Mainstream Media has muddled along for centuries calmly and without much real opposition to their canned lies and misinformation, until lately, all designed to manipulate public opinion and thought. While the overwhelming majority of Americans will mouth that Media cannot be trusted and that they lie, they obviously do not believe that because, like an addict, they run to them and put on their feed bags. They just can’t help it.
I’ve been at this blogging stuff for many years. When I first began, Mainstream Media, went out of their way to discredit anyone who offered anything that they didn’t control. Evidently, some, anyway, saw Alternative Media as a threat. They fought against it and then joined the circus attempting to take it over and control it.
Certainly, Alternative Media has had an influence on mass media and in particular newsprint. News websites are still trying to find ways to force readers to pay for their misinformation and lies. In short, they are struggling and it will only get worse with each passing generation.
Then Social Media happened. A well-planned and design-specific tool with the help of social media panel that would cause immediate, widespread and long-lasting societal destruction. In no time at all, millions became addicted. They found a place where they could be anything they wanted to be. They could hate, send a message, laugh, hate some more, be rude, be filthy, be disgusting, threaten people, wish them dead, you name it. It’s all bad and I mean ALL BAD!
That addiction soon put my efforts as an independent writer/blogger in jeopardy. Because the designers of Social Media knew that the programmed automatons couldn’t stay focused longer than 141 characters, well researched, precisely written and honest journalism was doomed…or at least well-controlled.
Whether you and I hate or are head over heels addicted to Social Media matters very little. It is what drives Americans today and there’s little any of us can do about it. I would suppose, to be nice, I should congratulate the designers of Social Media that they could come up with something so compellingly enslaving while at the same time grabbing control over and striking a crushing blow to truth, integrity, and common decency.
It appears that Social Media is having its effects on writers for Mainstream Media outlets. Here’s one example.
In Maine, a Warden Service plane, while attempting to land on a frozen lake in Northern Maine, went through the ice. A reporter for the Bangor Daily News reported on the event.
Yesterday another Bangor News reporter followed up the event with a piece of his own. In his report, it seems that his entire article is driven by his displeasure with Social Media and the comments made about how stupid it was that a government plane would disregard their own advice and attempt to land a plane on ice some deemed unsafe. He writes: “Before any details were made public on Wednesday, social media outlets were buzzing with opinions from those bold enough — or rude enough — to spew their opinions…” Throughout the article, the author refers to those participants in Social Media as, “armchair quarterbacks,” “finger-pointers who are yucking it up,” and “Joe Ice Fisher.”
Because the article was actually more about how and why outdoor recreationists should consider that even Wardens can make mistakes and that we should be absolutely certain it’s safe before venturing onto any ice to have some fun, it did not need to nasty with truthful comments directed at Social Media.
I’m not even going to pretend to preach about how journalists need to present themselves better and different than mere Social Mediaites because maybe they are not capable of rising above it. I’ll save that discussion for another time.
Regardless of your own perspective of Social Media, which I’m guessing is much like that of Mainstream Media – you say one thing and do another – it has its power, as is seen here. It, at its least, influences what columnists are writing. The sad part is, if you can see it, Social Media is worse than the most radical of malignant tumors. It is a reflection of what has become of a society that relies on pleasures and satisfaction rather than on the truth and decency of their Creator God. As it grows bigger, it becomes more powerful and eventually chokes off the life all around it until one day the entire body is choked off and dies.
Sad!
