The Mistrust Of Mainstream Media Reaches Its Breaking Point
By
Richard Enos
Richard Enos
In Brief
- The Facts:Recent polls
suggest that now a significant majority of people believe that
'traditional major news sources report news they know to be fake, false,
or purposely misleading.'
- Reflect On:What must be going on in the minds of many who work in mainstream media, if they have come to realize that their careers are really supporting a propaganda machine?
Ah, it’s a
good time to be working in alternative media — at least that part of
alternative media whose sole and unabashed goal is to reveal the truth
behind the veil of deception. Mainstream media is rapidly losing the
trust of its general audience, partly spurred on by Donald Trump’s
frontal attack on mainstream ‘Fake News’ sources, but also inevitably
due to our general awakening to the fact that presenting news can easily
be spun towards a particular narrative, and that the rich and powerful
people who own mainstream media use it to promote a particular agenda,
both in what and how they choose to present and, sometimes more
importantly, what they choose to ignore.
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Severe Polling Numbers
At the risk of putting too much weight
on statistics generated by established national polling agencies, who
sometimes themselves have been accused of slanting their studies in a
particular direction, let’s see what several of the recent polls
conducted on public trust in national media outlets tell us:
Axios (2018)
70%: Traditional major news sources report news they know to be fake, false, or purposely misleading.
65%: Fake news is usually reported because “people have an agenda.”
Gallup (2017)
66%: Most news media do not do a good job of separating fact from opinion.
50%+: Cannot name an objective news source.
advertisement - learn morePew Research (2017)
22.5%: Information from National News Organizations is trustworthy (Average of Dem 34%, Rep 11%).
Certainly these numbers suggest that we
are nearing some kind of breaking point. It is one thing to have a
society where small groups of renegades are working covertly, for fear
of their lives, trying to reveal hidden information that most of the
population is scarcely aware of. Here, a majority of the population
believes that the way in which mainstream media dispenses news is
purposely misleading and based on agendas of control and the
disempowerment of citizens. This is anything but the objective reporting
of the facts about events as they happen, which was our general
perception of news broadcasting in earlier times.
Not Like The Old Days
It was 1972 when a survey was conducted
that found CBS Broadcaster Walter Cronkite to be ‘The Most Trusted Man
in America,’ a moniker that would stick with him for pretty much his
entire broadcasting career.
Walter Cronkite’s iconic sign-off – “and that’s the way it is” – was taken at face value by the nation. If Cronkite reported it – that’s really the way it was. Walter’s influence, trust and journalistic accomplishments – he won virtually every award the industry offered – set the standard for journalism for the nation and the world. He wasn’t the most educated or the best-looking newsman, but he was perhaps the most diligent. Cronkite was committed to delivering accurate news, refusing to report stories until they were validated and vetted. Cronkite, the main influence at CBS News, chose to err on the side of valid news rather than being first to break a story. — article
All this is not to say that deception
and narrative-building were not going on in mainstream broadcasting at
this time; it was just easier to control the information and evidence,
such that only the highest echelon executives — or the government and
corporate forces that had the executives’ ear about what to report on
and what not to report on — really understood the way that a controlled
and slanted narrative was being promoted. No one was arguing, as an
example, that the ‘Gulf of Tonkin Incident’ was a false-flag operation
instead of a legitimate reason for the United States to enter the
Vietnam War. Certainly, mainstream media sources of the time could
legitimately claim to be ‘independent’ in some ways rather than the
obvious mouthpiece for controlled narratives that they are today.
Crises Of Conscience For Mainstream Media Employees?
I think about the many reporters,
journalists, researchers, and broadcasters who have long been part of
the mainstream media machine and have their careers invested in
continuing to follow the party line. I’m sure there have been many good
people in those positions who have been putting in an honest day’s work
year after year. Now well-established in their chosen careers, are they
beginning to be conflicted as to whether they should continue to be part
of a propaganda machine? Or are many burying their heads in the sand
and ignoring the dictates of their growing awareness and understanding
of how things really work in their industry?
With the rise of the Internet and
smartphone video, with the possibility of on-the-scene witnesses
constantly recording information that goes against the mainstream
narrative, it is getting harder and harder to create false narratives
and convince even the people who put together these mainstream tales
that the story is objective and true. During crisis events, there are
more blackouts and blockades now than ever before. And, if you have
noticed, there is less mainstream journalistic eye-witness reporting;
often this has been replaced with a long and confusing wait until the
chosen narrative of the event takes shape from the back rooms and comes
out as the “official story”.
What is it like to be in a position
where more and more of those who are putting the pieces together are
told to stand down, to not speak about what they saw, to not follow a
line of investigation, to simply repeat what they are told to say? It
may not be long before this all implodes from the inside, let alone from
the pressure from all of us on the outside demanding truth and
transparency in ever-increasing numbers.
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