Somebody once said that history is written by the winners.
A similar saying could be applied to the news. In effect the news as reported by the mainstream legacy media is told by those that control the flow of information.
It is very rare to get the full picture from any one news outlet. They simply supply a narrative that is often predetermined. We aren’t meant to question it, we’re just meant to swallow it hook line and sinker.
It doesn’t matter which side of the political fence you choose to sit on, the truth is that the media you rely upon will never tell you the whole truth. It’s simply does not pay to state all the facts.
It wasn’t always this way. For a long time the media was sufficiently diverse and competitive for it to place a high store in such quaint concepts as even handedness, truth and fairness.
However as media ownership laws have been relaxed and media ownership has become more concentrated the competition has decreased significantly. This lack of competition of course breeds laziness, at best. At worst it allows a narrative to run unchecked and unchallenged.
The rise of independent media and organisations like WikiLeaks has seen this monopoly of “news” come under severe threat. We can now choose who provides us with analysis of a variety of news subjects. This represents a massive challenge to the controlled narrative that has been so easily pushed by media channels across the globe. Just think about the Iraq war and consider how consistent the message was.
In the United States, there are six companies that control the media. All of these companies have diverse business interests and are heavily conflicted in respect to the dissemination of information. if you spend the time tracing the connections between these companies and the military industrial complex as well as Wall Street you will find a spider’s web of deep connections. The situation is even worse in Australia.
This conflict of interest matters because there is no will to investigate embedded corruption or the impacts of government policies like the tTPP that are bound to benefit corporations at the expense of ordinary people.
It is therefore imperative that the alternate media that has emerged in the past decade be allowed to thrive and coexist with the Legacy media.
Unfortunately the connections between big tech and mainstream media entities are many. This is problematic because the big tech companies are relying upon mainstream media sources to determine what is genuine news and what is fake news. Of course the mainstream legacy media is going to do everything in its power to minimise and neutralize its competitors who have eaten significantly into their audience and credibility.
Now, there is a concerted campaign by MSM and their acolytes to destroy alternative media channels. The purge is in full swing -everybody from Jimmy Dore through to Steven Crowder is under attack and unfortunately the purge is succeeding. This success is in part due to the ridiculous either/or left/right paradigm that everybody is plugged into. When Steven Crowder is demonetized the left cheer mindlessly. When Jimmy Dore is demonetized the right cheer in similar fashion.
This is nuts.
Everybody has the right to speak. Equally, everybody has the right to choose whether or not to listen.
People don’t need to be protected from ideas. Ideas challenge. They force people to engage and to either agree or disagree.
The exchange of ideas and the debate of such is the very foundation of what western society has been built upon.
Sometimes, words hurt, sometimes words inspire, sometimes they make you laugh, sometimes they make you cry. Best of all – good words make you think.
Right now we are locked in an intellectual death spiral of feelings over facts.
Alternative media allows people to voice their opinion to present additional facts to the official narrative and to question more. Suppression of these voices amounts to fascism.
As Voltaire was once reputed to say I may disapprove of your words but I will defend to the death your right to speak them.
We must defend people’s right to speak. We must allow even the most repugnant ideas to see the light of day where they can be held up to scrutiny and exposed for what they really are. Suppressing them and forcing them underground only serves to glorify them as forbidden fruit.
It is also important to allow independent freethinkers a voice and a platform that holds the official narrative to account because the mainstream media has proven itself incapable and unwilling to do so.
If you’re getting your news from a single mainstream source you’re not getting news you’re getting a narrative that some would even call it propaganda.
It’s time to get the full story, to do your own research to seek out independent media voices of all persuasions and start thinking for yourself.
You can’t do that without permitting others to speak – even when they offend you.
===========================================================
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. I am a full time writer with an interest in politics and where this world is headed. If you liked this short article I’d be grateful if you shared it on Facebook, Twitter or any other platform that you hang out on.
If you would like to support the work I do in this area you can do so by leaving feedback, following me on Twitter, Medium or Steemit or alternatively funding my independence by becoming a patron
Thank you for reading. I'd appreciate it if you If you enjoyed this please share, like or comment as appropriate
You can grab a free sample of my story writing by subscribing to my story lover's list .