The Myth of a Forgotten American Free Press

NinaIllingworth May 29, 2019November 5, 2022 1996 Telecom Act, American history, cable news, class, class war, corporate media, Debunking the Myth of a Forgotten American Free Press, Essays, Fantastic Lies, for profit media, forever war, History, Iraq War, Jeff Bezos, Joe Hill, journalism, Julian Assange, left wing theory, Media, media lied us into war, media lies to you for power, media myths, Media Theory, Michael Parenti, MP6, mythmaking, narrative, Nina Illingworth, Occupy Wall Street, Offsite Writing, Patreon, Propaganda, rich people own the media, ST2, The Post, The Post is a narrative building movie, Theory, Vietnam War, war, Watergate, Wikileaks, WMDs, yellow journalism

Editor’s note: as part of a project to turn ninaillingworth.com into a central hub for all of my writing (thanks to ongoing censorship of my work by giant tech companies,) I’m spending the next little while cross-posting older material from other platforms. Please accept my apologies for any potentially unwanted email notifications in advance.

This article is also part of the “Leftist Theory” collection here on ninaillingworth.com.

American Mythology Extends To Our Media

Building on my previous media theory essay “Lying Without Lying,” this May 29th, 2019 Patreon offering examines and debunks the popular misconception that for-profit Pig Empire media used to be good, but has since become corrupted by “crony capitalism.” Despite the herculean efforts of that very same for-profit media to mythologize their own role as truth tellers, this narrative simple doesn’t hold water in the light of (particularly American) history.

From Vietnam, to Watergate and on through to our modern forever wars, corporate or privately-owned media has stood on the wrong side of history, and human decency, at almost every turn; while serving the interests of the powerful, at the expense of the hyper-exploited labor class. Of course, when you own all the microphones, you have the power to alter the historical narrative over time, but it behooves us as critical thinkers to ask – who told you the media existed to reign in the powerful? The rich guys who own the media!

“Even when the mainstream media does criticize establishment power, it typically only does so in a limited context. For example, while it is now fashionable to critique the second US invasion of Iraq in mainstream “liberal” media as a tragic blunder born of neoconservative ineptitude and arrogance, there remains virtually no discussion about the imperial criminality and hubris of a nation that launched a war of aggression for oil under blatantly false pretenses and almost no examination of the media’s own role in selling that unquestionably illegal invasion. In other words, while it’s now fine to score political points in the mainstream media by criticizing how the Iraq war was conducted, it remains overwhelmingly unacceptable to discuss the real reasons why the war was conducted in those same forums. Recently this open and yet unspoken contradiction has even resulted in the bizarre spectacle of a mainstream media outlet attempting to chastise Bernie Sanders for opposing multiple Pig Empire wars the American public itself now largely regards as catastrophic mistakes.”

Check it out on my (always free to read) Patreon Blog by clicking on the quotation block above, or the title header below:

The Myth of a Forgotten American Free Press

nina Illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

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