Who is the media’s news aimed at, and what is the goal of their content?

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

“Conspiracy theories” about 15-minute cities are “false”, “unhinged”, “dangerous” and “not to be believed,” declared the mainstream media in a unified chorus.

“Anyone who has ever faced a long and painful commute will immediately see the appeal of having the daily essentials at their fingertips.”

These were the claims reported in an article titled “Inside the 15-minute city conspiracy theory sucking in gullible Australians.” The reporter states that in recent years conspiracy theories that were once almost unheard of have spread like wildfire, with people looking skeptically at things like: vaccines, 5G and election results.

I am not sure where this reporter has been in the last few years, but many of these so-called conspiracy theories have proven to be right. It does appear that anytime something is said that goes against what the world governments have planned for their citizens, it is flagged as fake-news, or misinformation.

Thankfully, the glaze that was over the eyes of many has started to lift, and people are now asking questions. In a survey released in February 2023 by Gallup and the Knight Foundation, the level of distrust that the public has for mainstream media was exposed. The survey goes beyond others that have shown a low level of trust in the media to the startling point where many believe there is an intent to deceive.

Participants were asked whether they agreed with the statement that national news organizations do not intend to mislead, 50% said they disagreed. Only 25% agreed. Similarly, 52% disagreed with a statement that disseminators of national news “Care about the best interests of their readers, viewers and listeners.” It said 23% of respondents believed the journalists were acting in the public’s best interests.

Clearly there is a problem here.

What has been the media response to the distrust of a fairly significant swathe of the population? Well, they have typically: belittled, insulted and defamed them, ad infinitum. Which makes one wonder – who is the media’s ‘news’ aimed at, and what is the goal of such inflammatory content?

Let’s not forget that the western governments have just spent the past three years abusing their powers with gross overreach and wanton disregard for their citizens’ will or wellbeing. This has made some people nervous about giving the government more control over: movement, commerce, energy consumption and their human rights. Any news that does not parrot what the higher powers deem as necessary is flagged as “false information” on Facebook, so that really settles it; the news is definitely false.

I want us to stop for a moment and really think about this; at the same time as raising the alarm about ‘conspiracy theorists’, the media have relentlessly and without a hint of self-awareness published the most scientifically dubious theories themselves. Some of these false theories include: natural immunity is not effective (even though it has proved to be), your vaccine keeps you and others safe(long after the high level of breakthrough infections were documented); Covid vaccines do not affect reproductive health, when the evidence of adverse events points in the other direction; masks reduce the spread of Covid (no high quality study has found this to be true), and there are no safe or effective early treatments of COVID-19 (when numerous studies  identified benefits from repurposed drugs).

Mainstream media reporting rarely, if at all, addresses the role of the Government in seeding distrust, or of the media’s own role in facilitating the marginalization and even radicalization of mentally unstable people. Instead, it seems that most news organizations are more concerned with supporting an ideology, or political position than with informing the public.

So, readers, what are your thoughts? Do you trust what your favorite news source is telling you? If you do, have you ever considered the fact that they might be wrong? There are always three sides to every story, and the truth eventually comes to light, just wait for it.