simply means nobody at the top is listening to what anyone —at the bottom fully immersed in the knowledge of what is happening— has to say.
These types of organizational problems are not unique to news or other information organizations. It is a problem that affects all types of organizations and news is simply not spared the wrath of bureaucratic destruction of rational decision making which becomes progressively worse at scale.
All of these problems will express themselves in ever greater intensity as consolidation of media continues forming ever larger monoliths of thought and uniformity. Efforts to bind them all into approved narratives further enhance this effect through Orwellian thought police such as Trusted News Initiative and numerous similar fact-checking organizations. As the monolith grows in size, its power and influence grow which makes it a prime target for subversion. This begins to reveal itself as the line continues to blur between government and media with a court recently issuing an injunction to prevent continued government censorship by proxy through social media.
Although this case is still relatively young, and at this stage the Court is only examining it in terms of Plaintiffs’ likelihood of success on the merits, the evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period perhaps best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the United States Government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian “Ministry of Truth.”
- TERRY A. DOUGHTY, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
STATE OF MISSOURI vs. JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR. - CASE NO. 3:22-CV-01213
Verifiable is not always true
The most effective sleight of hand technique utilized by the media may be the use of verifiable facts to prove a narrative true. The professional media, which is often seen as the trusted media, are professionals of the highest order in this regard. Trust is built on the basis that the facts can be verified. We source the information and find that it appears congruent with the media’s depiction. This creates the appearance of integrity and accuracy. However, it is in reality a designed deception done through omissions and Orwellian word-craft.
In reference to the above Court ordered injunction into state-initiated censorship. We can see how the media responded in verifiable fashion.
It is consistent and verifiable with the language and intent stated by the government. There is significant similarity, but slightly different phrasing which gives the impression many people are arriving at the same conclusion. The headlines indicate the harm is perceived to be to the government and/or the people as a result of the injunction, not due to the censorship. Here the word-craft is utilized to reframe the narrative away from censorship and to the loss of protection from the government. Additionally, the simple phrasings of “communicating, contacting, working with” are used to certify that the activities are nothing out of the ordinary. Therefore the facts are true as we can compare them to the statement from the government here.
The Government faces irreparable harm with each day the injunction remains in effect, as the injunction’s broad scope and ambiguous terms (including a lack of clarity with respect to what the injunction does not prohibit) may be read to prevent the Government from engaging in a vast range of lawful and responsible conduct—including speaking on matters of public concern and working with social media companies on initiatives to prevent grave harm to the American people and our democratic processes.
- MEMORDANDUM IN SUPPORT OF DEFENDANTS’ MOTION TO STAY PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION
Fact checkers win as what was stated is true. You can verify what the media stated and what the government stated align. However, it is what was not stated is the deception. Information that would allow you to come to any other conclusion except the one that is intended is absent or referred to in such a way as to diminish its significance. Ironically, wouldn’t this purposeful framing of narrative be the very definition of misinformation for which is the claimed target? A further detailed perspective on this particular issue of government proxied censorship is covered in Revenge of the Praetorian Guard from Brownstone Institute.
Who gives you permission to think?
“It’s a big club and you ain’t in it” - George Carlin
Eventually, this closed circle of relationships leads to an elitism mindset which further restricts critical thought and consideration of ideas outside the royal palace of the rightful custodians of humanity’s knowledge. No one else has the right or privilege to transparent information and decision-making.
Who makes up this “big club, royal palace”? It comprises the obvious media institutions with which most are familiar as well as an extensive network of other decision-makers that ultimately decide the information that you are allowed to know and under what context. Racket News has composed a substantial reference of organizations and relationships that explores this in greater detail - Report on the Censorship-Industrial Complex: The Top 50 Organizations to Know
The media mindset is that they are the rightful arbiters of truth and you do not even have permission to evaluate information for yourself.
“…Remember, it’s illegal to possess these stolen documents[Wikileaks]. It’s different for the media. So everything you learn about this, you’re learning from us.” - Chris Cuomo CNN (2016)
Counter-narrative information is not to be debated but simply discarded as dangerous misinformation. It is the inversion of reason which asserts that truth is apparently harder to defend than inaccuracy, falsehood, and invention.
“We are told debate is the great engine of liberal democracy. In a free society, ideas should do battle in the public forum
…
In practice, modern debate has a structural bias in favour of demagoguery and disinformation. It inherently favours liars.”
Notice the phrasing of “modern debate” as if to say there is something fundamentally different than in the past. However, any institution of power has always seen debate cast in the same light as it is always a challenge to the order of power. Debate is simply dialogue that offers an opportunity to perceive a potentially different viewpoint. Historically this has always been a threat and such challenging dialogue may find you in the Crown’s dungeon.
The Guardian attempts to completely discredit debate with a few valid, but mostly strawman arguments and then offers writing as the superior solution as if writing doesn’t also exhibit many of the same issues they raise for debate. I suppose we are not allowed to debate The Guardian on the topic of debate.
What remains?
Everyone is biased and everyone has a narrative. Everyone that says they are not biased is biased. There is no escape from bias, not from people, not from individuals, and not even from machines as I have described in The Bias Paradox and much of the communication in society is through a distortion lens of social media ( see Uniform Thought Machines ).
From all of this, we can elicit the most basic and important principle as pertains to information consumption. Which can be stated as “The media in which you trust is the most dangerous media of all.” When we give trust, we open our minds to accept without question. Therefore the evolution begins in which trusted sources inevitably become unaccountable sources and unaccountable sources become corrupt sources.
Giving anyone else permission to filter, as in the TNI or fact checkers, is giving permission to someone else to decide what you are allowed to know. How is it that a bureaucratic organization susceptible to the same flaws as regulatory capture knows what is in your best interest to know and not to know?
Self responsibility for knowing
Below is a collection of non-mainstream media resources of opinion, information and news. Being on the list is not a recommendation, endorsement or vetting of information. You are your own filter and the only one who can be responsible for the knowledge you consume. The only answer to all of it is self-responsibility for knowing. If you are able to build more than two perspectives for any issue, then you likely have thought deeper than 99% of the media narratives.
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