Media Guide, Part 2: Narrative Uber Alles
'Different Accounts and Points of View Must NOT Be Explained or Advertised'
We’re running a very long and indescribably tedious experiment to see if media messaging can defeat direct life experience. Place your bets.
Takeaway: Legacy Media is committed to simplified and moralistic narratives. Conflicting facts and different points of views must always be silenced.
I read a very good (brief) piece today by
about media messaging around the COVID outbreak several years ago, and the current political climate in Red states. His claim was that the media created and stoked a great deal of COVID hysteria several years ago (causing complete emotional breakdowns among the prone and cases of public hysteria, far beyond any warranted caution). They’re doing the same now by crafting a message about the political climate in Florida, and Texas.In my last ‘Media Guide’ installment (Media Guide, Part 1: The Invisible Consensus) I wrote that ‘most people’s values are roughly equivalent’. The takeaway from that essay was:
The media divides the public and uses distraction and personal insinuation to create doubt and confusion about issues which MOST people would otherwise agree on: “this doesn’t happen”'; “this isn’t a big deal”; “people who care about this are bad people (or bad people-adjacent)”; “the experts aren’t sure about this thing, and so you shouldn’t be either”; etc.
Almost everyone wants lower crime. Almost everyone is against unfair hiring or selection on the basis of sex or race or identity (exceptions made for ‘affirmative action’ which are usually defended as restorative measures). Almost everyone wants a large housing stock and good schools.
The people who are against these things are almost never on the Right. They are, in my experience, Leftists who want to reverse economic growth for ecological reasons (an unacknowledged new religion) or they believe that racism is so bad and so pervasive that a kind of retributive and administrative racism should be levied against groups which are more collectively successful or they believe that policing should be radically overhauled. These people are not evil or disingenuous. They literally believe that (to take one example) a society with many fewer police will be a healthier and happier society (eventually, anyway) but their views are deeply unpopular with the mainstream and so progressives are caught on a razor’s edge: they want to placate and use the extremists and their energy, while reassuring average people that these ideas don’t exist or, if they do, are marginal and unimportant. There are several ways to go about this. The first and most obvious is simply to refuse to report on the radicals and their activities and, when reporting becomes unavoidable, to minimize their influence on events.
recently spoke about the push to strictly differentiate Antifa from BLM in 2020… even though, to her eyes, they were undifferentiated and cooperating movements:“How Antifa was dealt with in the mainstream press was basically two ways: Pretend it’s not real, which was sort of the main way it was handled (“it’s just a tiny movement, it doesn’t have any role”), or you pretend it’s just very good. You had mainstream reporters at the time saying the soldiers who fought in World War II were Antifa, that we are an Antifa kind of country, and this kind of attempt to make this group of activists into like American civic heroes. And the third thing that was always very important in the press was that, if Antifa was ever discussed, to say that it’s totally separate from BLM and that it’s a very different movement, and that to imply that they’re in any way entwined is like really, really crazy… And the reality was, there was only one protest each night. It was a united group. It was one movement. It was completely entwined for a time. There’d be a supposed BLM protest one night and no one would be there. And all of those leaders were actually at the sort of autonomous action event that was more aggressive and more violent. And Antifa sees violence as a righteous part of the revolution they want. And so they’re openly pro-violence, pro-using guns, pro-using sort of physical intimidation, pro-lighting things on fire. So that was obviously why BLM wanted to distance themselves from it, but they were very useful because actually lighting the fires and using a little bit of a frisson of threat was very useful in escalating the intensity of the moment, the intensity of the revolution. And eventually what you saw, and what I write about in the book is Antifa kind of getting sidelined a little bit as more and more corporate money comes into BLM. But at the start, in that first hot year, it was an entwined movement. Now the memory-holing and the denial is fascinating because I think we’re going to see it on a ton of these things that we’ve just been talking about. I think we’re gonna definitely see it on pediatric gender medicine, which I write about in the book. But the people denying that they were ever for hormones for kids under 18 is going to be just like the norm. And the memory-holing, you’re already seeing it.”
So minimizing is first: if trans people attack counter-protesters or feminists it probably won’t be reported on, at least not prominently. If women are attacked in prison by trans-identified men that they’re housed with it definitely won’t be reported on, even if it becomes a growing problem. Of course the people in legacy media care about feminists and female prisoners… but they care much more about ‘the message’.
regularly reports on incidents of protest violence or intersexual prison attacks or crimes by trans people which have been permitted or encouraged due to cultural shifts and policy changes on the trans issue. This is a brief account of several such prison assaults. None of these will ever be reported in the mainstream media. Most cases of incidents by trans-identified men incorrectly state that ‘women’ are suspects. I’ve literally NEVER read a gender critical person interviewed about these issues, even though their attitudes are shared by a large majority of citizens. The narrative must be protected.
There is another strategy which must be pursued simultaneously and with equal zeal: emphasizing elements on ‘the Right’ which are supposedly dangerous or alarming. It’s truly amazing how these threats can be spun up from almost nothing. Two examples which I will use here are the phenomenon of parents advocating for content controls on school materials being conflated with ‘anti-LGBTQ’ activism and the threat of racist violence in the US committed by white people and (especially) by police.
I will not dive deeply into either of these issues. Rather, I will simply state the reality as I perceive it: there is a growing number of parents troubled by explicit and ideological materials in K-12 classrooms and libraries. They have shown up at schoolboard meetings and organized and even formed non-profits and activist coalitions (even activist coalitions composed of gay and trans people. NOTE: if you google’ Gays Against Groomers’ the top 5-6 results mostly articles and organizations OPPOSED to the group). These parents and activists are directly opposing a fringe element of the Left, which is Queer Theory-the idea that all people are innately sexual and that all norms and standards and boundaries and concepts are inherently oppressive and must be dissolved. These believers aren’t usually malevolent-they really believe that educating young kids about sex and gender identity and masturbation is the best path to a better society (eventually, anyway). Nevertheless, such people exist and many of them teach in schools. Their attitudes and goals are FAR outside the US mainstream. To distract from this growing conflict and to muddy the waters (and refuse to grapple with the ideas of Queer Theory, which are inordinately popular among early childhood educators and teachers’ colleges) the media has conflated the parents’ activism with ‘anti-LGBTQ’ sentiment. The narrative is ‘these people are not upset about explicit materials in schools… they’re upset about tolerance and acceptance of gay people’. There’s an element of sincere belief here (probably) but only in the sense that many progressives truly believe that conservatives are motivated by some rarely-confirmed, inchoate bigotry. There’s also an element of gross exaggeration and distortion. I’m curious how frank they are behind the scenes (probably somewhat, since people who believe themselves to be in the right often assume license to be coercive or dishonest or unkind) but it’s clear that this is, in some sense, a collective effort: minimize the concerns about explicit and potentially harmful content in schools by diverting attention toward alleged homophobia and transphobia.
Protest signs can hardly be covered up or altered (although sometimes they are)… but none of these people, nor anyone who agrees with them, will ever be interviewed by the hundreds of journalists who write articles about this controversy. It’s much easier to paint a group of people as bigots if they cannot respond.
As for example issue #2: there is certainly racism in the U.S. Racist violence by white people is (relatively) rare and most states have special punitive laws (hate crime legislation and others) to address such incidents, but they certainly do occur. They’re much rarer among police, however. Out of the tens of millions of annual police-civilian interactions there are around 12 deaths of unarmed black suspects at the hands of police. (Note: ‘unarmed’ in this case includes people fighting police, striking them, trying to take their guns, pretending they have weapons, striking police with vehicles, etc. Unarmed doesn’t mean unwarranted). This is a rather low number (certainly MUCH less than almost anyone on the Left believes) and so it is always omitted from articles. So is the sociological fact that, during police interactions, black citizens are slightly less likely to be killed by police than white citizens. Black people are more than 3x more likely to be killed by police than white ones (ceteris parabus) but that’s because there are many more police interactions with black people. Most black people support the police and want more police and in cases where cities have disbanded units to promote ‘equity’ (a lower relative arrest rate for black suspects) crime has accordingly risen, often drastically. Black police officers are significantly more likely to kill black suspects than white ones. In short, there is little sociological data to support the claim that racism is causing significant deaths of black Americans.
[ABOVE] An excellent analysis of one egregious (but not atypical) media piece concerning racist violence in the U.S.
These are awkward and inconvenient facts, and so they are never mentioned or addressed, as is the fact that more than 4/5 interracial crimes are committed by black suspects. The narrative is that white racism (including racism within police departments) is frequently causing the death of black Americans, and there are isolated but sensational incidents, often caught on video, that can be used to bolster the claim.
Most ‘Very Liberal’ respondents believed that +1000 unarmed black Americans are annually killed by police. In fact the number is around 12.
Both of these issues command far more intellectual energy and occasion more distortion and manipulation than issues like trade deals or housing policy. These are ‘culture war’ issues and so they are especially important to the Left. These kinds of conflicts shape the linchpin of control which passes through laws, agencies, colleges, corporations, and activist groups. The struggle against ‘bigotry’ (really the struggle against traditional standards and norms, which is in many ways a struggle against the attitudes of the mainstream) is the adhesive element which binds the ideology together and keeps the peripheral participants corralled and onside.
Ultimately neither of these issues (for believers) is really about policy. They are moral battles which allow believers to characterize their enemies as bad and reassure themselves that they are right and righteous. It is questions like these which provoke moral righteousness and shut down critical thinking, and cross-party communication.
But the media is charged with reporting on these issues, and letting their readers and viewers decide. Why do they never actually report the quotes or claims or responses of their ideological opponents?
I’ve read hundreds of articles (at this point) about the controversy about sexually offensive (or developmentally confusing) and adult material in schools. Most characterize one side of the controversy as ‘anti-LGTBQ’. I don’t think I’ve ever read a quote or a response from one of these concerned parents. Why? Their claims cannot be expressed or promoted, even if this means committing journalistic ethical breaches en masse. In order to create a fictional characterization of a movement or an individual it is usually necessary that they are silenced. If they are able to plead their case they are likely to win sympathy and support and that is unacceptable. In (rare) cases where the leaders of these parent groups are able to speak directly to the public (below) the Left comes out looking very bad. It’s rare that they make this mistake, however. The implicit guideline seems to be: smear, imply, defame, suppress. One side of the argument is never quoted and their claims remain unreported. This is not journalism as most people understand it.
[ABOVE] “In (rare) cases where the leaders of these parent groups are able to speak directly to the public (below) the Left comes out looking very bad.”
Similarly, the issue of race and policing: why not interview some black police officers? I wondered this as soon as the controversy inflamed, in 2020. I know of several people (friends of friends, mostly) who have been shot by police-two in questionable circumstances. I think police need reform: they need better training and higher pay and more selective hiring criteria and much better mental health support. Yet I always knew the statistics on civilian deaths and injuries at the hands of police. These figures were covered in an economics class in college, which provoked intense personal interest. Even in 2016 the narrative was potent… these days it’s positively toxic. Why, I wondered, didn’t the media interview black police officers and get their impressions of the issue? They cannot credibly be accused of white racism (by definition) and these officers are sure to have nuanced and interesting views on the issue. They aren’t bigots and they have decades of experience and intimate familiarity with the reality. The reason, I believe, is that they would state sensible and informed positions. This simply cannot be allowed to happen.
Narrative Uber Alles… the battle cry of legacy media. If the narrative is countered or contradicted, those inconvenient facts or opinions or believers must be wrapped in confusion and buried in obscurity. Suppress suppress suppress! The important issues, in the eyes of the legacy media, are clear and simple and morally urgent and anything which suggests otherwise is simply wrong, epistemologically and ethically. Untruths must be maintained and truths hidden… in service of the good and the true.
Journalism is printing something that someone does not want printed. Everything else is public relations.
-George Orwell
Again, well argued.