Propaganda, Trust, and the Media

If there is one critical component responsible for the division this country is suffering with, it is the loss of trust in the information provided by news organizations once relied upon by Americans. According to a September 2018 article in the Columbia Journalism Review, poll conducted by the Knight Foundation and Gallup found that a majority of those surveyed said they had lost trust in the media in recent years, and more than 30 percent of those who identified themselves as being conservative said they had not only lost faith in the media but they "expect that change to be permanent." The report added, "According to a separate Gallup poll from earlier this year that tracked trust in major institutions, newspapers, and television news were among the lowest, exceeded only by Congress." He who holds the reins of communication shapes the opinions and to a large extent the direction of the country, and for now, the Left has a near monopoly on much of what Americans are exposed to. Inside an Investor's Business Daily November 2018 article:

Despite journalists' denials, it's now pretty much a fact that journalism is one of the most left-wing of all professions." The piece went on to say that researchers from Arizona State University and Texas A&M University questioned 462 financial journalists around the country from organizations such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Washington Post, Associated Press and a number of other newspapers, and found that 17.63% called themselves "very liberal," while 40.84% described themselves as "somewhat liberal." In attacking Trump, the Left is generously making use of the ideas of Germany's Joseph Goebbels, who said, "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." They publish and air lies made out of whole cloth without a shred of fear of accountability as they debate among themselves whether Trump is either incompetent or treasonous. According to a May 2017 report from the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, "Trump's coverage during his first 100 days set a new standard for negativity." Negative reports outpaced positive ones with 80 percent negative against 20 percent positive. Trump's coverage was merciless. In no week did the coverage drop below 70 percent negative, and it reached 90 percent negative at its peak." Regarding Trump's fitness for office, the New York Times had published 6 to 1 in negative coverage, while the Washington Post ran negative coverage at a staggering 24 to 1. The report concluded, "Trump's coverage during his first 100 days was negative even by the standards of today's hyper-critical press. Studies of earlier presidents found nothing comparable to the level of unfavorable coverage afforded Trump." Far left of center TV show The View has routinely descended into a level of the demented regarding relentless attacks on Trump. Joy Behar, one of the show's hosts, actually said on air that "Trump is basically working with ISIS to kill us" — an insane statement met with agreement by morally corrupt co-host Whoopi Goldberg. Simply put, Trump was never given a chance. So destroying the president with extreme dishonesty is a penalty-free propaganda activity for the leftist media who are also interested in systematically eliminating the First Amendment. Under President Obama, attacks against conservatives went mostly unreported. Back then, a large number of conservative groups were targeted and crushed by Obama's powerful IRS without much reporting or fallout. Today, the IRS's anti-conservative functions have been substituted by Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Conservative-based social media channels with large followings such as Diamond and Silk, Steven Crowder of Louder with Crowder, and Mark Dice regularly face social media suspensions and demonetization attacks due to their conservative beliefs. Conservatives from around the country should, at the very least, be concerned because the wide net containing what is considered hate speech is unquestionably broad enough to cover every conservative site in the country. Facebook defines hate speech as "a direct attack on people based on what they call protected characteristics — race, ethnicity, national origin, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, caste, sex, gender, gender identity, and serious disease or disability." There has been an unmistakable shift in the extremely unhinged ways the leftist propaganda machine attacks anything honoring American values. This is why Trump's slogan, "Make America Great Again," is seen as akin to a KKK hood. What has drastically changed in these past many years is the consolidation of who owns the news media. It was the Telecommunications Act of 1996 that established media cross-ownership. At the time, it was thought that the act would encourage competition, but it instead increased mergers. In 1983, there were about fifty companies that had control of 90% the media. According to a report in 2018 by Jaron Brandon, digital content manager at Opera Software, a total of five holding companies and media conglomerates control most of the mainstream news stations. These were identified as Comcast, Walt Disney Corporation, Time Warner, 21st Century Fox, and National Amusements. Some billionaires like Rupert Murdoch and Michael Bloomberg have always been longtime media people, while Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post as a side venture — the kind of purchase that will appeal to leftist billionaires. Stopping the takeover of the media by leftists must become a top priority. NBC, MSNBC, CNBC, and Telemundo are under NBC Universal and owned by Comcast. The Walt Disney Corporation owns ABC. It also owns ESPN, Marvel, Disney Studios, and A&E networks. CNN is owned by Turner Broadcasting, which is owned by Time Warner. They also own HBO and Warner Brothers. A telling sign that the left will not stop until it has total domination of the media in this country is the fact that all these enormous leftist communication giants aim to silence Fox News, one of the last places conservative voices can be heard.