really want to tackle this understand that everyone has about the term “mainstream media” or the term “the media” in general. I want to write about it, because I believe that the term severely hampers public discourse and the ability for common posters like to find common ground with other people that are looking to discuss on social media (I also hate political memes, but that is a whole another rant). Here is my essay that no one asked for.
Disclaimer: I am not a journalist, nor am I educated in any social political field. So really, I have no idea what I am talking about and am making this up as I see the World around me. Take that with a grain of salt as you read this.
Argument #1: Mainstream Media is Left-of-Centre because it must be.
First, the very definition of news needs to be reporting on change. Something in the world is different today, and it is the job of a news station to report that change. That change might be new information/data, a new idea, exploring something that hasn’t been noticed before, to diving deep into something in our world to educate us on how other people live. This is news, is experiencing different.
News couldn’t exist if it only reporting on things that are the same. It would be boring and none of us would care to read it. They would eventually run out of content and just republish old articles saying the same thing, because nothing has changed.
The goal, that I hope everyone agrees on, is that the best source of information about a changing world would be one that:
-States only the observed facts of a situation.
-Is relevant to us as readers.
-Has no opinion of the writer laced inside the writing.
-Has no influence by an authority that wants to skew the info for their own gain.
-Interviews people for further information that has relatives experience to the change at hand
-Has done considerable research as journalists to make sure that all information presented is true, fair, and based in science, the law, and the general body of knowledge that surrounds the topic.
-Use clear language without heat or insult.
So for a News outlet to report on something new and to keep it non-biased, it must be willing to listen to people from all aspects of the situation and to give them fair voice. Now voices all have a different volume, and a lot of the times, the news outlet must give a voice to the minority of people over the majority to create fairness and unbiased messaging. So when outlets post articles on things that change and the reason things should change, that is in its very essence, progressive. Writing articles about how things should stay the same, is in its very essence, is conservative. So when outlets create articles on racial tension, LGBTQ2S+, science and medicine discovery, refugees, etc. It is always going to look like it is left of center, because giving a platform for change IS left of center.
Conservative News outlets get around this by always phrasing all change as an attack on conservative ideas and writing news articles framing the proud defense of the conservative culture. It looks like a change because the attack is new, but the actual news of the story very limited because the information provided in the articles is a want to not change.
In conclusion, The best sources of news by very nature must be Left of Center so that it can show us the way other people see the World and why other people are asking for change. Also so that it can get people to actually read it.
Argument #2: No one works for free, so you may as well work for the Government.
No one is going to report on news full-time unless they can get paid. No one wants to work on anything unless to get paid. Which means that any reliable news, that has the resources and means to be onsite of news when it happens, and to report on that news with proper grammar, photography, and distribution, needs lots of money. There is only 3 ways to make that money, funding (Government), revenue (Corporation), and donations (Not for Profit).
Lets start with donations: To get people to donate, you need to be able to give donation receipts, which means you need to be registered with the CRA, which means you have a missions statement, or a specific cause. So anything from an NPO will be very specific in nature and will only appeal to certain people, so I would rule the out of the “main stream Media pile”
Corporations only have a single mandate, make profit. Which means that any ethical stand to report on the truth, rests outside of that primary mandate. Many corporations do maintain their revenue by reporting in an unbiased manner (for fear of losing their credibility). But when push comes to shove, they must make money, and they are watching for what articles they push and how much attention they get. The more clicks, the more money, the more the corporation will slide to strategy over professional journalism. Big corporations have the capital to keep up with news around the world, but small companies will have to fight for a bigger piece of the pie with less resources and will likely move to more extreme methods to get readership. I find it interesting how capitalism, typically a conservate value, must report progressive views against itself to make money sometimes.
Finally, Government News outlets sometimes get the biggest critique of being biased because of the “corrupt” government bearing down on them. Is government news biased? Of course it is. But when you look at the hoops a journalist must jump through the publish a truthful and unbiased story, there is actually the least in government. News outlets are an arm’s length away from their benefactors. Politicians get traded out every few years and so their control over the media will always wane over time. We elect both Conversative and Liberal governments that will fight over control of the news, but at least that power is constantly changing. Not only that, I the government were to punish the news, it would have to do so by reducing their funding (which typically will come from conservative governments want to make government smaller). So do I blame the news from giving the liberal government a bone once in awhile? Not at all. Does the conversative want a better light on the news? Then make a public pledge to not reduce the funding of media and give them the freedom to do their job without getting reprimanded. With less pressure to make profit, journalist have the time to make deeper, more researched, and more honest articles.
So as much as we don’t want to admit it sometimes, news outlets like the CBC and the BBC have some of the best reputations for publishing good journalism.
Argument #3: The difference between News and Lobbying, and the aggressive use of the word “Main Stream Media”
Really, the only place in media do you hear the term “Main Stream Media” is in conservative or conspiracy outlets. Many of these outlets use this term constantly. And usually when it is used, it is connected with a very quick straw man argument, or an accusation of some sort. I usually hear “The mainstream media says this ——, but the truth is —-“. Almost every time, there is no direct link of article that shows those words being used by a news article. They, don’t because the term is a tool used by smaller outlets to attempt to gain readership over the bigger outlets by discrediting them without reason. Mainstream media is the perfect boogeyman for outlets that want to fight any viewpoint they disagree with, because you don’t have to ever prove who the mainstream media ACTUALLY is. You don’t have to call out a single voice in the thousands of news outlets, social media posters, independent bloggers, and people you overhear talking, because if you did, you would sound really dumb. But if you attack the entity of information distribution as a whole, then you sound like the one true voice calling out through the static.
So when you have an organization that its mission statement is to provide news either from a “conservative perspective” or “alternative to the mainstream media” than you have already admitted that you will distribute information in a more biased method than the news you accuse of being biased. Now I’m not saying that talking about news from a different perspective isn’t bad, what I am saying is by its very definition it is no longer news, it is a political lobby group or activist group.
This will be my only real example as I just want the argument to stick without ways for people to straw man one of my examples. Rebel Media, is not a news outlet, it is a political lobby group. It has one very important task, which is to get ‘journalists’ to break the law, then raise money to sue the government to get rid of the law. This is what activists do, not journalists. Can good come out of what the Rebel is doing, (as much as I do not like them) I must say yes, but to believe that anything they says is news is garbage. If you read their newsletter (which I read them) their words are riddled with insults and poor logic and heated language. It is so biased it’s disgusting. You would never see a real journalist talk the same way that they do (but that is another whole rant in itself)
Bringing it all together Argument #4: We run away from slightly biased media into the open arms of More biased media because we do not want to admit that we need to be critical thinkers to understand the world.
This is what hurts me when I read discourse on social media. We all love to attack what “they” are saying, like it’s some blown up balloon we all take turns punching (both sides guilty here). Then we all claim that what other people are reading/posting is bad and that we should all “do the research, get the facts, don’t be sheeple”. But then what do we all do? We keep posting terribly sourced memes and find articles from the most ridiculous locations so long as they agree with what we want to hear. Do we want to become better citizens? Do we want more unbiased news? Better research? Find middle ground? Solve problems? Or do we want to sit at home feeling good about ourselves because we “educated” someone on the internet with our witty rapport.
We must all hold our news outlets accountable for reporting the truth. We also must hold ourselves accountable for doing the same. And this means working with our current “mainstream media” and thinking critically about everything we read, regardless of where we read it, and confer humbly with others, ready to learn. We must disregard news that uses language to convince us of the facts, or attacks their opponents, and embrace people working their hardest to keep the truth as open as possible.
I highly Recommend the BBC as one of the best sources of news on the planet. They have a great widget for phones for easy viewing and keeping up with what’s going on.
Post Argument #5: Why is my opinion not reflective in “Mainstream News”
This one I feel like has been stating a great many people so I will keep it short, and likely more open to attack. If you read all this and say “but I believe this and no one in “Mainstream Media” is talking about. There are two things it could be.
- what you want to believe on a subject matter is your opinion and is not shared by the experts of a subject matter. Chances are they have logically explained why the opinion is false and has provided mountains of research, experience, and data, to disprove it so much so they don’t want to address it again. The issue is not them proving themselves, it is you not willing to go through the same process to come to the same conclusion they did.
- You are on a breakthrough of new thought and the world selfishly wants to keep you in the dark because they are afraid of what you have to say. To be able to finally share the world of your new thought, you should do what everyone else as done to get to be on interviews, go to school for 12 years and prove without doubt that your new thought is legitimate, well founded, and worth listening to because it is your life’s work.
I’m gonna go with 100,000:1 odds its #1
Post Post Thought (September 26th, 2022)
In Reading my Last post argument here I realize that I am my own hypocrite. I do not agree with strong or insulting emotional language, and my last point here is very obviously strongly worded and quite aggressive. I left it in because of how I was feeling while I wrote it, but I guess I should add a 3rd point to argument #5, which should sound something like:
Everyone, including news outlets and ourselves, have our views of the world that make us defensive against other things that people say and do. The reality is with a bit of humility and discussion we may realize that even though we disagree with what was said or how it was said, the statement may not really be out of line and we are blowing it way more out of proportion than we should, simply because we perceive ourselves as under attack by what was said. If we read and listen more, we may not learn anything, but hopefully we can become more compassionate towards our opponents reasons as to why they are speaking out, and maybe change our language to reflect a way of bridging the disconnect, instead of furthering it.
