Nick Davies is a forerunner, and an award wining investigative journalist from the Guardian Newspaper in London, England. In his most recent book, “Hack Attack”, he exposed how Rupert Murdock’s “News of the World” illegally hacked into people’s personal lives and then, as Davies put it, “monsterized” them for their own power and wealth. As I listened to the CBC (Toronto) interview with Davies, I realized he had not exposed a “lone gunman” problem with the Murdock media companies, but a systemic abuse of power by media outlets in the US, Canada, and countries around the world. Opponents, critics, and non-conformists in politics, religion, education, and business have been monsterized by the media with the intent of controlling the perceptions of the public.
In every democracy, the media acts as an important balance between the power of the executive branch of government and the people who empower them. Its job is to expose the competence and/or incompetence of the government and to accurately inform the people so they can act prudently when voting. That’s not happening and it hasn’t happened for a very long time. Democracy is broken because the media has been corrupted by people with personal agendae.
Aside from the illegal violation of privacy through bribes, fraud, and intimidation, News of the World regularly printed blatant and known lies about people who “displeased” them. They publically monsterized politicians, the royal family, and celebrities in order to harm them and their careers. It was bragged that nobody could govern in England without Murdock’s approval. They built the biggest newspaper in the UK on lies and deception, solely for their personal power and wealth. They were above the law because they bribed the police – everyone was afraid to take them on. Murdock and the News of the World were the classic “bully in the school yard”, but they were not alone.
Monsterizing is not a new media tactic. It has been used by activists to effect a kind of pseudo-change in society. In the 70’s, the women’s movement used “sexist pig” as a way of monsterizing anyone who disagreed with them. They declared those who questioned the movement’s tactics an enemy and punished them by branding them. They bullied, threatened, and intimidated anyone who didn’t support them 100%. They destroyed people’s careers, reputations, and livelihoods because they didn’t agree with the movement’s leaders. The campaign to free women from the cultural norms that were keeping them down, was itself, oppressive. The movement didn’t address these issues; it made their critics afraid to speak. Most people understood the value of their objective from the beginning, but many people where offended by the leaders’ tactics. Making people afraid doesn’t produce real change.
The same tactic was used by the gay lesbian movement, using their brand, “homophobic” to monsterize opponents. In business, Blackberry obviously stepped on the wrong toes and was pushed by the media to the sidelines of the industry they founded. The climate change movement used “denier” as a tactic to minimize serious scrutiny of the questionable science around the impact of global warming. Most scientists didn’t take them seriously in the early days, but they underestimated the IPCC (UN – Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and their powerful supporters. The IPCC monsterized any vocal opponents, bought off universities and researchers with grants, and asserted the urgency to act now ‘before it’s too late’, thus avoiding scrutiny of their “science”. Their motive: about a trillion dollars a year in new taxes, almost complete control of science using those taxes and research grants, and a new currency called Carbon Credits to fill the gap when the US dollar fails. When the IPCC says that 90% of scientists support their view of climate change, they’re including the “silent majority”.
Even organized, Christian religion has jumped into the monsterizing “game”. Rob Bell asked some tough questions and looked outside the “orthodoxy-box” only to be branded by the theology-police, as a heretic. If you have the power of the media behind you, you can marginalizing anyone who doesn’t think like you and control people’s beliefs. Should I mention politics? Elections are a charade played by politicians who spend all their effort and money on capturing the perceptions of voters through “branding wars”. The policies of the parties have become incidental and usually unstated by most suave politicians. No wonder people are losing interest in voting.
Monsterizing is about controlling free speech and free minds. It preempts meaningful debate, intimidates opposition, and the media get to chose who they support and who they ignore. Unfortunately, it often lets bullies get their way and that means change is not soon to come. The power of monsterizing is like a drug to the “murdocks” of this world, but WE can make change, by changing the way we respond to monsterizing.
We can and should question everything we hear in the media because they are far from neutral in their presentation of the so-called facts. They subtly label groups with “left wing this”, or “right wing that”, or “revolutionaries”, or “freedom fighters” to tell us who “the good guys” and “the bad guys” are. If we play this game, we’ll be manipulated and deceived by them. All media is biased but not all media is intentionally manipulating our perceptions. We must, however, listen critically, with a sensitivity to the tactics of the people who are attempting to shape our views and beliefs. Can people really be intrinsically evil just because they belong to one political party or another? Ridiculous or is it manipulation?
If you love the truth, then you have to fight for it because there are powerful and intentional efforts to capture your perceptions. Perhaps you’ve been captured already? If you love people, freedom, democracy, and your country, you can’t let the murdocks of the world control your perceptions of truth and prevent you from thinking for yourself, which is their greatest fear.
Reference:
Hack Attack, – The Inside Story of How the Truth Caught Up With Rupert Murdock
by Nick Davies, copyright 2014, published by House of Anansi – www.houseofanansi.com
Rupert Murdock owns through a network of companies, The Wall Street Journal, book publisher HarperCollins, and the Fox Entertainment Group (owners of the 20th Century Fox film studio and the Fox Broadcasting Company to name just a few media holdings. For more about his companies and the scandal – visit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Corporation
© Copyright 2014-15, Paul K. Weigel – All rights reserved.