We're likely to have grown up thinking that the mainstream Media was our friend
The common sense natural judge of everything that matters and is important and a reliable guide to existence
But we might also be realizing that isn't quite true
Let's take a moment to remind ourselves of some of the things that might be slightly or even very wrong with Mainstream Media
It's pretty easy to do no one can pass such headlines without giving way to a click
in order to gain money from advertisers or governments the media has to hook us in and it knows our minds are helpless in the
face of such headlines
We look to the media to tell us about what matters, but it cares predominantly about what will excite us
Sometimes the two categories coincide what's most important in the world [maybe] what's most immediately exciting too?
But usually that's not the case
We're built to have an almost irresistible attraction to certain stories involving power fame disaster and sex and yet
We're tempted to yawn about schools developing world problems, and the money supply. We're not evil
It's just the equivalent of our fatal weakness for processed sugar fat and salt and the media does everything it can to exploit this
In theory the media has a deeply important function to play in a democracy
It's meant to direct a mass audience to engage with the greatest problems in Society so as to push politicians to make necessary changes
But as it is the media is obsessed with scandals it focuses relentlessly on the rather thrilling
Misdemeanors of a few people rather than the large systemic failings that are harder to see and far less sexy to describe
It gives the population of feeling that it's on the side of the little guy against the big guy
Far from it the sacrifice [of] the odd bigwig [in] a scandal and nothing and reliably take our eyes of pushing for proper large-scale
improvements
Most problems in society take time to fix but by constantly changing the topic of National
Conversation the Media ensures that nothing will remain a priority for long
One always makes more money getting someone scared about bugs viruses
Explosions than getting them to a sane correct assessment of the dangers facing them and a melancholy acceptance of death and compromise in General
One makes more money getting people furious than patient before the challenges of writing or wrong or philosophical in the face of human evil
It reports in impassive terms about adultery in Hollywood marriage
Or the bad behavior of a model it pretends to care about so-called
Transgressions while not admitting that it's at the same time
Titillating the audience most of whom deepen their unconscious would love a chance to do what's being condemned on the surface the media therefore?
Hypocritically satisfies both our fantasies and on need to think ourselves normal and respectable
It's called the news because of an obsession with the notion that the new and important go together
But much that just happened is far less important that many things that occurred thousands of years ago
There are things we need that lie further back the most significant bits of information could not always have happened in the last 24 hours
as the news pretends
When the media is in a serious mood, it will give us six thousand word essays on Global warming
but [only] a handful of people read it seems the choice is either between a sexy and banal or the serious and
Starchy in the [utopia] what we need is the most serious issues presented in the most engaging ways
It's not enough [for] serious journalists to plunk the important stories before us
They need to work doubly hard to get the story and then also to make it exciting as exciting as the latest from Taylor Swift
There's nothing wrong with having famous people in a society the reason why celebrities
Become a dirty word is that we've got the wrong celebs in front of us. We need the media to anoint people with fame
But fame for doing noble and good things that really help a nation we don't need to get rid of celebrities. We need better varieties
We like to think we've got a good media because it's free freedom is a wonderful privilege. No doubt but on its own. It's nothing
We need a media that isn't just free but also good that is able to direct a mass audience towards
What truly counts which is as it's been since the days of plato
Justice truth and wisdom