(*Unless at a war-crimes tribunal.)
Elsewhere today, yer ol' perf' saw repeated another iteration of a constant, common complaint that the "media" are responsible for all our ills, because they don't present 'our' side of the stories as sympathetically as those of the (in this case) 'education deformers.'
And it occurred to me to repeat my customary reply: They're "just doing their jobs."
The 'media' is/are wholly owned subsidiaries of huge, enormous, globe-spanning, wealthy corporate enterprises which gobbled them up like jellybeans during the Raygoon years. The 'media' print, publish, broadcast, and otherwise disseminate what they are TOLD to publish, etc.
The "press" unself-consciously constitutes itself as gatekeepers. The best way to exert thought-control is not directly, by telling folks WHAT to believe. It is by influencing what they think ABOUT--the narrative--and the language and vocabulary of images with which they think about it. That's what 'the media' does.
Control over the gate-keeping function--directing the narrative, vocabulary, and syntax of the 'public mind' and the power it implies--is what is at stake in the debate (such as it is) about who can CALL themselves 'journalists.'
It is worth recalling, too, Upton Sinclair's admonition: "It's hard to get a man to understand what his paycheck depends on him not understanding."
Worth remembering, as well, as we wade ever deeper into the morass of the Big Muddy/CorpoRat State: In the corporate state, corporate media are State Media.
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