“By the People” Press

“We the people” should not put up with the lies of the media. More of us have seen the writing on the media room wall that show it to be what it is … the enemy of all that is true and good in America. No one knows the truth of this statement as well as those who are putting forth the lies that attempt to control our lives, wield our dreams, sway of thinking and our beliefs. When we find ourselves agreeing with the media, we should begin searching for an analyst of the sort we found in this excerpt from an article on Why Media Lies by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed.

From www.mediamonitors.net

It was Walter Lippman who coined the phrase “the manufacture of consent”, enjoining it as a means of population control. Lippman’s concept may indeed be in effect today. In this regard, the status of the mass media and its faithful propagation of the established opinion that Western policy is fundamentally benevolent in intention, is an issue of paramount importance. What role has the media played in clarifying the real principles and motives of Western policy to the public, and what does this entail for the nature of Western democracy and the role of the population in the formulation of policy? The mass media is clearly one of the most powerful institutions in society; it is, for most of the public, the ultimate source of all their information. The structure of the mass media will therefore have fundamental implications for the political and cultural orientation of the public. Hence, an understanding of the mass media will throw considerable light on the structure of Western society, the relationship between the public and those who possess power, as well as the ideologies produced by the media and their impact on the public. All scholars generally agree that the media do have the capacity to set the agenda of public discourse about political affairs, and it is widely recognised that the media has a significant role in actualising the diffusion of Western ideology and culture throughout the world. However, they differ over the degree to which the media limits the public’s understanding of current affairs and the overall consequences of this.

Nevertheless, the vast extent of the manipulation of the media under the sway of business interests has been harshly revealed in the statement of John Swainton, Chief of Staff of the New York Times. “There is not one of you who would dare to write his honest opinion,” he reprimanded his colleagues at his retirement party in September.

“The business of a journalist now is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, fall at the feet of Mammon and sell himself for his daily bread. We are tools, vessels of rich men behind the scenes, we are jumping jacks. They pull the strings; we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are the properties of these men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”