The Media Lies

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