Table of Contents
1. Mass Indoctrination in Communist CountriesThe influence of the media in modern society is enormous and continues to grow. It permeates communities of all sizes, from the local to the global. With the rise of social media and user-generated content, the internet has greatly amplified the speed and reach of audiovisual communication.
People rely on the media for the latest news and analysis. In an ocean of information, the media — from newspapers and magazines, to radio, film, and television, to websites and social media — influence what information people see and how they interpret it. The media are in a position to influence people’s first impressions on a particular topic, and thus carry considerable powers of psychological priming. For social elites, particularly politicians, the media can be used to determine the focus of public opinion and can serve as a rallying beacon for the public. Topics that the media cover become matters of grave social concern. Issues that go unreported are ignored and forgotten.
In the West, the media are traditionally regarded as the guardians of the truth and society’s core values. Journalists are respected for their expertise and sacrifices. Their duty is to report the truth of the world’s major events in a fair, accurate, and timely manner. They must support justice and condemn wrongdoing, while promoting goodness. Their mission goes beyond the private interests of any one individual, company, or political party. Thomas Jefferson, father of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States, once said, “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.” [1]
As the voice of a society, the media can act to safeguard morality or become instruments of evil. In the midst of mankind’s moral decline, it’s difficult for the media to protect their virtue and perform their duties under the pressure of power and the temptation of money.
Newspaper publisher Joseph Pulitzer, after whom the Pulitzer Prize is named, said: “Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery. A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations.” [2]
1. Mass Indoctrination in Communist Countries
From the very beginning, communists have viewed the media as tools for brainwashing. The 1847 document “Rules of the Communist League,” which Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels helped write, asked members to have “revolutionary energy and zeal in propaganda.” [3] Marx and Engels often used terms like “party battlefield,” “party mouthpiece,” “political center,” or “tool for public opinion” in their articles to express the character and function they desired of the media.The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) also regards the media as tools for controlling public opinion and as the mouthpiece of the Party. The CCP is highly conscious of the fact that “the guns and the pens are what it relies on for seizing and consolidating power.” [4] As early as the Yan’an period (1935–1947), Mao Zedong’s secretary Hu Qiaomu put forward the principle of “Party nature first,” saying that the Party newspaper “has to carry through the Party’s viewpoints and understandings in all articles, every essay, every news report, and every newsletter.” [5]
Upon establishing its dictatorship, the CCP imposed strict control over the media and later the internet. It uses them as tools to indoctrinate the Chinese with communist ideology, suppress dissidents, intimidate the public, and conceal or distort the truth. Media workers are experts in self-censorship, constantly aware that a single error can result in a miserable outcome. Censorship not only permeates the official news channels, but also personal blogs and online communities, which are monitored and controlled by a vast network of internet police.
There is a contemporary Chinese saying that vividly describes the role of the media under the CCP’s rule: “I am the Party’s dog, sitting by the Party’s door. I’ll bite whomever the Party tells me to bite and however many times I am told.” This is no exaggeration. Every communist political movement starts with manipulating public opinion: The media spread lies to incite hatred, which cascades into violence and killing. The media play a crucial role in this deadly mechanism.
During the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, the CCP claimed that the student demonstrators were violent thugs and used this as justification to deploy the army to suppress the alleged “riot.” Following the massacre, it claimed that the army didn’t shoot anyone and that there were no casualties in the square. [6] In 2001, early on in the persecution of Falun Gong, the regime staged a self-immolation hoax in Tiananmen Square to frame the spiritual practice and kindle hatred toward Falun Gong practitioners across China and around the world. [7]
Leading cadres in committees at all levels of the CCP place great importance on propaganda work and field considerable personnel for this task. By the end of 2010, China had more than 1.3 million staff working in the national propaganda apparatus, including about 56,000 in propaganda departments at the provincial and county levels, 1.2 million in local propaganda units, and 52,000 people in the central propaganda work units. [8] This figure does not include the large number of staff who were responsible for monitoring and manipulating online opinion, such as internet police, moderators, Party-controlled commentators, and others employed in various forms of public relations.
2. Communist Infiltration of Western Media and Hollywood
The last century was witness to great conflicts between the free world and the communist camp. All the while, communism has been successfully infiltrating and subverting the media in Western countries. This chapter focuses on the United States, in light of the extraordinary influence of American media throughout the world.After the Soviet regime seized power in Russia, it attempted to establish control over public discourse in the West, dispatching its agents to infiltrate Western media and enticing local communist sympathizers. It used these people to great effect in eulogizing the Soviet Union and concealing the brutality of communist rule. Soviet propaganda efforts swayed large numbers of Westerners and even influenced government policy to favor the Soviet Union.
At the same time, Hollywood was infiltrated by communist and leftist ideas. Willi Münzenberg, a German communist and member of the Third International, traveled to the United States and recognized that the American film industry could be used as a tool for propaganda, implementing Lenin’s concepts of film development and production. He sent his trusted assistant Otto Katz and his associate Louis Gibarti to infiltrate the industry. Katz was highly successful in penetrating the social circles of the Hollywood elite and soon established a Communist Party branch organization, the Hollywood Anti-Nazi League.
3. Left-Wing Bias Among Media Professionals
The majority of Americans say the media have partisan biases. A 2017 Gallup poll showed that 64 percent of people felt that the media favor Democrats. By comparison, 22 percent believe the media favor Republicans. [17] A question then arises: With the news industry being so competitive, how can such an extreme bias exist?Though reporters and editors have their own political and social views, their reporting should not be colored by personal opinion — objectivity and neutrality are key principles of journalism ethics. By normal market principles, any bias that exists should be offset by the emergence of new, more neutral competitors.
The community of media professionals excludes views that do not align with its liberal bias, thus forming political echo chambers. Individuals in this community see themselves as the compassionate and intelligent elite at the forefront of societal development, while looking down on ordinary citizens as stubborn commoners. Left-wing bias discourages students with conservative viewpoints from picking journalism as their major or seeking a job in the media after graduation.
During the 2016 US presidential election, fifty-seven of the nation’s one hundred biggest newspapers — with a combined circulation of thirteen million — endorsed the Democratic candidate. Just two of the top hundred, with a combined circulation of three hundred thousand, supported the Republican candidate. [21] But the mainstream media does not necessarily represent the opinions of the social mainstream. A 2016 poll conducted by Gallup found that 36 percent of American citizens identified as conservative, while liberals made up 25 percent. [22] That is to say, if the media accurately reflected the views of a majority of citizens, then the media as a whole wouldn’t lean left.
The leftist bent of the media is evidently not the result of popular will. Rather, it comes from the behind-the-scenes pushing of a political agenda intended to shift the entire nation to the political left. The gap between conservatives and liberals in 1996 was 22 percent; in 2014, it was 14 percent; and in 2016, it was 11 percent. The proportion of conservatives has remained stable, but many in the middle have been converted to the Left. The mainstream media undeniably play a role in this demographic transformation, which, in turn, sustains the media’s ideological bias.
Why does the media lean so far to the left? In the 1960s, the country was heavily influenced by communist ideology, with radical left-wing social movements taking the United States by storm. The radical students of that period later entered the media, the academic community, government agencies, and the arts scene, where they established control over public discourse. Today, the vast majority of university professors are leftists, and departments of journalism and literature have brought generations of graduates under leftist influence. Media workers are not paid high salaries, instead relying on their idealistic sense of purpose to persevere in the field. This idealism has become the tool for transforming the media into a left-wing base of operations.
Along with news media, the film industry also is under siege. Hollywood has become a bastion of left-wing propaganda. Using sophisticated production and narrative techniques, left-leaning producers promote leftist ideologies that have reached the entire world. The main theme of Hollywood films usually appears to be slandering capitalism and emphasizing class conflict, while praising immoral behavior or anti-American sentiment.
4. The Media Takeover by Liberalism and Progressivism
Walter Williams, the founder of journalism education and of the world’s first journalism school at the University of Missouri, created “The Journalist’s Creed” in 1914. It defined journalism as an independent profession that respects God and honors mankind. Journalists should be “unmoved by pride of opinion or greed of power.” They must exercise self-control, patience, fearlessness, and constant respect for their readers. [26] After the 1960s, however, as progressivism became prevalent, advocacy replaced objectivity, and liberalism and progressivism replaced impartiality.Selective Coverage
Every day, thousands of newsworthy events occur around the world. But which events receive attention or quietly fade from view is almost completely determined by what the media chooses to cover.Selective coverage can be divided into three categories. First, events are selected only or primarily for their utility in helping readers accept the ideological stand of the Left. Second, instead of reporting comprehensively on an event’s context, the media report only the aspects that support the leftist point of view. Lastly, the media tend to give greater voice to those who lean left or whose statements agree with the Left, while other organizations and individuals are sidelined. Groseclose and Jeffrey Milyo wrote in their 2005 paper “A Measure of Media Bias” that “for every sin of commission ... we believe that there are hundreds, and maybe thousands, of sins of omission — cases where a journalist chose facts or stories that only one side of the political spectrum is likely to mention.” [30]
Perhaps one of the most striking examples of selective coverage is the dearth of reporting on the largest persecution of faith in contemporary history. In China since 1999, the CCP has persecuted adherents of Falun Gong, who number in the tens of millions. Despite the brutality of the Party’s campaign to eradicate this peaceful spiritual faith — in which countless victims have been tortured, sentenced to forced labor, or even killed for their organs in state and military-run hospitals — coverage of Falun Gong by the Western media has been disproportionately weak. Having been influenced by the CCP in various ways, most of the mainstream media outlets have exercised self-censorship or remained silent amid the Party’s monstrous assault on freedom of belief and the core values of human civilization. Some foreign outlets have even been complicit in helping the CCP spread its deceit about Falun Gong.
Agenda-Setting
In the 1960s, media researchers came up with the influential theory that the media determine which topics people find suitable for discussion. American political scientist Bernard Cohen articulated this well when he said that the press “may not be successful much of the time in telling people what to think, but it is stunningly successful in telling its readers what to think about.” [31] That is to say, the press can determine the importance ascribed to an event by deciding the amount of coverage the event receives, while equally or more important issues can be dealt with more summarily or not at all. For example, though the issue of transgender rights concerns only a very small portion of the population, it has become a focal point of discussion and an example of the media successfully setting the agenda. In addition, a narrative about global warming became prominent in public discourse as the result of a long-term conspiracy between the media and other political interests (see Chapter Sixteen).Framing
Many issues are too big to ignore, and in these cases, the media use the method of framing to influence the informational environment. The sexual liberation movement and state welfare policies of the 1960s resulted in the disintegration of the family, worsened poverty, and increased crime. However, leftists use the media and Hollywood to depict an image of the strong and independent single mother, hiding the real social issues behind this phenomenon. They get experts to blame systemic discrimination for the poor financial and social status of minority groups, thus obscuring the real causes — many of which have their roots in communism. The prevalence of such narratives is largely the result of collusion between the media and political forces.Using Political Correctness to Enforce Self-Censorship
Political correctness, a potent communist tool, permeates the media. Whether written in the style guide or left implicit, many media outlets have policies of political correctness that affect what may or may not be reported and how it should be presented. Because of legislation on “hate crimes” in some European countries, many local media outlets dare not report on crimes committed by immigrants, despite that such crimes have become a severe social issue and are threatening the domestic security in those countries. American media organizations also self-censor when it comes to reporting crimes, often omitting the perpetrators’ immigration status.Labeling Conservative Sources to Neutralize Their Influence
To create the impression that their reporting is balanced, the liberal media have no choice but to report on the opinions of conservatives or conservative think tanks. But the media typically use labels like “far right,” “right wing,” or “religious right wing” when quoting these sources, subtly implying that their opinions are prejudiced or not trustworthy. By contrast, when quoting from liberals or liberal think tanks, the media usually use neutral titles such as “scholar” or “expert,” suggesting that these opinions are impartial, objective, rational, and trustworthy.The media’s political colors are also reflected in their coverage of the democratic process. Liberal candidates are reported positively, while candidates who espouse traditional views receive more criticism. Such reports and “expert” analysis have great influence over the voting population.
5. The Film Industry: A Vanguard Against Tradition
Hollywood, as an international symbol of American culture, has served to broadcast and amplify American values worldwide. But it also has become an instrument for exposing all of humanity to distorted, anti-traditional values.Today, it’s hard for most Americans to imagine that families in the 1930s and ‘40s had no need to worry about the negative influence of movies on children, as the film industry at the time followed strict moral regulations. In 1930, with strong backing from churches, the film industry introduced the Motion Picture Production Code, commonly known as the Hays Code. Its first principle was that no film should be produced that would lower the moral standards of its viewers. The audience should never be made to sympathize with crime, wrongdoing, evil, or sin. The Hays Code principle on sex was to uphold the sanctity of marriage; motion pictures were not to imply that low forms of sexual relationships were acceptable norms. Adultery, while sometimes necessary as plot material, was not to be justified, nor depicted attractively or in an explicit manner.
After the 1950s, however, sexual liberation caused cultural and moral shock waves. The rise of television in the American household fostered enormous market pressure and rivalry among film producers. Hollywood increasingly ignored the Hays Code. For example, the 1962 Academy Award-nominated film Lolita, adapted from the novel of the same title, depicted an adulterous and pedophilic relationship between a man and his 12-year-old stepdaughter. Though the film received both negative and positive reviews after its release, today it holds a 91 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, a film and television review aggregator. This reflects the sea change in social morality that has occurred in recent decades.
Film is a special medium with the power to depict compelling atmospheres and realistic personalities. Skillful direction can alter the viewpoints of audience members, especially the young and impressionable, on many levels, shaping their feelings and worldviews. A well-known film producer once said: “Documentaries convert the already converted. Fictional films convert the unconverted.” [39] In other words, documentaries strengthen the values that viewers already hold, while fictional films use fascinating stories to prime their unwitting audiences with a new set of values.
American scholar Victor B. Cline did an analysis in the 1970s of thirty-seven movies that were shown in the Salt Lake City area. He found that 57 percent of the movies presented dishonesty as heroic or as justified by the circumstances and that 38 percent portrayed crime as something that pays off or as an exciting pastime without negative consequences. In 59 percent of the movies, the heroes killed at least one person. He also found that 72 percent of the heroines were shown to be promiscuous to some extent and that only one of the films suggested normal sexual relations between a married couple. Only 22 percent of the movies portrayed any principal characters as having healthy and satisfying marriages. [44]
A common argument against criticizing violence and sexuality in films is that such things exist in real life and that films only reflect the nature of reality, rather than causing any negative impact. But from the figures above and more, this is demonstrably false. Moreover, numerous films produced by Hollywood leftists naturally reflect their values and, in turn, have changed the values of society. According to film critic and former Hollywood screenwriter Michael Medved, the liberal-minded social revolutionaries in Hollywood are attacking the values of society by assaulting the legitimacy of the family, promoting sexual perversion, and glorifying ugliness. [45]
Others argue that the profusion of morally degenerate content in the film industry is merely driven by market forces. But whatever the means, diabolical goals are being achieved to frightening effect. The speed and power with which the film industry has been used to take down public morality are astounding. Some movies glorify beasts or monsters. Those that depict man transforming into a beast or even engaging in bestiality are approved of and praised by the Hollywood mainstream. In a spiritual sense, this may be understood as a manifestation of the specter’s control in our world, as humankind has come to fetishize the demonic and the monstrous.
6. Television: Corruption in Every Household
Television has become a ubiquitous part of everyday life, and watching it frequently can change people’s worldviews without their noticing. Research conducted by the Media Research Center has found that the more people watch television, the less committed they are to the traditional values of honesty, reliability, and fairness, and the more lenient their attitudes are likely to be toward issues related to sexual morality, such as sex outside of marriage, abortion, and homosexuality. [46]The research compared two sets of people: light TV viewers who said they believed in God, and heavy TV viewers who said they believed in God. Although the percentages of the two sets who believed in God were almost the same (85 percent and 88 percent, respectively), the study found that the more one watched television, the less likely it was for the person to value religious principles. For example, when asked on a questionnaire to choose whether people should always live by God’s teachings and principles or should combine their personal set of morals and values with God’s teachings, those who watched more television tended to choose the latter. From figures like these, it can be generally concluded that television predisposes people to moral relativism.
Television has been an integral part of daily life since the 1950s. Not only do TV series and movies achieve a similar effect in molding people’s values, but talk shows, sitcoms, and documentaries also quietly inculcate their audiences with all sorts of distorted ideas.
Take talk shows, for example. Television studios are especially keen to invite guests whose opinions or behavior contradict traditional values or whose lives are fraught with conflict, or to invite “experts” to discuss some controversial issues of morality. The guests are encouraged to disclose the “deep” or “complex” problems in their personal lives. The host, experts, or even audience members then suggest solutions to the problems. To ensure the popularity of such programs, usually no moral judgment is made about the guests’ choices. In this way, many programs become a venue for displaying corrupt and distorted behaviors and perspectives. People have gradually come to believe that the values they used to uphold should not apply under some special circumstances. This perspective negates the existence of universal principles.
Many television programs are filled with despicable and distasteful content that is hard to watch. Some program hosts take pride in swearing profusely. Quite a number of programs indoctrinate people with vulgar taste and anti-culture or anti-tradition content via entertainment — while the audience is in a state of relaxation and thus more vulnerable to suggestion. As time passes, people do not feel alarmed at all and even come to accept and appreciate this material, thus eroding their moral thinking.
Modern medicine has discovered that human brains experience five different types of electrical patterns, or brain waves. The two that occur most often while one is in a state of wakeful consciousness are alpha and beta waves. When people are busy working, their dominant brain waves are beta waves. They exhibit an enhanced ability to analyze and tend to use logical thinking. A person having a debate would exhibit predominantly beta brainwaves. In other words, people in a state of beta-wave dominance are more alert and less gullible. When people are relaxed and alpha waves dominate — as is the case while one is watching television — their emotions take the lead and their analytical ability weakens. Under such circumstances, people tend to be subliminally persuaded by the themes and views represented in the program.
Television programs begin polluting people at very young ages. Research shows that close to two-thirds of programming, including children’s programs, contains scenes of violence. Further research shows that viewing such content desensitizes young people and increases their chances of committing violent acts later in life. Some children’s programs are loaded with hidden themes of progressivism and liberalism, such as teaching homosexuality under the name of “cultural diversity.” They use sayings like “there’s only one person in this whole world like you” to foster unearned self-esteem and the concept of welcoming all people regardless of their immoral behaviors.
Television and movies have had a very negative influence on youth, increasing the tendency for violence, underage sexual activity, and teen pregnancy. Young people list the media as the second-most important source for learning about sexual activity, after sex education classes. Two studies found that teenage girls who often watched programs containing depictions of sexual activity were twice as likely to be pregnant within three years compared to girls who more rarely watched such programs. Such media programs also increased the risk of sexual assault and engagement in dangerous behavior. [48] As one academic pointed out: “The media are so compelling and so filled with sex, it’s hard for any kid, even a critic, to resist. ... I think of the media as our true sex educators.” [49] Due to media influence, sex outside of marriage, adultery, and other behaviors are regarded as normal lifestyle choices; as long as all parties are willing, such behaviors are thought to be acceptable.
7. The Media: A Key Battleground in a Total War
The communist philosophy of struggle spares no means and respects no moral bottom line in achieving its political objectives. In the 2016 US presidential campaign, candidate Donald Trump opposed “political correctness” and supported measures to shift America away from the far left in order to return to traditional values and rule of law, renew the nation’s spiritual faith, cut taxes to revitalize the economy, secure the borders, and correct the skewed trade relationship with communist China. Trump’s outspokenness threw liberals into a frenzy. Armed with the mainstream media, they lashed out in a full-scale assault against him, abandoning virtually all pretense of balanced journalism.During the campaign, left-wing media used various methods to willfully demonize and denigrate Trump while ostracizing his supporters, who were described as racists, sexists, anti-immigrant xenophobes, and uneducated whites. That is, the media tried to influence the results of the election by manipulating public opinion. Almost 95 percent of the media repeatedly predicted that Trump would lose the election in a landslide. Against all expectations, Trump was elected.
Under normal circumstances, no matter how fierce the rhetoric on the campaign trail may be, the different parties and their supporters should return to normal operations after the election is over. More importantly, the media should uphold the principle of fairness, put national interests first, and maintain neutrality. However, after the 2016 presidential election in the United States, the media continued their campaign-trail frenzy, even at the risk of their public image. Most media outlets have deliberately ignored the achievements of the Trump administration, such as record-low unemployment rates, the stock market’s soar to record highs, American diplomatic successes, and the near-total eradication of the ISIS terrorist group.
In 2017, 90 percent of coverage on Trump was negative, according to a study by Newsbusters, the analytical arm of the Media Research Center. In the beginning of 2018, negative coverage reached 91 percent. Rich Noyes, a senior editor from Newsbusters, concluded, “Without question, no President has ever been on the receiving end of such hostile coverage, for such a sustained period of time, as has Trump.” Furthermore, the media is doing everything possible to undermine the Trump administration by making groundless accusations. For example, the media stirred up a conspiracy theory of collusion between Trump and Russia, with two prominent newspapers even winning the coveted Pulitzer Prize for such coverage. According to the study, the Russia-collusion investigation was the main focus of Trump-related evening news broadcasts by the three main US media networks over the previous two months, taking up nearly one-fourth of those networks’ Trump-related airtime. [52] However, a two-year special counsel investigation found no evidence to support the allegations. [53]
The media have been known to fabricate some news stories. In 2017, a TV news giant suspended a senior journalist for four weeks without pay and issued a correction of his work because he had created a fake report that Trump had ordered Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn to make contact with Russia when Trump was a presidential candidate. [54] The reporter and the producer who had worked with the journalist ended up leaving the TV station. This particular team had previously achieved outstanding success, winning four Peabody Awards and seventeen Emmy Awards.
When Trump condemned the violent MS-13 gang, especially those members who had committed brutal murders after entering the United States illegally, he said: “They’re not people. These are animals, and we have to be very, very tough.” However, media outlets immediately took his statement out of context, claiming that Trump said that illegal immigrants were animals.
In June 2018, a photo of a crying Honduran girl was widely circulated in the media and on the internet. This little girl and her mother were stopped by Border Patrol while trying to sneak into the United States. The media claimed that the girl was forcibly separated from her mother and used this opportunity to criticize Trump’s border policies and zero-tolerance stance toward illegal immigration. Later, Time combined the photo of the little girl with a photo of Trump on the magazine cover, adding the caption “Welcome to America” to ridicule Trump. However, the girl’s father later told the media that border officials had not separated her from her mother and that her mother had taken her against his wishes. [55]
Fortunately, the American public is becoming more aware of fake news. From a poll conducted by Monmouth University in March 2018, the percentage of Americans who thought that the major media outlets were reporting fake news at least occasionally had increased from 63 percent in the previous year to 77 percent. [56] In 2016, a Gallup poll found that Americans’ trust in the media had sunk to a new low, with only 32 percent of people having “a great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust in the media, down 8 percentage points from the previous year. [57] Unsurprisingly, the owner of a large media company lamented that “fake news is the cancer of our times.” [58]
Judging from the results of the US election, half of Americans support Trump, but the attitude taken by the media is one-sided. Under these abnormal circumstances, Trump is attacked and demonized because he adopts a conservative political stance and supports traditional American values, ideals that cannot coexist with the anti-traditional ideology of the Left. If the media’s attacks on Trump are able to cause the public to lose their confidence in him, the attacks will achieve their underlying objective: to prevent society from returning to tradition.
8. Restoring the Integrity of the ‘Fourth Branch’
Because of the role it plays in shaping and guiding public opinion, the media is often referred to as the “fourth branch” alongside the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government. Under the communist specter’s influence, the media has been used effectively to sway and deceive billions of people, corrupting their traditions and morality.In Western countries, many liberal media establishments have become tools for concealing the truth and deceiving people. Many have forsaken basic professional ethics and now resort to all sorts of unscrupulous attacks, abuse, and slander, regardless of the impact on their reputation or on society.
Communism has been successful because it exploits human failings: the pursuit of fame and gain, ignorance, laziness, selfishness, misapplied sympathy, competitiveness, and the like. Some journalists self-righteously rebel against traditional values under a facade of knowing the truth. Some conform to the already morally debased “public demand” in order to get views. Some conform to the lowered standards for the sake of their careers. Some fabricate fake news out of jealousy and hostility. Some believe fake news out of ignorance and laziness. Some exploit the kindness and sympathy of others in advocating social justice and thus tilt the entire society toward the Left, resorting to unscrupulous tactics to achieve their political and economic goals.
The mission of the media is a lofty one. They are meant to be the lifeline by which people obtain their information about public events, and they are also an important force in maintaining the healthy development of society. Objectivity and impartiality are the basic ethical requirements of the media and are key to the trust people place in it. But in the media today, chaos reigns, severely affecting the confidence people have in it. Reclaiming the mission of the media and re-establishing the glory of the news profession is the noble responsibility of people employed in this field.
Restoring the media’s mission means that the media need to pursue truth. The media’s coverage of the truth must be comprehensive and come from a place of sincerity. When reporting social phenomena, many media outlets present only part of reality, in ways that are often misleading and can do more harm than outright lies.
The media will be good if they can help society value and uphold morality, for good and evil are both present in human society. It is the responsibility of the media to spread truth, to extol virtue, and to expose and restrain evil.
In returning to this mission, the media must pay more attention to the major events that affect the future of humankind. The last century has seen many battles between the free world and communism. While it appears to be an ideological confrontation, it is, in fact, a life-and-death struggle between righteousness and evil, for communism is ruining the morals that hold civilization together. Even after the collapse of the communist regimes in Eastern Europe, the specter of communism persists.
As the world undergoes great changes, truth and traditional values are more important than ever. The world needs media that can distinguish between right and wrong, do good deeds, and maintain public morality. Transcending the interests of individuals, companies, and political parties to present the real world to the people is the duty of every media professional.
Today, when facing the moral decline in the media profession, it is imperative that readers and audiences make a conscious distinction between right and wrong, and scrutinize rationally the information produced by the media. People must judge issues in line with the moral tradition, regard social phenomena through the lens of universal values, and, in doing so, push the media to fulfill their historic mission. This is also the key for humankind to stave off the influence of the communist specter and find the path to a better future.
References
1. Thomas Jefferson, The Works, vol. 5 (Correspondence 1786–1789), as quoted in Online Library of Liberty, accessed on April 24, 2020, http://oll.libertyfund.org/quote/302.14. Ibid., 105.
19. Ibid., 111–122.
24. Ibid., 161–223.
25. Ibid., 55–85.
39. Ibid., 338.
40. Ibid., 338–39.
41. Ibid., 352.
