The "mainstream media" is a term that refers to a collection of media and news production companies all owned by global corporations. 90% of the media in the US is owned by 6 companies (Source: https://archive.li/mO4K3)
This term is easier explained as Non-independent-media.
With that out of the way, are you ready to hear the mind-blowing, sinister trick that these companies used to get you to believe anything?
Okay ready?
It's called... ...Lying!
Now it get's a little bit more complicated than that, so let's go over the three main ways that the media lies to your face.
1. Lies by Omission
A lie by ommission is a method of lying in which the liar leaves out an important piece of information when describing a story. For instance, CNN pushed a story during the Milwaukee riots that said that the sister of Sylville Smith was calling for peace, when in fact this was a part of a larger statement that advocated for the rioters to move into another neighborhood. (Source: https://archive.li/WmvZ4)
See? they omitted the part that didn't fit their narrative and made the story they wanted regardless of the truth.
2. Guilt by Association
Guilt by association or the association fallacy is a logical fallacy in which the reputation of a person or idea is influenced by things they can be loosely associated with. The media will do this all the time in varying degrees of subtlety. How many times have you heard "X individual drinks water, Hitler drank water, therefore anyone that supports X is a Nazi!!"
Here we have an example from "The Independent" (Hint it's not independent: https://archive.li/S0XdX
The bi-line reads:
"The Canadian clinical psychologist and university professor has become hugely popular for his 'anti-PC' views and is beloved of many on the alt-right."
For those unaware, Jordan Peterson is a political commentator who condemns the "Alt-Right" routinely and the Alt-Right is a modern White Nationalist movement.
The Implication is that, if Peterson is "beloved by the alt-right" and the alt-right are White-Nationalists, then Jordan must be a White-Nationalist too, right??
Wrong.
3. Flat-Lying, Big-Lying, Regular Lying
Yes, often the media will just print lies, fiction, inaccuracies. You might think that would be illegal but the media gets away with it because "everybody makes mistakes".
Despite the fact that Wikileaks has never had to issue a retraction in it's entire life-span.
The media will squeeze. bend and frame the truth as much as they can and still lie. Then when they are called out on their lies they might issue a retraction. But the amount of people who see the first story is always higher than the amount of people that see the retraction, making the damage permanent while the media gets off scot-free.
Examples:
Bush IQ Hoax: https://archive.li/icSir
Daily Beast cites Parody Twitter account as a source: https://archive.is/SgOOJ
Trump Hand-Size meme: https://archive.li/6ZDZ4
Hopefully this makes you think before you trust an article that sounds too good to be true next time.
Do you have any suggestions? What's your favorite piece of Fake-News?
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