How have mainstream media (MSM) harmed our society?

I intended to focus on the question at CPAC 2022 in Florida and started addressing it to people there.  No one seemed interested in answering.  Some looked at me as if they wanted to say, "Duh."  

However, my thought was that answering the question would be like tapping on a rock you think is a diamond; once you started, many facets (answers) would appear.  That did happen, but mostly through speakers on stage.  Here is some of what they have said so far.

We know that the MSM promotes cancel culture with social media.  Kaelen Dorr of GETTR said cancel culture is something that exists primarily on the internet, but it doesn't exist only on the Internet.  "At the end of the day, it's not complicated ... when you feel alone, the left wins."

Dorr added that leftists think so little of conservatives that they'll cancel people out in the open.  They'll cancel your mother; they'll cancel anyone.  He said gaslighting, making people believe that what they're seeing is not happening, is their entire policy.  Again, it's about making people feel alone.  Dorr continued, "Think about how life would have been so different if they [MSM and SM] hadn't hidden the truth from us."

We know that the MSM inhibit the flow of information in America.  Author Julie Kelly talked about an example of media keeping the truth from Americans: media knew who the officer was that shot Ashli Babbitt on January 6 in the U.S. Capitol and covered it up.

She talked about how the Biden administration is persecuting other people who were associated with the riot even to this day.  "Media helps out the regime by smearing these people and ruining their lives."

Senator John Kennedy (R-La.), while laying out many things he believes, said, "I believe that cancel culture, the military wing of wokeism, is strangling free people."

Kelly Tshibaka put her finger on another consequence of mainstream media and social media control: "The radical progressives want to wipe out diversity of thought."

Vivek Ramiswamy, businessman and author of Woke, Inc., said he stepped down from his biotech company to work on another matter: the secular religion that tells you the color of your skin dictates what ideas and thoughts you are allowed to have.  This is a narrative that the left has been pushing in the mainstream media and on social media, and it has created fear in the American public.

What about the MSM pushing narratives instead of reporting facts?  Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said, "Inference can create a narrative.  That used to be what we called framing someone."

Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said we find ourselves in an existential moment for our country; the threats have never been greater.  One would think that includes mainstream media and social media control.
"Fight power.  Fight big, fight centralization of power, break it up into a million little pieces.  Decentralize."

He advised that Americans break up the means of controlling the citizenry.  "Respond with joy.  Laugh at them.  Speak out; use your voice."

Pat Rick is now executive producer with Project Veritas.  He had worked at CNN for 25 years, as he said, investing blood, sweat, and tears.  He connected with James O'Keefe as he was walking away from journalism.  It sounded as though he was walking away disillusioned.

At Project Veritas, Rick said, he has a seat at the table with others and can talk about real journalism.  "It's time for us to get back to the basics of journalism."

"We can do better as journalists, the entire lot of us. ... Our country needs that right now.  Be brave.  Do something.  I did."

C.S. Boddie writes at Meadowlark Press, LLC.

Image via Pixabay.