I have not written a
public note in over 2 years. Largely because I got really bored writing for
publications and having my thoughts and words scrubbed to fit a narrative the
news agency was trying to portray.
But with the recent
issues that our country is facing, I want to pose a question to all of you
reading this: Where did you hear about the problems you heard? Did a friend
tell you? After that friend told you, did you just write a note without
researching what they said?
I’m interested to hear
your responses. All of them, in one way or another, revolve around the media.
But the media is a vast term used much like Liberal, or Conservative are used
by voter demographics.
For the most part, I find
the media to be full of shit. If I apply the term from Paul Rudd’s character in
Anchorman: “60% of the time, the media is full of shit every time”. It’s
confusing. The media is too. It appears that no two sources can have the same
facts. It’s almost as if each source has to one up the other. Right about then
is when the big networks get involved and spew whatever is at the top of their
tongues.
Over 13 years ago, I
experience what it was like to understand what the media does. I was a soldier
deployed to Iraq. My job was to fix vehicles, but I often felt part of the team
by volunteering to go on every outside the wire mission I could. During these
times, I worked with my unit and a host of others as well.
A particular mission
always seems to reoccur in my mind. Somehow I ended up with the California
National Guard on physiological operations. All that I did was blast music
through a loud speaker attached to a Humvee which I was on top of. We would go
up and down the streets of Baghdad. At one point we all stopped and
dismounted our truck. A call came over the radio that a vehicle had been hit by
an IED and the occupants were burning inside. A reporter followed us with
his cameraman. I wasn’t a point man or anything you’d hear by the movies. I was
with the commander and first sergeant. The commander had a bag of soccer balls
which we were going to hand out to the kids.
When we identified the
vehicle, two of the soldiers who were with us tried to retrieve the bodies. But
the flames were too hot. A decision was made to wait until we could retrieve
the bodies and continue to hand out soccer balls. The reporter followed us. I
grabbed two or three soccer balls and handed them to smiling children. The
entire time the reporter and cameraman filmed nothing. But that changed.
The parents saw our reporter and
immediately called their children inside. After a brief moment the children
came back outside and began throwing rocks at our burning Humvee. Suddenly the
reporter had a reason to record and the tape was live. The next day, CNN
blasted these children all over television with the headline “American’s not
wanted”. The vast majority of people back home believed it too.
But take my experience,
and think about that for a moment. Think about how the media is doing the same
thing. How much easier would it be for a cameraman to show up to a rally and
not record anything. Not record a peaceful situation. But the second it goes
bad, the camera’s are once again rolling. Or how about the social media feeds
of people who are doing good things. Who have positive interaction with law
enforcement. Those are almost never seen. Simply for the reason that our media
wants to fit a narrative.
So ask yourself: is it
the mainstream media that is giving you your news, or something else? Because
if it’s a major news network, chances are: you’re being lied to. #dallas
