Fake News: Why the Mainstream Media Establishment Must Be Destroyed
What a time to be alive. 2016 will be forever etched into historical records as a year to be fondly remembered for its political milestones: the year in which the British people reclaimed their national sovereignty by voting in favour of the Brexit campaign to leave the European Union, as well as the year in which God Emperor Trump was elected as the 45th President of the United States of America. However, perhaps even more significant than both Brexit and Trump, was the long awaited defeat of the mainstream media. 2016 was the final current year.
It is no secret that the widespread embrace of the internet and social media had already battered the revenue streams of legacy media outlets prior to 2016, although the pervasive cultural influence of these institutions needs to be understood in a context which extends beyond just the confines of financial viability. Control of the societal narrative is the currency in which the media trades, and the mainstream media held an all-encompassing monopoly in this area prior to the political uprisings of 2016. However, despite the overwhelming rejection of their narrative in the past 12 months, more needs to be done. The mainstream media establishment needs to be destroyed.
Why the need for such an extreme stance though? As conservatives we tend to err on the side of caution, embracing the Burkean tradition of societal advancement through gradual incremental progress, as opposed to radical systemic transformation. However, the destruction of the mainstream media needn’t be viewed in such revolutionary terms. It is merely a political necessity — similar to the defeat of the Clinton dynasty or the impending implosion of the European Union. In order for conservatives to reclaim the cultural narrative, we must first bring down the left’s strongest advocate, and that means creating a media landscape in which popular opinion is no longer dictated exclusively by out of touch elites.
With its steady stream of left leaning, socially permissive, anti-nationalist sentiments, the mainstream media — to its credit, has done an effective job of normalising far left attitudes, particularly over the last decade or so. The Overton Window — the range of ideas which are considered socially acceptable for discussion within the realm of public discourse, has shifted so far to the left that society has now reached a point where questioning feminism and illegal immigration is considered to be in poor taste, whilst defending male interests and the need for national borders is branded as misogyny and racism. How did we reach this point though?
It was the Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci who originally conceived the idea of socialism’s ‘long march through the institutions’ — that is, the accumulation of social power brought about by gaining high ranking positions in schools, universities, courts, the government and the media, in order to culturally subvert capitalist societies and bring about a transition towards socialism. Having made a short lived foray into a journalism degree at one of Australia’s top ranking universities some time ago, I was unfortunate enough to experience firsthand the intellectual cesspool which breeds the next generation of sneering ivory tower elites.
The course provided very little in regards a vocational skillset for its students — I can still recall taking a class entitled ‘Principles of Editing & Design’ in which the geriatric academic ‘teaching’ the class literally instructed students to visit YouTube for instructions on how to use editing programs, as he wasn’t “so much into the technical stuff”. Of even greater concern though, was the complete lack of any sort of attempt at teaching students the ability to understand and deconstruct political policies and social debates. Is it any wonder why the average journalist wears their heart on their sleeve over gay Islamic eco-friendly non gender binary veganism, and yet doesn’t seem to have the faintest clue as to why conservatives want to reduce taxes?
Equally, the rapid proliferation of solipsistic opinion pieces amongst the media class points further towards the institutional failure of western universities. Journalists don’t want to tell other people’s stories anymore — they would rather tell their own. The mainstream media has now degenerated to the point where we have an entire generation of journalists who treat media outlets as their own personal diaries. The New York Times for example — an outlet which once brought its readers some of the best investigative journalism ever seen, now runs stories about how ‘manspreading’ on public transport triggers woman-child feminists. How the mighty have fallen.
Western universities are now churning out record numbers of graduates in not just journalism, but across a variety of disciplines, who genuinely believe that conservative policy is based on some sort of irrational hatred for humanity. It is one thing to disagree with conservativism, having already engaged with and understood the arguments used to justify the ideology. Although to live in a society in which the gatekeepers of public opinion don’t even understand what it is that they are opposing, suggests that both our media class, as well as the universities that educate them, have fundamentally failed as institutions. Or perhaps they are working precisely as Gramscian adherents had intended? The lunatics really are running the asylum.
There is hope though. 2016 saw the rise of alternative news sources, with outlets such as the Breitbart News Network, WikiLeaks, Project Veritas, and various independent social media personalities gaining immensely in popularity. Where CNN and the New York Times refused to report on revelations of the Clinton campaign paying professional protestors to incite violence at Trump rallies, these alternative sources filled the void. Similarly, when it was revealed that collusion had occurred between CNN and the Clinton campaign in the lead up to both the Democratic Party Primary Debates, as well as the Presidential debates, it was alternative sources that reported the story. Despite the best efforts of mainstream sources to divert the public’s attention away from these revelations, the truth was ultimately exposed.
We now live in a world where the proliferation of social media and smart phone technology have empowered the average person to easily circumvent the degenerate narrative of the mainstream media. Having already been cuckholded by the success of Trump and Brexit, 2017 may well prove to be the year in which the autistic screeching of the mainstream media ceases to be relevant. Only time will tell. What a time to be alive.
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