Media-Controlled Government

This post was adapted from something that I had previously written.

Many countries have government-controlled media. While the U.S. regulates the supposedly free media, things generally work in the opposite direction for us. We have to deal with media-controlled government.
In the mindless era in which we live, people are way too vulnerable to comments made by the media. The media knows this and uses it to exploit American citizens. If they state their opinions as facts, most people will assume that the statement is correct. For example, they can tell us what this country needs, and we will demand it from our government. This means that the media can use us to get whatever they want.

The finances for the media come from advertising. The more viewers they can get to tune in, the more money advertisers are willing to pay them. This creates a situation where the news is presented in a way intended to draw in more viewers. One of their most valuable tools is fear. If people view the news as a necessity for survival, they are far more likely to watch.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the media had us right where they wanted us. With the threat of terrorism, Americans were glued to their television sets. While the media clearly exaggerated the threat, people refused to miss the latest reports about potential for attacks that really should not have been taken seriously. During this time, George W. Bush did everything that the media said that a good president would do. While he had made a ton of mistakes (No Child Left Behind comes to mind) he had no problems getting American voters to reelect him.

It has been pretty well established that the media has a slight bias toward the democratic party. While they may have convinced Americans to give Bush an undeserved second term, the media made one of their strongest pushes that I have ever seen when Barack Obama ran for president. The people didn’t get Obama the votes he needed, the media did.

Here in the Northwest, the media-controlled government is especially problematic. The media is focused on the heavily populated east coast. While they may occasionally throw California a bone, we get nothing. Since the largest number of television viewers lives in the east, they are the highest priority for the media. Although the West coast has a significant number of residents, the three hour difference between the coasts makes us too much of an inconvenience.

Since the media controls the government, east coast bias is common in the government. While the government doesn’t want to announce to the world that they hate us, their policies clearly do not reflect our best interests. Most areas of federal funding DO include the Northwest, but we are among those paying more into the federal government than we are receiving. We also have to worry about the government attaching strings to funding that may be appropriate to the east coast but make no sense out here such as hurricane preparedness.

I’m not going to go into details of how we’re mistreatment today, but I think we need to reevaluate our approach to providing news. I hate the idea of the government manipulating us with the media. I also hate the idea of being manipulated for ratings. We need to find an alternative. We need to introduce an approach to news that will actually value reality more than selfish gains.