Hear No Truth...

The three wise monkeys over the Tōshō-gū shrine in Nikkō, Japan. (Source)

We've all heard the saying, "Hear no evil, speak no evil, see no evil."* It seems to me that as of late the "mainstream" media's motto seems to be "Hear no truth, speak no truth, see no truth." I have taken everything said, proclaimed, and/or written by the media since the Tet Offensive of 1968 with a grain of salt. It's hard to lend any credence to what they have to tell us when they increasingly slant the "news" to sell us on a certain agenda.

Now I'm not casting stones at one side or the other, I mean if we're truly honest with ourselves, all sides (wavelengths?) of the political spectrum do it. I mean in reality they're all in the business of selling something. And guess what? We, that is you and me, Joe or Jill Average American, are not the customers.

As I had it explained to me by a colleague who used to work for a sailing magazine (big business here in Little Rhody if you must know) the folks who bought the magazine and (presumably) read it were not the customers of the magazine. At least that's how the magazine folks viewed it. They were not making money by selling magazines for a few bucks a copy. Dear me no, they'd go out of business before the first issue hit the streets if their only source of revenue was the price of the magazine.

The customer (remember, from the magazine staff's point of view) were the advertisers. Those folks paid big bucks to have their glossy ads littered throughout the magazine, forcing us to go all the way back to page 87 to finish a story. Or wade through 50 pages of advertisements in a desperate attempt to find the table of contents, or a photo, or an article which wasn't actually an ad!

'Tis the same for the media these days, print, video, what-have-you. The customers are the advertisers, not thee and me. No Sir, No Ma'am. We don't have the kind of big money necessary to sustain these massive broadcast companies. Advertisers do.

Once upon a time the news departments of the networks were not considered to be part of the money making apparatus of the networks. Now they are, they need to bring in revenue just as much as prime time programming must make money.

We also live in the world of the 24-hour news cycle. So that 24 hours must be filled with stuff people want to watch. These days it isn't enough to be told that an airliner crashed in the ocean and all on board are feared lost. Nope.

Now we are treated to 'round the clock coverage of the event. The talking heads must discuss, dissect, and carefully reveal what little they know. If we sit there and watch it, they'll keep the story going regardless of the lack of new facts coming in.

Remember Malaysia Airlines flight MH370? That pretty much filled every moment of CNN's programming for days on end. Why? Well, people kept watching it. Do you think for a moment CNN would have kept at it if people stopped watching? Nope, they would have moved on to other stories and only updated the airline story as new facts came in. Like things used to be.

What sparked this rant? I'm detecting a concerted attempt on the part of the media to completely discredit the presumptive Republican candidate for President. I mean the Washington Post has over 20 reporters investigating the man. While ignoring his presumptive opponent in the November election. Polls are produced indicating that the man is falling behind the woman, with little of substance to indicate why.

Now I'm no Trump guy, not really. But this whole business smacks of fraud to me. Something is rotten and it ain't in Denmark, it's right here in these United States.

I've seen this before. If the media desires a certain outcome, then they will do everything in their power to make that happen. They aren't really accountable to anyone but their customer, who ain't us. As always, follow the money and ask cui bono, who benefits? It's not the American people.

In the days, weeks, and months ahead...

Don't believe everything you read or hear.

It's not lies, exactly.

But it's probably not the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth...





* A very interesting story behind the origin of the phrase "Hear no evil" etc., can be found here. Well, I thought it was interesting, as always YMMV.