The News Media

A totally different type of Paraducer power caste is the news media. Why are they Paraducers? Ask a few questions. Do we need them? Are they truthful? What do they Produce?

I suppose if there were two people on earth, we would not need them at all. With three or more people, especially living at a distance, they do aid communication of important news. With today’s trend toward self publishing and blogging, however, the need for the news media is diminishing because each point source of news becomes its own reporter, or is surrounded by independent observers.

Cue the grizzled correspondent: “But they cannot report their own news! They would be BIASED! And independent observers are not trained properly.”

Oh, so we need reporters to report the news fairly and without bias, with the proper training, because any other information delivery system would be flawed? I’ll buy that.

But what is actually happening in America today? Do we have fair, unbiased reporting? Do we have competent reporting? Do we even have unintentionally biased reporting which averages out to zero bias? Of course not!

No, reporting in America is totally biased and sometimes incompetent. You are expecting me to start whining about left wing bias, aren’t you? Not going to happen, because the problem is not left or right wing bias, but a bias toward whatever wing will enhance the media’s power.

In the middle of the 20th century, political winds broke in favor of the liberals, the Democrat Party. I assert that the news media followed them partly because of ideology, but mainly because the news media gained tremendous power in Washington, D.C. by befriending the liberals.

With the rise of right wing talk radio, a certain part of the media has realized that there is a lot of money to be made catering to this conservative thinking, and they are doing just that. The result is another arm of the biased media chasing after money and power.

We do need a news media, but we need an unbiased media that reports the facts without their opinion. That we do not have. The biased media we have we do not need.

Regarding their competency, did you have a look at the purported Bush National Guard memos that CBS supposedly discovered? They were obviously typed in Microsoft Word. Is there no one at CBS with a half-ounce of common sense? Either their competency is nil, or their bias overruled what little competency they have left. In either case, I smell a Paraducer out to gain power.

As Paraducers, they also use their influence to perpetuate their power in political circles and society as a whole. They do not produce anything unique or new; they only report information that someone tells them or they overhear at a cocktail party. Their editorials are even warmed over. They do, however, work the system to maximize the value of each piece of information they overhear, whether by titillating the public or torturing confused Paraducer politicians on tedious talk shows.

Their goal is to manipulate government and the public to improve their power over both, protecting their system. Paraducers through and through.

For example take the homeless problem. There are homeless people on the streets. You have seen them. But did you know that the ranks of the homeless expand and contract with changes in the political party holding the White House? Not Congress, but only the White House. Fascinating.

Bernard Goldberg outlines this phenomenon in his book, Bias. “The conservative Media Research Center found that in 1990, when George Bush was president, there were seventy-one homeless stories on the ABC, CBS, NBC, and CNN evening newscasts. But in 1995, when Bill Clinton was in the White House, the number had gone down to just nine!” ^[22]

The ‘homeless problem’ has become fodder for news media propaganda. Be assured that absolutely none of the figures the media provides on the homeless population (from a couple hundred thousand to the millions) are correct or properly researched. I have compassion for the homeless and have volunteered in shelters myself, as have many of my Producer readers. That’s not the issue. The issue is that we are being lied to and manipulated. It’s just as serious a crime that the homeless problem goes away during Democrat administrations because public awareness and help for the homeless will necessarily be damaged.

Another interesting ploy they use is the glorification of non-Producers, and the minimization of Producers. When you turn on the television, you are assaulted with images of vapid movie stars hawking their latest empty movie. Tomorrow, it’s a different star. Another the next day. These ‘news stories’ last no more than 24 hours because they are meaningless. Even the Consumers get bored!

But the first time a Producer, say, a person who built a company from nothing, is accused of wrongdoing, that story has legs for weeks, filling the gaps between the latest movie promos. The people who build America, the Producers, are portrayed as money grubbing thieves at every turn. The demonization of the producing middle class and working wealthy shores up the media’s political position with Consumers, who pay real money for this bilge via their cable television bills. These people are easily manipulated to any political cause the media chooses, and then the media take a poll to show the seriousness of the situation!

Yes, the media is a classic Paraducer caste. They produce nothing unique or original, manipulate the system to consolidate their power, and exclude people who do not share their views; oops! I meant to say, “have the proper credentials.”