Brainwashing American Democracy

“United States Policies in Columbia Support Mass Murder.” “NAFTA Destroys Farming Communities in U.S. and Abroad.” “Horses Face Lives of Unnecessary Abuse for Drug Company Profits.” These are a couple of titles from the Project Censored book “Censored 2003: Top 25 Censored Stories of 2001-2002.”

Some people consider the American population to be the most ignorant and worst informed population in the world. Every year, hundreds of often very important news stories are not covered and censored in the main media in the United States. The majority of the American population gets its information from newspapers, magazines and channels that are overwhelming them with advertisements, propaganda and changed or censored stories. The mainstream media is brainwashing American democracy.

In a democracy, the supreme power is held by the people. The United States Constitution is the foundation of the American democracy, with the First Amendment as its most essential element. The First Amendment says that people have the right to speak freely without government interference and also gives the press the right to publish news, information and opinions without government interference.

Unfortunately, it is mostly not the government interfering with speech and press in the U.S.A., it is big business. Almost all media that reaches a large audience in the U.S.A. are owned by for-profit corporations. These corporations are obligated by capitalism to put the profits of their investors ahead of all other considerations. Most of the time these corporations have holdings in many other industries. That is why businesses like ----- might have great interests in manipulating, censoring and not publishing certain news.

Today, the American media industry is almost entirely owned by ten large corporations. The trend is toward even fewer corporate owners, because the biggest corporations absorb their smaller rivals. A future total monopoly in the media industry is not far-fetched at all. More power will lie in fewer hands and that is a serious threat to American democracy.

Except for propaganda and censorship, sensationalism is a means often used by the mainstream media to distract peoples’ attention from important news. In 2002 for example, while the West Bank found itself in a bloody civil war, the American newspapers routinely placed gossip about the divorce of Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman on the front page.

Sensationalism can also include news abuse. The media frequently changes and sensationalizes news stories, in order to force people to do something or to scare people. The 2001 anthrax story is a good example of this: The American media produced a wave of terror through the country, overemphasizing the incidents of anthrax exposure. People were afraid to open their mail. They were stockpiling Cipro, the antibiotic they believed would treat anthrax. In reality, until September 11, there had not been a case of inhalation of anthrax in the U.S.A. since 1978.

A very important question in this discussion is where are all the great and talented journalists who have the right to cover the stories they want. The truth is that more and more journalists are afraid to come up with stories that will not please their boss, so most of them simply write ‘satisfying’ stories. There are numerous examples of journalists who have been fired because their bosses considered them to be ‘too critical’. Self-censorship is the consequence. “Great is truth, but still greater, from a practical point of view, is silence about truth,” said Aldous Huxley a long time ago. Sadly enough, it seems like this is becoming more true every day.

Another reason why today’s journalists seem to be unable to write critical, highly informing stories, is that news outlets increasingly want to maximize their profits, so they work with fewer and fewer reporters. Consequently, fewer reporters have to do more stories and become dependant on the public relations industry to do much of their work for them: reporters can rewrite press releases rather than do their own independent research. In this way, the PR industry decides what the American people read and see about a lot of subjects, and not independent journalists, who have the obligation to inform the public in order to maintain American democracy.

Although the mainstream media tries to cover it, reality stays real. Every day, things happen in the world that the American public is not informed about because the media owners consider money, power and control to be more important than to facilitate the preservation of American democracy. In this way, the future does not look good at all, despite the presence of the alternative media, which does bring critical stories and is available for most people. Whether it is ignorance, a lack of interest or the desire not to be informed in order to stay happy, people do not use these alternative media.

With the former in mind and with the knowledge that the media industry is moving toward a monopoly, it does not seem likely that there will be a big change concerning the misinformation of the American public in the near future. History shows us that people will not fight for their rights until mistreatment directly harms them. Hopefully, the American population will become aware of the threat today’s media poses to democracy, before the only solution to reinstate democracy will be a revolution.