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The Conscience of Media
By Irene Rheinwald  | | Ben Heine / MWC NEWS |
On this, the start of year three for Media With Conscience News, we should all reflect for a moment on the need for uncensored, unfettered news and opinion pieces. Corporate dominated television, rife with advertisements, pro-government biases, and flashing sound bytes substituting for informed analyses, only feed the current climate of blissful and paranoid ignorance. Mainstream media, dominated by editors/corporate owners with hidden agendas, easily slant news and editorials into directions contrary to the truth. Or lull us into complacency with stories deep as puddles: the lifestyles of the rich, shallow, and infamously narcissistic.
What, I ask, happened to knowledge and wisdom? The ability to discern fluff from depth, the glib from the necessary? With the coverage recently assigned to Anna Nicole Smith’s death, one might wonder if the Iraq war is nothing but a fleeting illusion; those dead nothing but randomly tossed off numbers – ghosts in the periphery of consciousness. Fox News blares, “fair and balanced” at every turn, while CNN purports to be the “most trusted source” for news and analyses. Yet in times of war, it is common for the media to tout patriotic messages and demonize what the government considers the “enemy”, which often includes domestic dissenters. These so-called enemies are degraded, metamorphosed into inhuman subspecies, capable of egregious crimes against civilized people everywhere; it is thus easier for the “good” to engage in wholesale slaughter of men, women and children without the annoyance of conscience. Such practices have been with humankind since the “invention” of war. One is desensitized; such messages ensure a frenzy of patriotism at home. It is thus easy for George W. Bush to speak of “you are either with us or with the terrorists”, or “evildoers”, and “our enemies”, rather than Iraqis mothers and fathers mourning the death and dismemberment of beloved children. Consequent to this practice is the restriction of anti-war factions, those who dare challenge government propaganda. The vilification of the “left”, which undermines the First Amendment, seems par for the course among the pro-war contingent. All too often, it reaches a point of screeching hysteria, as in the case of Bill O’Reilly and Anne Coulter. Fanning the flames of intolerance does wonders for paranoia and xenophobia; this is the mental and emotional game of war. However, we now have the internet, an angry internet, in which one can peruse a variety of viewpoints, from the outrageous to the patently false, to the investigative and thoughtful. Anyone can contribute; the internet is egalitarian and hides, for better or worse, behind the First Amendment. With the internet, readers must be judicious filters, and no longer accept whatever message the government sees fit to feed us by traditional means. Indeed, this forces us to be more diligent, more wary, more sceptical, more willing to exercise critical thinking – and therefore more liable to question our government’s pronouncements. No longer willing slaves, we have the means to see a much larger perspective. Independent media sources on the internet, such as Media With Conscience News, gather both hard data and diverse opinions – all well reasoned and compellingly argued – and allow us to make informed decisions. Wisdom and understanding of complex issues is entirely dependent upon accessing as many divergent viewpoints as possible, sorting the wheat from the chaff, and drawing logical conclusions. At this, Media With Conscience News excels, with its comprehensive reports, reference sections, blogs, discussion groups breaking news and haunting illustrations. Due to compelling arguments on internet news sites, the whole issue of WMDs and nuclear weapons was suspect, even before the U.S. invasion. Television and newspapers, however, fed the government “party line” to an unsuspecting public; even now, a significant percentage of FOX news viewers avow Saddam Hussein masterminded 9/11. And there has been a tragic lack of interest in mounting Iraqi deaths: we hear of U.S. soldiers, but not Iraqi civilians. Only the Lancet study escaped censorship. Even today, George W. Bush maintains invading Iraq was an instrumental component of the “war on terror”, notwithstanding Saddam Hussein’s previous incarnation as a great friend of the United States, worthy of American chemical and biological weapons. We have not viewed the flag draped coffins of American service members on television, nor have we seen photographs Lebanese babies mutilated by Israeli attacks in daily newspapers. We do not understand the tragedy of Palestinians cut off from land and families, slowly starving to death, denied even the most basic of human rights such as food, water, a livelihood, or some meaning besides a “martyr’s” death. We might better understand and combat global warming, the science of our delicate ecological balance, the horrors of Darfur or Rwanda, if the images permeate our consciousness. If the mainstream media reported the true horrors of the world in which we live, that world might be a very different place indeed. I often thought education the key to enlightenment. Perhaps not entirely. Wisdom, true understanding of the world in which we live, of what is and is not equitable, can only be attained by carefully considering both facts and rational opinions with an unprejudiced mind. Media With Conscience News is a source of real information and logical argument, news that is not whitewashed or diluted; the photography and art is often graphic, and the statistics horrifying. Outrage – moral, ethical, intellectual and spiritual – is inevitable. Yet to deny such truths is to deny the darkest part of our nature: we can only build a righteous, peaceful and equitable society if we dare recognize and probe our demons. Knowledge is the first step of activism, of effecting true change: this is what Media With Conscience News provides. Do not spare us. Irene Rheinwald Irene Rheinwald is a writer, artist, historian and former social worker residing in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. She is a member of PAJU (Palestinian and Jewish Unity), has travelled extensively in the Middle East, studied foreign relations and American history and politics. Recommend this article...
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