THE NIGHTLY NEWS – WHAT IT REALLY IS

by Dr. Lawrence Wilson

The contention of this article is that what is called “The News” on television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and on the internet, blogs, Facebook and elsewhere is really a mixture of various kinds of information. Unless you are aware of this, you will become confused, angry, discouraged and you may “tune out” completely, which is not good if you want to be a good Citizen, or if you just wish to succeed in life.

WHY ALL NEWS STORIES ARE NOT THE TRUTH

The reasons include: 1) simple ignorance, 2) sloppy or superficial reporting, 3) editing by the newsroom of stories that may be dull, too controversial, insulting to some people, or not exciting or sexy enough. Other reasons, however, include hiding of the truth by reporters, by the owners and editors of the news outlet, perhaps by advertisers, or even censorship by the government.

TYPES OF NEWS STORIES YOU WILL ENCOUNTER

Based on the above, here are the types of “News” that are all around us. Some you will recognize, and some are so well done they are purposefully made very hard to identify.

1. Truthful reporting of events. Human interest stories, for example, which do not require much technical knowledge, can be done well, and often are. They might be about how a dog saved a child’s life, or stories about car accidents, marriages, divorces, some scandals, and so on.

2. Mistaken reporting of events, but with good intentions. This happens a lot, in my experience, especially in areas such as nutrition, healing, energy, and also in politics, economics and other areas. The news anchors and the news editors and even the board of directors of the news outlets are simply not well enough informed on their subject matter, or perhaps don’t care to dig deeply enough.

The area I notice this the most is health care. The picture given to people around the world is that disease is a necessary evil, health care must be costly and government-controlled, that drugs and surgery are the answer, that nutrition is nice but not too important, and that nutritional supplements are questionable, at best, and maybe a waste of money.

This “picture” is so far from the truth it is pathetic. However, the medical profession has done a wonderful job of brainwashing the entire population, including the media outlets, so this is the standard understanding and it is what appears on the nightly news.

Another area of ignorance is energy. Very few talk about the use of water as a fuel, for example. It is just not discussed, as it should be, due to ignorance, but perhaps also due to other agendas by some powerful people who do not want the public to know the truth that we don’t need to burn nearly so much oil and gas, and there is no environmental crisis if we used water as a fuel.

Now we move on to purposeful slanting or spinning of the truth to influence people mentally and in other ways.

3. Half-truth reporting. It is tempting for any news outlet to bend the truth a little here and there to push various agendas or points of view that the owners, editors or even the news anchors hold. This goes on all the time, and is even humorous, at times.

Recent issues in which one sees this are the marijuana issue, the homosexual marriage issue, and others. The public is not told the “downside” of these issues in most cases, today. It is one-sided reporting. I notice this on stations such as NPR or National Public Radio. They report the truth, but it is with a particular slant or spin – and done very smoothly.

4. Truthful reporting, but purposeful omission of some news stories and events in order to form a particular “picture” or perspective on what is happening in society. Another way the news is skewed or spun is to focus on some stories and simply omit the stories that do not support the perspective or view of the owners and editors of the news outlet. This also goes on all the time. The only way to learn about this is to watch a number of different types of TV channels, for example, or different types of websites – religious, mainstream, and others.

5. Outright lies and propaganda. This is also quite common. Once again, the medical reporting is often of this nature. For example, about once every week or two, the news will announce a “breakthrough” with some disease, or a new drug or operation. However, few of these pan out. In fact, the health of the people is getting much worse. Autism is increasing, as is the rate of cancer and other diseases. The cost keeps rising, the life spans are not increasing as they did for years, and so on. But the propaganda machine has to keep lying to the people about ‘medical progress’ to keep up the façade of progress, and they are extremely good at it.

Another recent area I have noticed this is the reporting on the Russian invasion of the Ukraine. Instead of calling it an invasion – identical to what Adolf Hitler did some 80 years ago - much softer words are used. Also, few talk about a military response, even though America is much stronger than Russia in this area and could easily mount a military response. Clearly, someone is putting out ‘talking points’ that the media pick up and repeat.

6. Trial balloons. These are basically fake news stories that governments and, at-times, industries “float” just to see how people will react. They are sort of a method of test marketing that is called ‘news’ so people will pay more attention to them. Various elites test ways to frighten people, excite people, lull people to sleep, and so on by putting out stories or spinning stories in various ways and then noting how they are received.

HOW DOES ONE DIFFERENTIATE THE TRUTH FROM THE IGNORANCE AND THE LIES?

This is not easy. The way I do it is to learn as much as I can, check my knowledge carefully and frequently, and then I write about it. Then I listen to feedback from readers of this website. If I find out I have been mistaken, I change the articles on this website. It is daunting, but I don’t know any other way to do it.

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