Let us not forget Steve Bannon’s quote, “Democrats don’t matter. The real opposition is the media. And the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit. This is not about persuasion: This is about disorientation.”
Steve Bannon is out of jail and back on-air, his fellow liar and felon is headed back to the Whitehouse in January, and the FCC’s Fairness Doctrine is long since dead. Our favored news sources, both legacy and new, have become little more than silos of propaganda designed primarily to drive up clicks and attract like-minded audiences to cheer them on. Four years ago democrats had their own trifecta, and did nothing about it. Propaganda will be our demise unless we harness it and demand it is not used to divide and conquer. I hope it’s not too late.
As a marketing professional propaganda has been part of my tool chest for years. Propaganda is not necessarily bad, untruthful or misleading, but it is used to manipulate our emotions without the benefit of two-way communication or fact-based debate. If you’re from my generation the propaganda below from Reagan’s war on drugs in the 80’s and 90’s is sure to bring up a range of emotions. I live in California, and walking into a dispensary to buy weed legally still gives me pause. Not so much for my Gen-Z offspring who only witnessed this propaganda as parody.
In a digital world with minimal regulation on what we define as newsworthy, it is easier than ever to reach your audience with political propaganda. Modern propaganda is addictive and pervasive, mostly disseminated through the screen and our AirPods via mainstream cable news, podcasts and on social media. Reaching us where we look most for news.
The FCC has a policy against “news distortion” for over-the-air broadcast news, but it doesn’t regulate non-broadcast news platforms like online-only streaming outlets, social media, or newspapers. The FCC can take action against broadcasters who intentionally distort news, but it cannot take action against errors or expressions of opinion. Fox News personalities like Hannity and Laura Ingram, editorial boards such as the Wallstreet Journal, podcasters and streamers like Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire, Steve Bannon’s War Rooms and Joe Rogan can say whatever the hell they want with little to no consequence. It should not go without mentioning that Brendon Carr, Trump’s nominee to run the Federal Communications Commission wrote the FCC chapter of Project 2025. Musk celebrated Carr’s appointment on X shortly after his nomination. Both men talk in much the same way about free speech rights, reflecting widespread concerns on the right about online censorship. Free Press, which opposes Carr, said in a statement that “Carr doesn’t care about protecting the public interest; he got this job because he will carry out Trump and Musk’s personal vendettas.”
The MAGA contingent of the GOP recognized and seized the power of the new media platforms devoid of meaningful regulations long before the 2024 election. They spent the last decade plus creating a propaganda machine unmatched since the civil war, (e.g. ‘Make America Great Again’, ‘Stop the Steal’, ‘Build the Wall’, ‘Bring back Common Sense’). Successfully bending the minds of their audience through half-truths, conspiracy theories and fear of the other: progressives, transgender people, immigrants, and non-Christians. The democrats did not get organized enough to counter back effectively. They came to the 2024 gunfight with a butter knife well after the GOP’s guns had been primed and loaded. The MAGAs and their oligarchy won. The people lost.
Corporate media has lost the plot.
Joe Biden’s job machine is a historic success. Yet, if you stopped people on the street in any US city, I suspect less than 1 out of 10 fellow Americans would even be aware of a single data point to support this truth. Since Biden took office his administration has created more than 16 million jobs. This is a fact that can be easily confirmed and proven with a quick Google search. Unemployment has been at the lowest on average of any administration in 50 years, and incomes have risen faster than inflation. All very provable facts that should be common knowledge. But my neighbor does not know this, my parents think it’s fake news, and my friend that proudly claims he never watches mainstream media and only gets his news from podcasters during his commute to work, is certain the economy is on the verge of tanking. He also believes Kamala Harris is a communist, Ben Shapiro told him so. Propaganda works.
Here is another view of Job growth. Note that the top 3 presidents with respect to % of new jobs created on their watch were all democrats. Yet the majority of eligible US voters still believe republicans, and more specifically neoliberal policies are better for their personal pocket book. Hello trickle-down propaganda. Reagan was a kick-ass marketer. Decades later most GOP voters will tell you with conviction trickle down tax cuts for the rich and deregulation create jobs for everyone. Facts say differently.
Today I live in a parallel universe to my republican neighbors, friends, and my own parents one state over. Propaganda, plutocrats, and the erosion of a free and credible news source that reaches all the citizens equally has caused this alternative reality. Conservative media like Fox News, Newsmax, OAN, and the Daily Wire don’t even try to hide their extreme bias and partisanship, and their viewers don’t care. Unfortunately, my favored center-left media sources have failed us as well. A decade later all I have is, “Trump’s a misogynist, felon, fuckwit.” Yep, and so what! Apparently not enough voters give a shit, and the fourth power (our media) is no-longer engaged enough to fight the disinformation war. More than 38% of all eligible voters didn’t even vote at all this year. Alt-right plutocrats won.
Mainstream media is not focused on investigative journalism designed to educate, inform and expose half-truths and outright lies and conspiracies in a meaningful way. Plutocrats like Murdochs, Musk, Thiel, Andreessen, Bezos, Soon-Shiong are invested in the erosion and owning the message that reaches the public. Rightfully aware that whoever owns the media owns the people.
For the first half of my life the news platforms in the US were pervasive, balanced, and enabled each of us to wake up every day with basically the same data points and context. Not perfectly unbiased but healthy-ish. From 1949 – 1987 the Fairness Doctrine demanded any broadcast stations that called themselves a news source shared all the facts and breaking news in a timely matter. If a ‘Stop the Steal’ story came up that same broadcaster would have been required to share how many lawsuits said it was not so. Most households well into the 90’s still received a newspaper on their doorstep seven days a week. Legitimate news was inexpensive, trusted and ubiquitous. If you didn’t read it at home, you picked up a newspaper on the commute into the office for 25 cents, or off the seat next to you for free. Yes, there has always been bias, but US media typically did not share half-truths and could not do so through broadcast media legally before 1987. All relevant news and data points had to be shared to keep your broadcasting license. Every single news station would have had to at least mention that inflation today is under 3% and the job market is the best in the world.
Not so much today.
The Fairness doctrine is an FCC regulation that is long gone, eliminated during Reagan’s years of deregulation. With the incoming administration’s trifecta of neoliberalism rule it will not be coming back anytime soon. Today most people recognize that mainstream media enables and uses propaganda. Whether you are republican or democrat you are quick to make it clear you do not rely exclusively on Fox News, CNN or MSNBC for your news. Especially if you are mid debate on a political topic and trying to get the other person to take you seriously. Other is a pretty big category in the chart below.
Per Statista, In 2022 only 12% of Americans got their news from daily newspaper consumption digital or print. So where are people getting their news, facts and reality checks? If not mainstream media or legacy newspapers where do we the citizens turn for the whole story and context?
The answer is broad, but it should give you pause that the majority of people under 65 years old get their news online through news apps and social media platforms, and the most used platform is owned and manipulated by the GOP’s favorite plutocrat, Musk. Leaving reality up for grabs.
No single media platform is used by everybody, and no regulation exists to make sure that regardless of your media of choice it will be credible, accurate and complete. None of us are getting the same or complete story every day, but all of us are being manipulated by plutocrats.
The alt-right arm of the GOP has taken advantage while the democrats have their heads in the sand.
So, what can we do today:
Get educated. Know your news source and who funds it.
Know the bias of your media. Two great sources for this are either Allsides or Fontes. I prefer Fontes Media Charts because they also rate credibility of the source and rate a much broader spectrum of media types.
No publication is without bias; each has its own perspective and agenda. Some even excel at maintaining objectivity in reporting, but it’s essential to diversify your sources and employ critical thinking to shape your opinions.
Contact your representative and demand media regulation like the Fairness Doctrine be reinstated, and push for stronger regulation and accountability of online platforms.
Seek truth and share it.
Identify credible independent journalists, subscribe and read. Substack is a good resource for this.
The plutocrats may have won the 2024 election battle but the war is far from over.
Let’s get educated! Every truth matters.