Comment:
Nobody trusts the media today – apparently opinion polls show that journalists and politicians are neck and neck in sharing the public’s dismal opinion about their integrity. Yet, generally speaking Catholics seem to believe whatever they are told, judging by recent high profile controversies. The Catholic hierarchy generally go along with the popular view, as fed to us via the media. Is this naiveté or charity?
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Comments (18)
I definitely don’t trust the media – at all.
The two best examples I can think of right now, are the recent Alfie Evans case, where at least one Catholic on this blog has accepted the media hype, and that is typical of the attitude in wider society, and Brexit.
You hear the same lies about Brexit day in and day out and they are allowed to go uncorrected, even by the leading Brexiteers. Example: there’s no such thing as a “single market” – just an “internal market” in the EU, that is, you have to be IN the EU to be a member of the market. Yet, constantly the media put out this idea that we can be in the “single market” and be outside the EU. That’s a lie yet you seldom hear anyone, including Catholics, explaining this.
I don’t know the answer to this, but I do think that Catholics tend to be naïve about authority, possibly coming from our being taught that authority always comes from God. I’m at the stage I just don’t watch a lot of news any more and what I do read and hear I take with a large pinch of salt. People generally treat the media as if it is a fact machine, but, as the woman says in the video above, most of the time we’re getting the journalists’ opinions not the news.
Fidelis
The manifest bias against BREXIT is driving me nuts, so I agree entirely. I don’t know why these news reporters and anchors think their opinions matter – they absolutely do not, although I suspect that the unwashed masses, the idiots who think the “establishment” always knows best, those nuts, WILL be influenced. Well, they got a job reading an autocue, so they must be clever… Dumplings!
I think people in general are naive about the untrustworthy mainstream media. The cross-section of people that I work with – including Catholics – appear to take everything emanating from the MSM as gospel truth.
Westminster Fly,
I agree. When I say in company that I don’t believe half of the stuff reported on the news, I get funny looks. However I have to say that the Alfie Evans case is a bit different, as I’m finding relatives and friends are all suspicious about that, and now that word has got out about the NHS reports into Alder Hey being so negative, the scales are falling from people’s eyes, no thanks to the msm.
It’s hard to tell how many Joe and Jane Sixpacks come home from a long day at work, plop themselves into the armchair, turn on the idiot box, and take what they hear (if they watch the “news”) seriously. I suspect it is mostly those with an agenda who take the “news” seriously, including internet trolls, since it gives them more talking points to smear and otherwise destroy their intended targets. The “news” is therefore just fuel for the leftist echo chamber. It has also become a global gossip column (he said this, she said that, oh tsk-tsk! They must apologize! etc.)
Noam Chomsky wrote a book about this years ago, called “Manufacturing Consent”: https://archive.org/stream/pdfy-NekqfnoWIEuYgdZl/Manufacturing%20Consent%20%5BThe%20Political%20Economy%20Of%20The%20Mass%20Media%5D_djvu.txt
As for the Catholic hierarchy, I ascribe their agreement with manufactured news to neither naivete nor charity, but to some combination of (a) fear of ridicule, (b) the fact that their personal lives or careers have been compromised by some sort of corruption (i.e. the threat of blackmail), (c) fear of displeasing the Dictator Pope, or (d) loss of faith.
RCA Victor
“their personal lives or careers have been compromised by some sort of corruption…”
You got it in one!
RCA Victor,
This one was the only one I really “got!” 😀
They who have put out the people’s eyes, reproach them of their
blindness. (John Milton)
Love it!
Yes we live in a world of absurdity and oxymorons…on the TV news we have the ‘Minister for Women and Equality’
Of course it has to be a WOMAN and NOT a man and what about the Equality part?
Surely all that is required is a Minister for Equality?
Howzabout a Minister for Men and Equality?…..that would not be countenanced !
I thought we had all decided that WE were ALL EQUAL anyway?
St Miguel,
Love your post – LOL! So true! You should write all of that to Theresa May!
Howzabout a Minister for Men and Continuing Inequality,except that it HAS to be a WOMAN?
St Miguel,
Made me smile, that’s for sure! “A minister for women and equality” is indeed… crackers!
We here in Australia do not have to buy any licence for either TV or radio. However, the ABC here gets the support of all Australians because our government pays for the ABC out of general taxation. I can assure you that the ABC is every bit as bad as the BBC. One thing sticking in my gullet at the moment is their treatment of Cardinal Pell. They report time and time again that he is facing multiple charges of sexual impropriety and they report this with great glee. The magistrate should have tossed out all of them but it appears that she has let three of them stand and has referred them to a higher court where he will have to face a jury. These are the “multiple charges” which are still hanging over him even though his defence showed that they are demonstrably false and have been brought out of hatred not from fact. His defence is asking for two separate trials one for all the time when he was a simple priest and the other for the time when he was Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney. The defence hopes thereby to treat these in general terms and to then demonstrate their falsehood…which is what they have already demonstrated.
Cardinal Pell needs all our prayers. He really is being persecuted.
Re: Cardinal Pell – I’m really sorry for him. I think he’s being scape-goated. Yes, we should pray for him, definitely.
The MSM are not in the business of truth or completeness or transparency or timeliness or criticism or analysis.
They are in the squirrel business. When it becomes impossible to ignore a news story that contradicts the approved narrative (approved narrative – islam is a Religion of Peace, contradiction – Manchester Arena bombing by a muslim in good standing in his community) distractions are provided.
A brief look at the BBC website will show a host of stories, many years old. These are the squirrels intended to distract people from reality.
In the last month we have had the ludicrous farce of the Salisbury “nerve agent attack” and the illegal bombing of Syria based on a story that the world experts have now discredited.
Oh, Look! A squirrel!
That is why they suddenly move to a story about a poodle in Liverpool that can tapdance.
TV news other day says the UK GOVT does NOT KNOW who was behind Salisbury!
The MSM is a Vaudeville act…a pantomime…’he’s behind you’ stuff.
Best description I ever heard about media hacks was “presstitutes”.
One incident springs to mind here, re the BBC. This concerned a Catholic nun, who was being interviewed outside one of the cathedrals the Anglicans nicked (possibly Lincoln, I don’t quite recall).
As soon as the Reverend Sister for some reason mentioned freemasonery, the BBC suddenly had ‘technical difficulties’ with their on-site equipment and, with apologies, the interview had to be curtailed. Most inconvenient, I’m sure
I trust the media in the UK about as much as I trust any other lying toe-rag!
I don’t know that I would single out the BBC in particular – ITN, Channels 4 & 5, Sky, they’re all as bad as each other.
Comments are closed.