Propaganda from political appointees in government health agencies

In a Washington Times opinion piece ("Ministry of Public Enlightenment and COVID-19 fact-checking" Tuesday), Kelly Sadler quotes a virologist explaining how pandemic propaganda today mirrors Nazi propaganda: "The … leaders come in and say, ‘You have this pain, and I and I alone can solve it for you’…. The data is irrelevant."

Political propagandists--who now unfortunately seem to include political appointees in government health agencies--should not be able to survive in a society with a free press. Yet they do so because many journalists today are no more than activists with press passes, ideologues who pass along propaganda from their own party and stifle opposition from opposing parties.

How to seek truth in an era of journalistic activism

Back in the day when I studied journalism at Penn State, as far as I can recall, journalists were still expected to demonstrate some semblance of objectivity. Journalistic objectivity provided a check on politicians and government power and served the public by providing trustworthy information.

How many of us find the media reliable today? Not many, according to polling.

Over time, journalistic objectivity and fact-focus gave way to "interpreting the news for readers." This newfound power appealed to journalists' egos and sense of elitism: They could reform and advance society themselves, like "Philosopher Kings."

Meanwhile, the introduction of new technologies spurred an increase of and competition between media outlets. The pressure to grab market share accelerated a trend in journalism away from fact and evidence and toward emotion and conflict, which sell better among certain audiences.

 

What these changes leave us with today is no longer journalism but rather ideology wrapped up as news.  And if you don't recognize that fact, you will fall victim to media-fed propaganda.

 

So many journalists today are no more than activists with press passes, ideologues who see the profession not as fulfilling a duty to report the news, but as presenting an opportunity to shape the news in their own image.

 

They use their media platform to spread their ideology by killing stories that contradict their views and by rushing to rile the masses with unconfirmed stories shaped to conform to their own ideology.

 

Of course, facts are stubborn things, and courts or a barrage of undeniable evidence often expose such trumped-up narratives as shameless lies. 

 

But many journalists have no shame, and they have learned to obscure their failures by dangling the latest shiny object in front of their audiences--an emotion-grabbing storyline that stirs up division, conflict, outrage.

 

What to do? Work harder to find the truth. 

 

Instead of depending on media summaries, go to primary sources. 

• For legislative news, read the text of bills at Congress.gov. 
• For political debates, read transcripts or view the original events instead of media-selected excerpts. For public policy debates, watch events on C-SPAN. 
• For health-related news, the CDC and NIH still offer some good information, but they are headed by political appointees who can have an agenda, so check out their many critics as well.

As we do more of our own homework to get to the truth, we can still listen to media; we just have to recognize the agenda behind what we're hearing.

Why parents are revolting against school systems

 A USA article, "Moms for Liberty: An education army builds" focuses on finding funding sources for the group's modest $300,000 budget when the real story is why so many parents are doing so much with so little.

Parents are revolting against heavy-handed, ideologically driven governments that have used schools as social indoctrination vehicles and, during illogical lockdowns, turned their children into Zoom Zombies.