The News and Cable News in particular have more than a subtle sway on public opinion. It’s an imperfect power, it often works, sometimes it doesn’t, but I have seen its dark magic in action.
The first time I noticed it was during the 1988 Presidential Election. The first debate was about to take place, and CNN’s Bernard Shaw said, “I was talking to the Bush team and they feel that if they can call Dukakis a liberal enough, they’ll have won, because Americans hate liberals.” Even as a teen I had the realization that what Shaw had just done was amazing. Did Americans at the time really hate liberals? Or did Shaw just tell them that they hate liberals? Also, by accepting the premise from the “Bush team,” that they would win the debate if they called Dukakis a liberal, he made it very easy for Bush to win the debate. Follow the logic: he called Dukakis a liberal —> He won the debate —> We must hate liberals. Why is any of this true? Because the man on TV said so. Never mind that Shaw, giving him the benefit of the doubt, was just totally manipulated by the Bush team, who in this case was Roger Ailes who would go on to create FOX News, this was magic.
Shaw also went on during those debates to ask Dukakis the infamous “what would you do if your wife was murdered question.” But to me that was nothing compared to the magic I witnessed where he had, at the prompting of one candidate’s Campaign Chair, made an entire word and wing of American politics dirty with a well timed sentence. What an incredible incantation.
During the years that followed I saw a lot of crap from CNN. I remember watching the Gulf War start and saw Wolf Blitzer’s eyes light up as he realized the ratings (and money) from televising war, and that’s the first time I remember thinking we are truly hopelessly fucked.
Along the way I got my history degree, and always had an eye on how bias of a sources effects the historical record, and how over the course of history the public discourse is always manipulated by a few well placed incantations. No wonder every faction and every would be oligarch has owned a newspaper or media conglomerate.
In 2016 I was surprised and let down that the media didn’t work its magic. I never expected it to work against the establishment. I wasn’t surprised at all when during the first Democratic debate CNN reporter and fucking Vanderbilt heir, Anderson Cooper attempted to remind everyone that Americans hate socialism. But what surprised me is that during the general election they didn’t do more to say for instance tell Americans that they hate incompetence. Or hate grift. Or expect that a candidate have qualifications. Perhaps the Clinton campaign lacked someone with the sense to prompt them to do so. No instead they attempted to treat the numerous litany of Trump scandal and the one supposed Clinton email scandal the same to give equal time, and here we are now at the dying of the Republic as a result.
Now it’s more complex. There’s also the internet and memes and Russian Troll farms and bots. But even beyond those bots, how many people post articles from RT without realizing it’s the Russian State media outlet? How many people see the Washington Times and don’t realize it is owned by the Moonies? What I’m saying is, it’s important to find and analyze the source of your information, whether it’s something posted online by a trusted friend, or if it comes from some rich man’s self serving media conglomerate, you should look for the bias behind the story before sending it on to others.
If more people were aware of the sources, perhaps we wouldn’t be so susceptible to these incantations.
