The media landscape has enormously changed over the last decade or two. The rise of the internet has ravaged the print media sector (I served for almost a year as editor-in-chief of a small ethnic newspaper, trying to find ways to help it survive a decline after a century of publications, so I know that first-hand), news aggregators have risen to prominence (Drudge Report comes to mind), social media giants start playing a mayor role in the immediate dissemination of news as-it-happens (Twitter), radio news and commentary became a huge outlet for the conservative side, spearheaded by the great Rush Limbaugh, as talk radio, and so on.
In all that change, we saw a move where more and more of the legacy media became politicized. It wasn’t enough any longer to simply present the news, it had to be given with commentary and opinion, explained and framed just so. It started with social activism, where individual journalists felt it was their duty to go further than simply give the naked facts of the injustices they witnessed, and became advocates as well, fully aware of the bull horn and platform they had, and the power (and responsibility) that gave them. Remaining silent, or ‘hiding behind the facts’ and not speaking out, was no longer an option.
While praiseworthy, and understandable, that social activism very quickly made way for political activism. Before you criticize me, I have not forgotten that media has never been bias free. Every paper or journalist or TV channel had their slant. Of course, as a historian, I am fully aware. But this leads me to one other, major point: the consolidation of media ownership (call it centralization, that term covers much better what happened and why) into the hands of less than a handful of owners. Where before you had different voices, and feuds being played out in full public view between competing newspapers or hot-shot journalists/writers (and people would judge based on the evidence or arguments that were presented), this became much more ‘unified’, meaning, one-sided.
You’ve all seen the graphs of political support in the media. You’re all very much aware of the leftist slant and bias in the media, in larger or smaller degree.
Breitbart was one of the main people in the pushback (influenced by Rush Limbaugh, who was a trailblazer in ways we don’t always realize), and started alternative news media as counterweight against the left spin in the mainstream media. Breitbart News was in particular conceived as a counter to The Huffington Post.
This remained for almost a decade a very limited effort, where people tried to play along the rules of the big legacy media: start your own media powerhouse, as an official organization. That was, apart from very expensive, also fraught with many other difficulties. But the last few years, something broke.
It was likely Trump, who lit a fire among the people in this country, pointing out our own responsibility. WE need to go out and vote, not just leave it to the politicians to govern us. WE need to appoint the right people, in the right places. WE need to be aware of what goes on in Congress, or in school boards, or anywhere else in the halls of government, on any level.
As a side-effect: WE needed to vet our news, and find proper sources. And where there are none, make them ourselves! Quintessential American Spirit.
People like Tracy Beanz. Or James O’Keefe, in his own way. The Cates brothers. This is not meant as an in-depth history, so forgive me if I forget other foundational examples.
But in the wake of their efforts, and in the changing climate and awakening, many citizen journalists stepped in. Some by accident, after stumbling on something big, realizing what it was, and having the courage to write about it, and stick to their guns under the attacks of the MSM (BioClandestine comes to mind, the first to link the Russian targets in the first phase of the war with the location of biolabs), others by carving out a specialized niche, attempting to bring order to the mess of things we’re in (PatelPatriot and his devolution series), others volunteering their own expertise.
What they all have in common, is the drive to search for truth, and the courage to present it to the public. This is not easy, some have gotten a ton of flack and pushback. It is also a huge time-investment (writing itself might go quickly, but the research, reading, verification of each individual point, etc. can be VERY time consuming!).
One of the way the vested interests have tried to push back, is by putting false voices among the citizen authors. People who are whack-jobs. Give false info. Add crazy conspiracy theories (real ones, not the type that the citizen-journalists have brought up and that have been confirmed, one after the other, in rather quick succession).
Another is to discredit the new writers. Call them ‘grifters’, or ‘paytriots’. Now, those opportunists are definitely around, trying to cash in on this vibrant movement. But I can tell you that the amount of time required to maintain even a weekly post, is substantial. It’s a socialist idea to think you have the right to the fruit of other people’s labor. Many of us offer it for free, anyway, or with an option to give a contribution. Others have a mix of articles free and others behind a paywall (usually those with a much higher volume of writing, where this is their main occupation). Nothing wrong with that, either. I’ve never heard of Americans demanding goods for free ‘for the greater good’, and when that isn’t happening, attacking the entrepreneurs they demanded freebies from.
Almost done: everyone has come to this movement for different, even if convergent, reasons. Each of us has their own pet topics. But we need to resist the urge to go too critical on each other.
Richard the Saint wrote about that recently, in a comment on TruthSocial:
I am an archaeologist/historian by training, linguist by profession.
My angle is a bit more unique, in that I only recently moved to the US, and became a citizen 8-9 years ago. I have a foothold in Europe, as well as here in the US. I can look at things both from within, as from without. My angle is also more anthropological/philosophical, as that is along the lines of my training and expertise.
Does that make me an ‘expert’? On some things, I suppose. Does that make that I am never wrong? Goodness, no! I make mistakes, either by omission or actively by misinterpreting something. Has happened before, will happen again. But I will admit such (not when you come at me with a bare assertion accusation: I do demand, just as I practice I my own articles, that you identify exactly what you have problems with, and that you offer support for why that is wrong. Such is only fair).
But just as I get inspired through what others write, and dig deeper into something that was only mentioned in passing, or hinted at, in another article, I hope that what I write might similarly spark new discussions and open new ways of thinking about what lies before us.
Unity and support are vitally important to us in this stage of our history. This topic IS huge, and what looks like contradictory assessments by 2 different writers, might actually be BOTH true, but each on different levels. This might become visible once you take a step back, and look at things from a different, higher angle.
Or perhaps your own take was wrong, or incomplete. Never discount that option, either! (In fact, make that your FIRST assumption whenever you hear something new that doesn’t fit your current view! It will keep you humble, and will lead to a better vetting process that will only make you stronger in the end.)
One last element: JustHuman points at something very important, something so obvious, we often miss it.
In general, I would prefer a society where people are NOT taking to such levels of distrust and suspicion. It undermines more than we realize.
We ARE in a period of upheaval and shifts: the old media has lost its bearings, and is clearly no longer independent, let alone a 4th power to keep the other 3 in check, for example. That forces us to find and evaluate new sources of news and truth.
If something is stated that cannot be verified immediately, we need to learn it is OK to take a more agnostic position: "I don't know about this point".
Sometimes, we generalize (which in and of itself is not bad), mostly in negative sense, sometimes also positively. If a certain source repeatedly brings trustworthy news, and they cite something that cannot be verified immediately, but is in line with the previous things they reported (that were verified as correct), we need to be able to 'trust' that. Even with a caveat.
Or put it different, and this is more why I don't like the 'question everything' line (I suspect JustHuman has a similar reservation, prompting him to nuance that battle-cry among Anons): too many people take that as 'reject everything until you present 100% proof to my personal satisfaction'. That is NOT what 'question everything' means. I think I have a problem with a certain ambiguity in that statement, as applied in general.
But is trust the same as 'blindly believing everything', simply based on past performance? I don't think so. In particular because even in English there is a difference between trust and blind trust.
The answer to the problems one might point at, are exactly what a dear friend of mine explained like this: knowing/trusting something, i.e. the ability to discern whether to believe something or doubt something, is not just about mere known facts, but also include real critical thinking and discernment.
When those same people you otherwise would trust, suddenly post wild sounding stories, don’t just cut all ties, but look closer. I dare bet they often are no longer merely reporting current facts: they instead presented claims, and in most cases unsubstantiated ones, at that (strong claims require strong evidence, too). I can still trust the news or other analysis those people present, while ignoring their side excursions as 'unsubstantiated'.
To put it bluntly: I would contend that at least some of those people fell for those weird claims, because they started to question EVERYTHING, even things that are strictly outside their own level of expertise or their level of assessment.
Yes, psyops are everywhere. Yes, there are actual hucksters trying to sneak in a long con. But that is no reason to stop trusting trustworthy sources. Don’t throw out the child with the bath water!
This is an important topic, as it lays at the foundation of how we and others deal with the news and messages we receive, even if this topic is often ignored as 'too obvious'. I don't think it is obvious anymore, in particular because we are in such time of upheaval.
But, as you can see, I like to stop, and take a birdseye point of view, and go a bit more technical/theoretical. To get above any points of contention, and see how and where we can find reconciliation, and move ahead stronger and better informed.
My main goal, then, is to help each of my readers, and the wider movement in general, to gain a deeper understanding, not just of some of the events that are happening and that fall within my own area of interest and expertise, but also of themselves and their own place within this day and age.
As we rebuild our politics, and our election system, we should also be rebuilding our nation. And that begins and ends with trust.
All is well.
Thank You Arn.🙏
Indeed and remember as with Soloman's request from our God, wisdom.