2015-12-12

Media Establishment Crumbling Too

WaPo: Thanks to Trump, fringe news enters the mainstream

There's a reason the term "the Narrative" exists. Mainstream media sells a story. News that fits the story is pushed, news that doesn't fit the story is ignored. "Hands up don't shoot" was a lie spread by mainstream media because it fit "the Narrative" the establishment wanted to push. A better example is the female student at UVA who concocted a story about "Haven Monahan" and his frat brothers gang raping her at a UVA fraternity. It made national news for several weeks, the fraternity was vandalized and it was a 100% fabrication that a little digging quickly revealed. Meanwhile, the mass rape of over 1,400 girls in Rotherham, England, which was aided by government officials who covered it up and even arrested fathers who tried to rescue their daughters, is not widely known outside of fringe media. It would be an international scandal if the story fit "the Narrative," but instead a lot of people haven't even heard of it because "the Narrative" is campus rape culture. If another fake campus rape story pops up, it stands a better chance of being published because it fits the Narrative. U.S. Senators need "campus rape" to push legislation, so it's what the media pushes. Real widespread rape, covered up by government, is a non-story because it doesn't advance the agenda. A fabricated rape epidemic, is a headline story because it advances the political football.

It was 20 years ago that The Enquirer proved the mainstream media was no longer doing investigative journalism if it conflicted with the political establishment. Online media has a lot of fringe elements that push false stories and false narratives, just like the mainstream media, but there's also a lot of news that goes unreported. There are completely different conversations taking place on the Internet and that's a good thing, but it's messy and lots of garbage turns up, like the flat earth. What's really going on is that the bubble of control is being burst. The fringe isn't breaking into the mainstream, the bubble crafted by the gatekeepers is bursting and every voice is gaining an equal footing, at least temporarily during the transition phase. Eventually, a new order will emerge.

“Facts may be undervalued or losing their value in today’s world,” said Robert Mason, a University of Washington professor who has researched the spread of false information. “If you say it loud enough or long enough, people will believe it. That’s okay in theory, but when people act on it, that’s a problem.”
The only thing to do is read a lot of sources. The mainstream media is as biased and prone to lying as the fringe media. They have as many kook ideas as the fringe, it's just that their ideas fool smarter people, fit the "common wisdom" and avoid taboo subjects. The mainstream media delivers the polished version of all the "right" ideas. If you were a spy or an alien trying to fit in with the establishment, you would want to read all the proper media outlets so that you would know exactly what to say and what not to say (even better if you know what to think and crimestop before thinking otherwise). Every culture is the same; in China you would read the official media.

What's interesting today is that we're witnessing the breakdown of the old order and the emergence of a new order. In the end, it might be a good thing or a bad thing, but it may ultimately be driven by technology, in which case it's the new way of the world. Trump's "role" is that of being at a place and time when change is accelerating due to social mood, and taking advantage of it (or being lucky). With or without Trump, the collapse of establishment media was going to come one way or another. They made it worse by thinking their position was unassailable. Instead of opening up their business model, they walled it off even more. That said, the story might as well be about how young people are "unplugging" from cable and using the Internet for entertainment. Independently produced content is uploaded on to YouTube and pulling away viewers from television. That is the fringe blowing up the mainstream. In publishing, small e-book publishers and independent writers teaming with online markets such as Amazon are slowly killing the big publishing houses. It isn't limited to media either: "fringe" drivers are cutting into the taxi cab industry with Uber, etc. The media have a much louder voice because they're the media. You will hear a lot about the unreliable fringe information sources and how you definitely shouldn't switch to them for your news.

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