How The Media Controls The Masses

second thought is now on means TV you can get your first month 50% off when you sign up with the link below what is the news when you turn on the TV and flip to CNN or fox or NBC what are you being shown ostensibly the news is just that a presentation of current events I think we all know there's a little more to it every network has a bias and if you've been watching this channel for a while you'll know that the corporate media as a whole has a single overarching bias but we'll get

to that the question we need to answer today is in a world where information is more readily available than ever are we truly informed or are we being [Music] manipulated whether you consider yourself to be on the left or on the right odds are you think the media is dishonest well pat yourself on the back you're absolutely right but in the United States most people tend to think about the media being dishonest in a particular way if you ask someone on the right they'll say CNN and MSNBC are fake news they're twisting the truth to

make conservatives look bad and if you ask someone on the American left they'll say fox shouldn't be considered a News Network at all and they only exist to make liberals look bad while there is some genuine beef between liberal and conservative outlets and their viewership often does kind of hate each other that's not the kind of dishonesty that really matters yes MSNBC loves to make fun of Trump's manner isms and fox loves to highlight Biden's gaffs but at the end of the day all these corporate networks play for the same team and that's powerful interests

that not only own the media but pretty much every aspect of modern politics here's a quick rundown you have a tremendously wealthy group of people and business interests they donate large sums of money to politicians politicians deregulate the media now these ultra wealthy players have both elected officials and media outlets in their pocket what do they do with that influence they spend a little bit of money relatively speaking we're still talking Millions to make sure our society is structured in such a way that they can make a lot of money that means the passing of

bills that allow for example oil drilling in protected areas that also means providing scripts to local news networks to spin their actions as positive and win over the public remember that Viral clip from a few years ago this is extremely dangerous to our democracy this is extremely dangerous to our democracy this is extremely dangerous to our democracy that was the work of a company called Sinclair broadcasting which owns dozens of local news channels and had a message they wanted to put in front of the viewers this in a nutshell is how Corporate mind control works

invest in politics buy favorable legislation make sure the public doesn't get too angry by controlling the narrative most people watching this video are probably too young to remember but before 2001 the 24-hour news cycle didn't exist being bombarded with manipulated information 24/7 is a relatively new phenomenon and we're only just beginning to understand the consequences the main takeaway from the last 20 years or so is that corporate media not only influences but often dictates public opinion shaping narratives to serve particular interests even at the cost of human lives as evidenced by its complicity in the

genocide of the Palestinian people which we'll talk about in a minute but first just one quick statistic there are about three ,000 Outlets that are considered sources of news in the US all of them are owned by one of just 21 companies and every single major news Outlet we're talking CNN MSNBC Fox NBC all the big ones are owned by just five this quasi Monopoly allows the people who own these companies to feed the masses a twisted version of reality and make people believe whatever they want us to believe this creates an environment in which

only the news that fits the interest of the individuals who own these private companies makes it to the public this corporate domination of the media goes hand inand with the corporate domination of the government and perpetuates a system where absurdly wealthy individuals run the show without ever needing to be elected let's take a look at a currently ongoing case study the joint us Israeli genocide of Palestine I've given a history of the ethnic cleansing campaign in previous videos which I'll link in the description as well as some other resources to give you some context if

you're not familiar with the situation the very short version is this the Israeli apartheid regime has been attempting to ethnically cleanse Palestinian land of its indigenous population for over 75 years the brutality sharply escalated in the aftermath of a surprise attack by the Palestinian resistants on October 7th since then Israel has killed at least 30,000 people roughly half of whom are children it's hard to even get accurate counts anymore because the IDF has purposefully destroyed every hospital in Gaza as well as infrastructure schools refu G camps and international Aid Vehicles the footage coming out of

Gaza is horrific this is the most widely shared and recorded genocide in history so it would stand to reason that Western media would be journalistically obligated to report these facts right this is where it becomes apparent that the corporate media absolutely does not provide factual reporting since October 7th the media has dutifully reported Israeli propaganda word for word with zero evidence the accusation of 40 babies being being beheaded was proven to be a lie Us Media is still running with it the accusations of mass sexual assault were proven to be a lie the media hasn't

walked that one back either the Hamas headquarters under hospitals a lie literally every accusation Israel has made has turned out to be a complete fabrication and yet the media still twist themselves into knots to let Israel off the hook why we'll get to that in a minute but first let's take a look at some concrete examples of media complicity in genocide side we'll start with the nuts and bolts of how media spin works if you're thinking well who the hell is this guy to explain this stuff my degree was in journalism and mass communication this

is my bread and butter I specifically chose not to go into mainstream journalism because of this exact problem all of these rhetorical tricks are very common but they're also super easy to see through once you know how to look out for them take this headline for example starvation is stalking gaza's children okay at first glance that seems all right it recognizes that children in Gaza are starving what's the issue here I bet you can guess it doesn't address the critical question of why they're starving people don't just randomly starve on mass it leaves out that

teeny little bit of information that Israel is purposefully starving these people they control the roads in and out of Gaza they have blocked humanitarian aid for months they have opened fire on children swimming out into the ocean to retrieve airdrop supplies at time of writing the world just witnessed what will be called by Future Generations the flower Massacre where Israeli troops lured Palestinians to a vital food drop then butchered them killing over a 100 people and wounding 700 more there's a picture circulating of a parcel of flour soaked in blood which people are calling the

most expensive bag of flour in human history Palestinians have been forced to resort to eating grass animal feed giving newborns a date wrapped in cloth to suck on anything to give them a little sustenance and of course these people are dying this is Israel's doing it is intentional it is a war crime so when the New York Times the most respected paper on Earth leaves out that critical piece of information it lets Israel off the hook for genocide a responsible headline would be Israel is starving gsa's children and while we're on the subject of the

flower Massacre it's sickening to see perhaps the most blatant War crime yet get twisted to avoid naming the perpetrators here's the New York Times on the event live updates in chaotic Gaza scene many are killed and wounded as Israelis open fire this is another one where the average person might think this is an acceptable if strangely worded headline let's break it down what happened starving Palestinians were baited into a killing field by much needed food Aid and then were butchered by Israeli troops how would you spin that instead of saying Massacre you could use chaotic

scene you're not technically lying massacres are chaotic instead of citing the death and injury statistics you could just say that makes it more palatable then instead of explicitly saying the occupation forces targeted and shot the starving people you could simply say they opened fire helping stoke the misconception that people were killed not by Israeli troops but in a stampede this is journalistic malpractice at its best you maintain plausible deniability while completely obfuscating the reality of the event a responsible headline would be massacre in Gaza 100 killed 700 wounded as IDF a fire on starving Palestinians

assembling to receive Food Aid it gets all the facts across it's just as concise and it doesn't let the perpetrator off the hook but the New York Times isn't alone in obfuscating the truth of this story there are countless other examples the Associated Press doesn't mention Israel neither does Forbes or Voice of America USA Today even repeats Israeli lies despite video evidence of what happened but perhaps most egregious is the BBC's headline Israel Gaza War more than 100 killed as crowd waits for Aid Hamas run Health Ministry says this is truly reprehensible not only do

they not mention that the IDF were the murderers they also disingenuously called the genocide a war and they managed to squeeze big scary Hamas into a story that has nothing to do with Hamas even if you think Hamas are terrorists in which case I have bad news for you about what you would have thought about every other historical Liberation movement saying Hamas run Health Ministry is like saying United States run Health Ministry Hamas is the elected government of Palestine all the BBC is trying to do here is scare people by invoking the name of the

current Western Boogeyman let's take another example once again from the New York Times Hamas rejects ceasefire proposal dashing Biden's hopes of near-term deal hm that sounds pretty bad I thought the Palestinian people wanted a ceasefire must be that evil Hamas not caring about their people again let's take a quick look at the article ah what's this Hamas is maintaining their position of demanding a long-term ceasefire not the brief humanitarian pause policy wonks have come up with so what's the real story here the elected government of Palestine has maintained the same position as always Israel makes

a ludicrous offer of Palestine releasing their prisoners in exchange for a brief ceasefire after which point the genocide will continue and somehow the headline they come up with is Hamas rejects ceasefire but there's more to it obvious Hamas scaremongering aside the headline also tries to paint Biden in a good light this is very sneaky the fact of the matter regardless of how Biden and the pundit class have tried to spin it is that the United States and Joe Biden are complicit in the genocide the US has vetoed the ceasefire not once but twice we have

sent weapons and funding to Israel to facilitate the ethnic cleansing and now reports are coming out that there in fact are American soldiers in occupied Palestine taking active part in the genocide this was suspected Ed when the White House put out and then quickly deleted a tweet suggesting as much a few months ago and has been all but confirmed with Aaron Bushnell statements and the photos of US soldiers circulating online let's be honest here this is not just the Israeli genocide of Palestine this is the US Israeli genocide of Palestine if we fund and arm

the murderers if we veto the ceasefire if our media does everything it can to deflect the blame we are complicit and the New York Times trying to suggest he's work working so hard for peace makes our media complicit and these are just a tiny handful of examples of how the media twists their words omits crucial details and just straight up repeats debunked Israeli propaganda there are hundreds more from the last few months alone but I want to talk about one example that should be the nail in the coffin of Us Media legitimacy you probably saw

this story by the New York Times back in December of 2023 it was a bombshell report there was evidence of mass sexual assault on October 7th maybe it wasn't just an oppressed people resisting their executioners maybe these were the Barbarians at the gates this story was a key galvanizing force in uniting the West in support of Israel's ethnic cleansing campaign and if the average person were to read the article it seems pretty damning wow they say there's overwhelming evidence who could possibly defend these monsters there's only one problem well two problems one there wasn't any

evidence and two it was written by an IDF soldier with no journalism experience and attributed to another writer a brilliant expose by The Intercept revealed just how absurd the story actually was this is an not Schwarz Israeli filmmaker and former IDF intelligence official she was approached by the New York Times to work on a story about sexual violence on October 7th Schwarz was hesitant recounting on Israel's Channel 12 podcast that she had quote no qualifications and on another podcast that quote it was more of a case of the New York Times having to convince me

she got over her initial hesitancy and agreed to work with pullit surprise winning reporter Jeffrey gettman on the story gettelman a veteran reporter for the Times typically does much of the leg work for his stories but interestingly in this case it was the complete novice who did most of the on the ground reporting Gelman acted more as an assembler for the data Schwarz provided on the podcast she would make it clear that the times already had their preferred story in mind that their was indeed Mass sexual violence on October 7th all she had to do

was deliver the details she went on to recount her extensive efforts to find any evidence whatsoever to support the claims she called every Hospital crisis center hotline trauma Recovery Center and psychiatric doctor in Israel and not one of them reported a single instance of assault this was a problem for the times so she kept digging looking for anything that could at least suggest that the paper's claims were legitimate eventually and by by her own admission against her best judgment she cited an extremist group with a long history of debunked lies and the IDF reservist who

started the false rumor of a baby being cut from its pregnant mother and beheaded that did not happen even the Israeli media had to walk that one back of course the New York Times didn't feel the need to mention the solders lack of credibility even family members of killed Israelis deny the stories with the sister of one victim saying their story doesn't make sense and her brother-in-law saying the media invented vented it and this is a difficult topic to talk about because every single decent person on earth is against sexual violence people who perpetrate such

acts should be locked up for life and that's being generous but when the world's most respected newspaper fabricates a story provides knowingly bogus evidence and weaponizes these accusations in the service of getting the American people to support genocide that is evil it's a powerful accusation because you can't argue against it without mountains of data you can't just wave off accusations of sexual violence and that makes it very difficult for the average person to push back on propaganda like this thankfully The Intercept has now provided that evidence and I would highly recommend you all bookmark it

to send to people who try to use debunked lies to legitimize their support for the genocide of the Palestinian people I won't be the first to point out that this story might just be the worst case of journalistic malpractice in living memory it's up there with the lies that started the Iraq War this article directly contributes to the Massacre of thousands of people thousands and there will not be any consequences okay so the media lies we all know that but they've been especially bad about Palestine why why are they so invested in covering for atrocities

well there are a few reasons first Israel for a very long time has functioned as a Bastion of Western influence in the Middle East a nuclear power fiercely opposed to all the US's enemies happy to host American soldiers happy to train American cops and more than happy to accept us funding to keep the region perpetually destabilized and under constant threat of nuclear Annihilation Israel is a useful Ally for the United States and that means it gets unconditional good press the second reason is that APAC the American Israel public affairs committee is incredibly powerful APAC like

any other lobbying group wields tremendous influence over government policy by virtue of handsome donations to relevant politicians their spending has ramped up enormous since 2018 which coincidentally is when you start to see a much more favorable spin on Israel stories in the media as well as an even softer stance from politicians and would you like to know who the biggest recipient of pro-israel money is one Joseph R Biden between 1990 and 2024 Biden has received over $5 million in funding from pro-israel groups including APAC so you've got two very compelling reasons for the media to

Cozy up to Israel already but there's one more more that people don't generally talk about most of our politicians just have god- awul politics many of the people in office today have been in government for decades they're ancient decrepit ghouls who are so out of touch with the average person that they've bought their own propaganda in their mind the United States is truly the best country on Earth and if that's true and Israel is our staunchest Ally well then Israel must be good too yeah some of our politicians are bought and some are genuinely evil

but never discount people just having bad ideas sometimes that's not to let them off the hook just something to keep in mind with people in general so what does all this mean what's the bottom line here if we have a government that is willing to disregard not only the vast majority of countries around the world but also international law the majority of their own citizens and basic human decency and we have a media apparatus that is willing to carry water for that regime and brainwash the masses into supporting incredible evil then it is our responsibility

as human beings to take matters into our own hands there's an endless stream of footage and independent reporting coming out of Gaza you can find it on Twitter and telegram especially amplify it share it with your friends your family your co-workers do your part to help people understand that neither our elected officials nor our media represent the average person they represent the interest of capital and nine times out of 10 those interests are opposed to what is right people who work in news stations leak information to investigative reporters when they do things like the New

York Times did or start your own outlet with your co-workers people who work in shipping refuse to load ships Bound for Israel Heck if you've got access to a jet ski you can do what these people [Music] [Applause] [Music] did I'm not advocating for you to do anything illegal that would be silly I'm just saying that there are things we can all do to take the power from the suits and the talking heads and force the changes we want to see that's how it's always worked in the past and that's the only way way it'll

work today I mentioned at the beginning of the episode that I recently joined means TV I'm really excited to be part of the team and I just want to take one minute to tell you a bit about the platform if you haven't heard of means TV we're an explicitly socialist streaming service we've got everything from Daily News to featurelength documentaries to Original Series you can also find some of your favorite socialist creators on means including Luna oi Mexi stepback history and of course second thought as well as my series on fascism with a new fword

means TV is available on desktop and mobile as well as smart TV devices like Roku fire and Apple tv we are a 100% independent Cooperative that means no Venture Capital money and no corporate funding ever we rely entirely on Grassroots support from viewers like you the content on means TV is fantastic in its own right but it's really cool to know that whatever video essay or film or series you click on is genuinely and unabashedly radical in its politics you never have to worry about who's funding the show or what the host actually believes everyone

at means is here for the same reason we believe that a better world is possible and we want to talk about it if you'd like to help support our mission and get access to some of the best socialist content anywhere consider signing up at the link below as a little thank you for watching my videos you can get your first month 50% off when you use the code second thought at checkout so help support my channel and countless other principled creators by subscribing to means TV today if you enjoyed this episode consider dropping a like

if you hated it a thumbs up down you can check out my other content by following the links on your screen thanks for watching and I'll see you next time