How the corporate media distorts and manipulates ‘news’ and information

“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.”—Malcolm X [el-Hajj Malik el-Shabazz]

“The challenge remains. On the other side are formidable forces: money, political power, the major media. On our side are the people of the world and a power greater than money or weapons: the truth.”—Howard Zinn

The U.S. corporate-stream media embodied by ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, MSNBC, PBS, CNN and the major print media, etc., repeatedly and overwhelmingly demonstrates that it is the mortal enemy of truth and concomitantly of everyday ordinary Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people in this nation and throughout Mother Earth.

The purpose of the corporate-stream media is to manipulate, shape, and actually form the opinion of everyday people—not to honestly and holistically inform everyday people and stimulate critical thought. The corporate-stream ‘news’ media constantly uses a combination of crucial omissions, gossip, and outright lies to deceive and manipulate the opinions of its viewers and readers. In fact the most dangerous threat to the corporate-stream media would be a well-informed and critically thinking populace. Thus, all measures are utilized to keep people misinformed, woefully ignorant, divided, and malleable.

Moreover, the corporate-stream media is, in reality, the propaganda arm for the national and global power elite and the corporate-owned U.S. government; and it functions to perpetuate the de facto systemic status quo under the fake guise of presenting relevant and honest ‘news’ and information to everyday people. Nothing could be further from the truth, and no genuine democracy can exist and function without a well-informed and thinking populace.

A blatant example of precisely how the corporate-stream media distorts and outright lies to the populace was amply demonstrated by the utter disfiguration of the truth on the part of MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, pertaining to the October 13, 2013, Veterans March At The Capital. INFOWARS news anchor Darrin McBreen, does a brilliant job of exposing, in this instance, the outright lies by MSNBC. Do take the very few minutes required to watch and listen to this short but powerful and informative clip [MSNBC Caught Framing Vets With Edited Video—YouTube].

The corporate-stream media has no compunction whatsoever about lying, distorting, and/or omitting pertinent and important information. In fact, these tactics are the arsenal which is used incessantly against everyday ordinary Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow people. The bigger the lie the more the media propagates it.

The insidious tactics of the corporate-stream media are not always blatant. They are often covert and/or subliminal. For example, the corporate so-called ‘entertainment’ industry often engages in propagating subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) pro-war and/or pro-corporate messages to vulnerable and unsuspecting audiences who think that they are merely being entertained, but who are, in fact, being lulled into a state of lethargy while unconsciously being programmed—all in the name of simply being innocently ‘entertained.’ It should be remembered that the giant entertainment industry is, in very large part, also a component of the corporate-stream ‘news’ and information media.

The corporate-stream media further perpetuates the status quo by fostering the fallacious left/right paradigm as embodied by the corporate-owned Democrat and Republican parties. This serves to keep ordinary people divided, in fear of one another, and perpetually manipulated and enslaved on the Democrat and Republican party’s political plantations.

Dependence upon the corporate-stream media for news and information is akin to taking repeated doses of arsenic to extend one’s life. Such a thing would be suicidal. But we do not have to be suicidal.

We the everyday people, must be our own collective news and information media. It is imperative that we understand that the corporate-stream media is poison, intended to stifle and destroy our consciences, our consciousness, and our ability to critically think and analyze. WE hold the key to our own liberation—politically, mentally, and spiritually, etc.

The objective of the corporate-stream media today is propagate the constant lies and subterfuge on the part of the war mongering, drone man, ‘Kill List,’ Barack Obama and his corporate-owned Democrat and Republican co-conspirators. And it does NOT matter who is sitting in the White House—Democrat or a Republican—black or white (or whatever color)—male or female.

To reiterate: The objective of the corporate-stream media, which is the propaganda arm of and for the power elite, is to reinforce and perpetuate the de facto status quo.

Our task is to create and become our own media. We do this by beginning at our own local levels, and simultaneously linking with one another—nationally and globally with our sisters and brothers throughout Mother Earth. We must form our own media collectives and tell our own stories to and with one another. We must use the technology (of the Internet and the like) to mutually serve, enlighten, inspire, and inform humankind—not stifle and smother humanity.

We each have something of importance to offer. It’s time to get and stay creatively and collectively busy in this most important struggle of the 21^st century.

Remember: Each one, reach one. Each one, teach one. Onward!

Intrepid Report Associate Editor Larry Pinkney is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil / political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. In connection with his political organizing activities, Pinkney was interviewed in 1988 on the nationally televised PBS News Hour, formerly known as The MacNeil / Lehrer News Hour. Pinkney is a former university instructor of political science and international relations, and his writings have been published in various places, including The Boston Globe, the San Francisco BayView newspaper, the Black Commentator, Global Research (Canada), LINKE ZEITUNG (Germany), and Mayihlome News (Azania/South Africa). For more about Larry Pinkney see the book, Saying No to Power: Autobiography of a 20th Century Activist and Thinker, by William Mandel [Introduction by Howard Zinn]. (Click here to read excerpts from the book.)