Who’s Getting Away With Murder?

In 2018, mainstream media took a big bite out of what would become an ongoing polemic discussion surrounding Global Warming. Four years later, the climate crisis, clad in fatalistic headlines, is competing for the spotlight with the Ukraine-Russia war. All of it enhanced by the grim backdrop of droughts, fires, and impending shortages, from fuel to food. To me, it reads as though it is the end of the world as we know it.

Some would argue that had the media given a voice to scientists, and those that have been shouting warning signals at us since the mid-60s, we wouldn’t be where we are now. What if the media had jumped on board during the American elections in 2000 and unveiled the dysfunctional electoral system in Florida that allowed George Bush to win against Al Gore? 

“Had Al Gore, a politician who understood global warming, been declared the winner of the 2000 presidential election, we might have dodged the bullet. If the U.S. Supreme Court had not awarded the election to George W. Bush, climate change would have become a major priority.”

Los angeles times

Would Gore have led the USA towards a 21st-century energy economy, pushing the development of solar and wind power and phasing out oil, natural gas, and nuclear, setting an example?

That’s all hindsight now, yet 21 years later in an article dated November 2021, the Los Angeles Times paints a picture of what the world would be like if Al Gore had won instead of Bush, as have many others. Unfortunately, hindsight is rarely as useful as foresight.

Turning my attention to more recent developments with mainstream media, personally, I would have preferred a different coverage of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, because it appeared to me that mainstream media was the engine behind public approval for this war, and all too eager to move forward, whether it was about spending, weapons or sanctions, anything in support of this war, also known as propaganda. Hell, Euronews saw it fit to do a rebranding of the news, with a new opener, showcasing frontline action on the border between Ukraine and Russia, with journalists in daunting combat attire. I noticed they recently removed it. I don’t remember mainstream media ever being so unanimous, not even with the Arms of Mass Destruction, during the Iraq war.

Mainstream media can be a vehicle of misinformation and, at its best, it often suffers the absence of clear intent. They hold the reins and they do not deserve to. They have repeatedly demonstrated that they are either puppets or invested in some conflict of interest. Whatever happened to investigative journalism?

Many do not want the truth published, from the powerful, to the pious and corrupt. The world is full of those who want to stay in the shadows.  In 2021 alone, 55 journalists were killed because they were exposing corruption and conflict, or afflicting the wealthy and powerful by revealing the truth. In your opinion is Julian Assange a criminal or a revolutionary?

A new kind of media is needed. Don’t expect Jesus to save us.  Real bonifide journalists and the likes of Julian Assange, who sacrificed his freedom for the truth, that’s as close as we get to the messiah spreading the truth among common people on earth. 

Real Journalism is rare and the few that still dare practice it, are being hushed through censorship, arrest, and death. If those in power can put a muzzle on the media, they are getting away with more than murder.