News organisations are propaganda machines forcing their audiences to take sides. How far will society stretch before it tears itself apart?

It must be clear that the vast majority of people are not at all affected by any single air raid and would hardly sustain any evil impression if it were not thrust before them. Everyone should learn to take air raids and air-raid alarms as if they were no more than thunderstorms. – Winston Churchill

“It’s vogue to begin chapters with quotes, it provides the illusion that you are well-read.” – John Ewbank

A melancholic tune resonates from a piano as children wander through a desolate wasteland. “These children are the cost of war. Separated from their parents, they are destitute and distraught.” A narrator informs us of innocent people slaughtered, of survivors trudging through society’s wreckage, and of death. His voice intertwines with emotive music, setting the scene for the evening news. The cuts and edits of 4K cameras present a piece short on facts but heavy on feelings.

The failed uprising, supported by Western media, thrust these people into destitution, yet it is not mentioned. Weakening the ruling regime created a power vacuum that was filled by savagery, but this is also omitted. Before the war, this country was a pleasant place to live; yet, Western propaganda tarnished its reputation and, with an Orwellian twist, portrayed the population as subservient to a tyrannical leader. Before the war, these people had their homes, families, and health – they had their lives.

The news presents a snapshot, a fleeting moment in time stripped of context. These snapshots are not shared for our betterment or without bias; they are captured and delivered to hold our attention. We might think that the creators of these snapshots – the media – are impartial beings who disseminate information for humanity’s good, but that would be delusional. Mass media are businesses – profit-seeking enterprises – which exist not for the altruistic purpose of improving humanity, but to make money. While investigative journalists occasionally do societal good, their work has become obscured in a fog of nonsense and ephemeral fiction that now saturates the airwaves.

The media’s impact is far more insidious than we can possibly imagine. Everyday complex events are simplified into digestible stories. People and companies are turned into pantomime villains. The truth is replaced with a grotesque distortion of it. The media make us believe we are knowledgeable without facts. They encourage people to form staunch beliefs based on fleeting emotions. Ironically and unsurprisingly, they have convinced themselves of their own omniscience. They believe what they write without question, merging truth and fiction to create absurd narratives where facts cease to exist. Yet they are unaccountable, distorting the narrative to vilify those who challenge them and vindicate themselves. They demand press freedom while destroying lives for profit.

Every day, states, companies, countries, and individuals are caricatured for a story. Fleeting global events are dwelt upon and debated ad infinitum, as if focusing on them somehow magnifies their importance. Lives are destroyed and reputations tarnished for minor errors, while those lacking virtue are exalted for a single good deed. Society’s paroxysms, induced by the media, ebb and flow, while enduring problems are forgotten. The outrage that accompanies minor social transgressions clouds our minds, preventing us from addressing the critical issues facing the world. A haze of nonsense invades our consciousness, distorting our thoughts and resulting in a world of perpetual anxiety that encourages us to prejudge situations with incomplete information, benefitting no one.

It is easy to blame corporations, just as we blame governments, but we are responsible too. We disproportionately engage with emotive, fact-free stories over detailed analysis. As a result, the media has been forced to simplify their work and produce more sensational content to maintain their readership. These new ‘clickbait’ stories focus less on news and more on human suffering, with journalists emphasising the emotional toll to demonstrate harm. Consequently, we are inundated with opinion pieces in which people discuss their hardships and how they have been wronged. However, it is rarely conveyed that these negative experiences are individual interpretations of events and may not reflect the views of other parties involved.

To exacerbate the issue, each person complaining about their situation likely exaggerates it to the reporters, further distorting the story. Reporters then select specific quotes and highlight certain information to make the problem appear insurmountable. This dramatisation of existence leads those watching or reading the story to feel more outrage and pain than those who have actually been wronged. These emotions are not sparked by something real but by mere words and images. This global gossip generates only anxiety and pain. Engaging with such stories does not improve our lives, yet we cannot seem to look away.

The media’s penchant for provoking emotions has reached such an extent that calm and reasoned opinions are now seldom sought. Debates are populated by individuals convinced of their own wisdom, never having ventured beyond the echo chamber of their thoughts. Media organisations seek their intransigent ideas to create ‘balance’, as if it is crucial to interview people with diametrically opposed views rather than those who represent the general populace, who sit somewhere between these extremes. While these debates may be entertaining in a twisted way, they inflict lasting damage on society. Supporters of each cause tune in, believing their side to have won, vehemently disagreeing with opposing views and fostering the belief that everyone with different political, social, or economic inclinations is immoral or unintelligent. These debates generate artificial conflict with the sole purpose of inciting strong emotions, thereby thrusting those with the most extreme and reactionary views into the limelight simply because they provoke debate.

The anxiety and turmoil induced by the media are consequences of misunderstanding the complexity – or simplicity – of the human mind. We humans believe ourselves to possess unparalleled intelligence, but our minds rest on a plateau of assumptions. This plain extends beyond our vision in all directions, making us incapable of discerning which of our thoughts are grounded in fact and which are speculations buoyed by intense emotion. The distinction between the two is not obvious. After all, we assume that if we feel strongly about something, we must know about it. However, strong emotions do not necessarily have tangible foundations.

Consider sentimental value. We attach more worth to objects with history than to equivalent items without. A work of art, a silver cup, or a quilt – we value each more if they belonged to our ancestors rather than being purchased from a shop. Why does a silver cup from your granddad hold more value than an identical one from an antique shop? Why does an original painting have more value than an indistinguishable copy, and why does a first edition book cost more than a later print? The arrangement of atoms in all examples is indistinguishable to human senses, yet originals always cost more than replicas. It is not the physical presence of an object that creates its worth, but the story it carries and the emotions it evokes. Rationally speaking, this is absurd. Can you justify why a poorly executed painting by a renowned artist is worth more than a brilliant piece by an unknown creator?

Clearly, we attach sentimental value to physical objects, but now you must ask yourself: “Do I value my opinions sentimentally?” Are you clinging to beliefs solely because they are your own? Unfortunately, you cannot answer that question. The mind lacks a logic error-checking system; instead, it has a bias towards information that supports existing beliefs. You seek out people with similar viewpoints not because they are correct, but because you have evolved to do so. We release endorphins when talking to people who agree with us, making us feel good about our opinions, even if they might be wrong. The issue lies not only in how we value our opinions but also in how they are formed with incomplete information. Two people can interpret the same article differently because their minds filter out what they deem relevant. But those beliefs do not have to be based on anything factual. This mechanism is evident when comparing how two people interpret the same book.

When reading a novel, the brain generates imagery and emotions to produce a coherent reality from the letters on a page. Since our brains are all different, so too are our takeaways from books. This is evident in films adapted from novels. If we have read the book before seeing the film adaptation, we often find the director’s interpretation of the story vastly different from our own. In some cases, the film may bear little resemblance to our interpretation of the book. This is intriguing, as we received the same information, but the output of our minds is irreconcilable. It does not take much effort to realise how this relates to the media. It becomes clear that all news stories and articles are akin to films adapted from books. The plot and characters have been created by a director who has witnessed and conveyed events through their mind. It is like someone attending a party and then telling you about it. A layer of distortion is created, and information is lost. You form an opinion on what the party was like based on their perspective, but other people may have had vastly different experiences. From their version of events, we add another layer of distortion as we fill in the gaps of their story. They tell us there was an argument between a couple, but now we create this argument and its severity in our minds. However, we do not really know anything about it, other than that it likely occurred. Who knows, the couple might have been having a fake argument for their own amusement.

All news organisations, being run by people, create this distortion of reality. The individuals at these corporations deliberately and inadvertently filter out ideas incompatible with how they wish to convey events. Deliberately, because they need to maintain the editorial stance of the company; inadvertently, because often the people working at the company lack enough information to fully understand what they are writing about. Consequently, articles are often fundamentally incorrect. But the reader is unaware of this unless they are already familiar with the subject.

The internet exacerbates this issue. It is a platform where gullible individuals can share the absurdity of their thoughts. On the internet, quality writing, integrity, or intelligence is not required. All that is needed is a willing audience – a group of people who empathise or can be manipulated into empathising with your viewpoint. This may sound disingenuous, but a quick glance at Google News supports this reasoning. Minor events attract hundreds of articles, all providing similar information but each written to appease a specific audience. Thus, every publication subtly manipulates the narrative. This is not the exclusive domain of online publications, but they are the most blatant in their methods of distortion, adding editorial opinion when none should be offered or selectively cropping quotes to convey a particular message. However, the people reading their preferred publication are not aware of this; they have no interest in receiving a balanced view. They merely seek the reassuring feeling that their opinions are correct.

You might think to yourself, “What nonsense! My memories and opinions are rational. I have carefully constructed reasons for my beliefs.” However, you must appreciate that you have been genetically programmed to think that way; constantly questioning yourself would result in inaction and then death. These are mechanisms of thought that have evolved over millions of years, and you have no say in them. While you may be able to rationalise some of your decisions and actions, you can’t justify all of them. Would a rational creature become angry when stuck in traffic? Does the anger change anything? Does it make the traffic move? Having an emotion about an event that you can’t change is irrational. Likewise, hearing about atrocities in an area you have no affiliation with might induce anger, despair, or distrust. But again, this isn’t rational, because you don’t know if the news is true. On a planet of almost eight billion people, there will always be an injustice, and there will always be a story.

Throughout history, conflict and disagreement have been a staple of humanity, but only with the advent of the internet and global media are we exposed to global events instantly. These events, happening in far-off lands with which we have no connection, will never affect us, yet we can’t seem to look away from them. The question we must ask ourselves is: Do we really need to know? Does knowing about events we can’t influence help us, or does it just create stress and distract our subconscious from the pleasures of reality? We are a world addicted to sharing the dystopian. We are captivated by the monstrosities erupting around the world, feeling that knowing about them somehow augments them or us. But does it? What proportion of the news stories you have heard or read about over the past year have affected you in a measurable way? How would your life be different had you not heard about them?

The media have a duty. They influence society. They hold incredible power. Yet they don’t seem to realise collectively what they are doing, what they are creating. Growing unrest in the West is being fuelled by increasingly partisan politics. People are so absolutely convinced of the veracity of their beliefs that reasoned debate becomes impossible. There has ceased to be a middle ground. A single story doesn’t create a problem, but the cumulative consequence of editorial bias does. Like multinationals, the media is a sum of its parts. The world it creates is representative of the whole. And if the whole tends towards base reporting, then the whole suffers. The world suffers.

So, what’s the solution? Is there one? Individually, yes. Globally, no. Our environment has exceeded the capacity of our primitive minds, and this is being exploited. The only way to win this battle is not to play. You must, therefore, make the decision: do you want to be carried along with the whims of society? And live in a constant state of angst and outrage, always seeing things in a negative light, thinking the world is falling apart? Shakespeare wrote, “The world is grown so bad that wrens make prey where eagles dare not perch.” Socrates spoke of the degeneration of the youth. The world has always been filled with injustice, unfairness, hate, and pain, and it always will be. But it is also filled with joy, happiness, love, and peace. It is your choice what you expose yourself to, and whichever you choose will become your reality. It is the reality you will have to live with. It is a choice. Your choice.