Mainstream Media Propaganda
From a brilliant commentary on media control:
The Establishment Media Exists to Propagandize and Control, Not Report
"It’s obvious to anyone these days that the media regularly issues propaganda; but it’s not just that, they are propaganda: it’s the primary reason they exist. The reporters, while surely well meaning at lower levels, and their investigations are just the cover story. They are in essence PR agencies for the power structure, not journalistic enterprises.
The last objection before confronting this fact is that the media are journalists, just not respectable ones: that they’re governed only by views, attention, and money – presumably meaning that of their audience.
They aren’t, or at least don’t have to be. Their money comes from corporate sponsors, the owners of many of whom also own the small handful of media conglomerates themselves, or in any case have heavily overlapping interests. It’s a closed-circuit funding mechanism that has nothing to do with the people, their values, or their desires. If no one watches, no one subscribes, no one believes, and no one cares, they will still get money from their advertisers/owners, and still be able to renew their broadcast licenses, put on slick productions, and shove ‘the messaging’ down our throats on a massive scale.
Of course there is a point where it just doesn’t work anymore, and we may be there already, but the size of the gap between a reality and an illusion of informational authority can be difficult to discern. Even if a person doesn’t believe, if he or she believes that others believe, that in itself is a powerful thing."