The Impartial U.S. Media?
by Jorge Vargas
I must have been fourteen when this happened. I was sitting in a U.S. classroom and there was the U.S. flag in one corner and the teacher was telling us about how great voting is and how everyone should vote because the U.S. is a democracy and because the U.S. democracy is strong because there are so many elections in the U.S.
I was amused. To think that they would use business training techniques and apply them to electoral processes was downright amusing. As if one needs practice in walking into a booth and checking off someone's name. Though, it is true that the United States has one of the most confusing electoral policies in the world and, upon analysis, one of the least democratic - how is it that small, backwater regions such as Iowa and New Hampshire can hold so much sway?
This is usually what amuses me during U.S. elections, but today I am amused an even greater hypocrisy and it is not the hypocrisy of governments or of school-teachers who teach what they know not.
It is the hypocrisy of a media machine that claims to be impartial. They claim to bring the news as it happens. No added spin. No added opinion.
Of course, I have long-since pointed out that impartiality is impossible, which is why I never attempted to achieve it. It's a fool's errand and I'm no fool. It's also a hypocrite's errand. I'm not a hypocrite either - I have developed, by now, the aura of telling it like it is without regard for circumstance or title.
The U.S. media - liberal and conservative, if you must cling to your divisions - claims to be impartial. The U.S. media is also sponsored by several companies and has political alliances. Fox News, owned by Rupert Murdoch, is a blatantly conservative news outlet that specializes in libel and in the fabrication and manipulation of facts. MSNBC, by contrast, does precisely the same thing but supports the liberal factions of the United States.
Now, Rupert Murdoch is doing nothing wrong by forcing his news outlets to support the candidates of his choice. If you run your own organization, it's only natural to make it support what you believe in. Not all of us who own and run organizations are that base, of course, but it can't be helped that the majority will be.
The wrong comes in the hypocrisy. That news outlet, along with nearly every single major U.S. media organization, purports to cover the news impartially.
To the ignorant viewer - or to the patriotic U.S. citizen - this only just became apparent during the 2008 presidential elections that have pitted an old man without a single original thought in his body against a man who somehow manages to be thought eloquent (I still don't see or hear his eloquence) and who has the taint of populist scrawled all over his person in what represents a menace thus far unleashed. Young, successful politicians all strive to change the world and everyone in it. Mr. Obama is no exception. Neither was Alexander the Great. Nor another young, successful politician who rose to power in the bars of Bavaria - that politician actually was eloquent if you ever take the time to view and listen to his speeches.
But I am digressing. I was discussing the ignorant viewers - and the patriotic U.S. citizens - and their inability to notice the bias of the U.S. media.
The hypocrisy became aware in 2002 and 2003 when the media shamelessly reported on the case that the U.S. government was making against Iraq. Today, of course, the U.S. media claims to have been deceived by the U.S. government. But how come no one else was? The British government wanted to go into Iraq as well, but their populace and their media was never convinced. Are you going to tell me that the U.S. government (which has only been overthrowing foreign governments and pretending to be a global saviour for a century) is better at lying than the British government (which has been conquering lands and overthrowing governments and societies since the mid-1600s while claiming to be doing a great service for humanity)?
Not to hurt the pride of the U.S. but it is nearly scientifically impossible to be more hypocritical than the Europeans. No one lies better than the European governments - just look at the French and their love for humanity and cosmopolitanism which they so eloquently speak of in that romantic language of theirs while with their hands they command French soldiers to defend and support those committing genocide in 1994 Rwanda. To say nothing of the environment-saving French government that once blew up a Greenpeace ship.
So, you can not say that the media was bested by the U.S. government. You can try to say that is was co-opted, but then the freedom of the press hypocrisy goes out the window and stands revealed for the world to see.
What else?
You are assuming that the press could not have been lied to so effectively. You are also assuming that the press had free will.
Therefore, you are assuming that they knew - or, at least, would have been able to know had they actually tried - the truth and freely chose to lie - or else to not investigate further - about the issue of Iraq's presumed weapons of mass destruction.
Yes, that makes sense.
The world knew this from as early on as 2003, and many regions knew about it long before then.
So why write about it today, on 4 November 2008?
Because today marks the conclusion of a media campaign that dwarfed the efficiency, effectiveness, and partisanship of the two political campaigns spear-headed by an angry old man and a young politician with something to prove (and before you romanticize him: Having something to prove is almost always a bad thing).
Today marks the culmination of an epoch in U.S. media history where the U.S.media completely abandoned even the appearance of impartiality while still claiming independence.
Today marks the day in which I lost every single bit of confidence in the U.S. media - though I had little to begin with - and I will begin to look toward Europe and Latin America for examples of what an independent media should really be.
Today is also the day in which U.S. citizens will cast a vote for a candidate which they believe will bring change to a country broken by 8 years of arrogance which were then followed by 8 years of stupidity. And one of the candidates is arrogant, whereas the other is stupid. But let's not let the U.S. in on the fact that nothing will change. A government so far gone from humility and from liberalism is too far gone to come back. It left the port years ago and, following the wrath of dozens of storms at sea, it has lost itself and knows not how to return.
All the same, today is a day for the United States to decide its next leader after having been told by biased media machines who they should vote for, since too few have actually done valid research and since the candidates have lied too often and the media has done little to nothing to correct the lies. You really can't blame the voters for not knowing who or what they're selecting today, given those circumstances.
In the meantime, for the rest of the world, today is the day for responsible people everywhere to take note of the power of the media and to draft laws that will force media agencies to either accept full independence or to have a stance on political issues without resorting to the aforementioned hypocrisies and manipulations.
Tomorrow, the world will know who the next U.S. president will be (we hope) and the citizens of the U.S. will have gotten more practice in the physically confusing act of voting - maybe the world should invest in giving them practice on the art of making decisions. Then they'd really have a democracy to brag about.
To the U.S. press: Your hypocrisy is known.
To the United States voters: May you have the blessings of the Eternal Father today as you make your decision. For your sake, let us hope that it is an enlightened one.
