America’s Propaganda Machine: Biased News

The existential threat

The existential threat today is not a foreign invasion, but an agenda-driven “news” organization that can be shaped in order to push a government agenda. Gone are the days where the “News” organization in America could not give personal biased opinions on a given subject for fear of losing journalistic objectivity.

Most of the “News” we consume today is skewed toward one political viewpoint or another, depending on party loyalty or personal view. Below we look at the many forms of Biased News.

Agenda-Setting Campaigns in The Media: According to MAXWELL E. McCOMBS, DONALD L. SHAW

When choosing and displaying news, editors, newsroom staff, and broadcasters play an important part in shaping political reality. Readers learn not only about a given issue but also how much importance to attach to that issue from the amount of information in a news story and its position.

For example,  In reflecting what candidates are saying during a campaign, the mass media may well determine the important issues—that is, the media may set the “agenda” of the campaign.[.pdf]

Types of agenda-setting media campaigns:

Political warfare, Media bias, Yellow journalism, Sensationalism, and Public relations Spin

How We Got To Media Polarization and Biased NEWS

The fairness doctrine of the United States Federal Communications Commission (FCC), introduced in 1949, was a policy that required the holders of broadcast licenses to both present controversial issues of public importance and to do so in a manner that was—in the FCC’s view—honest, equitable, and balanced. wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine

• The Death of the Fairness Doctrine
• Ronald Reagan’s Federal Communications Commission abolished the Fairness Doctrine, clearing the path for the emergence of Fox News.

Because of the current political Polarization, more and more Americans are gravitating towards news sources they already agree with, instead of looking for news that is fair or balanced.

How the media can sway public opinion?

Example: China, Today the most polarising topic in the new media is China. So we will look at news organizations and how they cover the news from said country. Below we provide a typical list of current news from Western news organizations regarding the targeted country China.

The U.S FOX NEWS Network is custom-tailored for Conservative viewers.

Below we look at a steady stream of anti-China articles from FOXNEWS. Fox News is custom-tailored for anglo Americans that have conservative and nationalist viewpoints. The viewers are given a steady stream of immigrant crime along with a general tone pointing to a foreign country, as the reason for America not being that great anymore.

Sky News Australia

Sky News Australia is the Australian equivalent of the American Fox News but on steroids. Sky News Australia showcases more paranoia about China. Most of the news about China is negative and one-sided. Both organizations essentially push the same narrative but in different extremes.

Sky News UK

Sky News is a British free-to-air television news channel and organization. The News Organization is catered to a conservative audience. What we see below is “Opinion run News” masquerades as legitimate news.

If you tried to see if you could find any dissenting viewpoints from those media organizations concerning China you’d be hard-pressed, that’s because they don’t exist, all of the news pertaining to China from the western media is negative.

What we do see from Western Media is the constant dissemination of negative news about China. Missing is any contrary news articles that question the narrative.

All announcements from the Western Governments are considered facts without question, any journalist that does question or deviates from the narrative will lose access to press meetings.

• Trump suspends CNN analyst’s credentials in another shot at the press
• White House revokes press passes for dozens of journalists: an unprecedented move, the White House revoked the press passes of a significant chunk of the Washington press corps because they didn’t meet a new standard, according to Washington Post
• Obama Administration: AP’s White House staff: Press losing presidential access as Obama officials close doors

Note: Under both Republican and Democrat administrations, the press had to maintain appeasement for access.

Commander in Chief Donald John Trump

Trump has been using China as his perfect scapegoat for most of America’s problems, something his conservative audiences are readily receptive to hearing during his many T.V appearances.

Consequences Of Bias News

One of the Consequences Of Bias News is it shapes people’s perceptions and views of a subject. In turn, it can have negative implications or consequences against people that happen to be from any given country or ethnic group targeted by the bias news.

Yellow Peril

Xenophobia is not something new to most western countries, in fact it has a long history.

Yellow Peril

The Yellow Peril (also the Yellow Terror and the Yellow Specter) is a racist color metaphor that misrepresents the peoples of East Asia as an existential danger to the Western world.^[2] As a psycho-cultural menace from the Eastern world, fear of the Yellow Peril is racial, not national. The new Yellow Peril?

Sinophobia

Anti-Chinese sentiment or Sinophobia. In places where Chinese people constitute a minority — such as Europe, the United States and Australia — sinophobia seems to be incited by harmful stereotypes that classify Chinese people as dirty and uncivilized. Headlines such as “New Yellow Peril,” “China Virus Panda-monium” and “China kids stay home” have prevailed in Western newspapers. – Dailycal.org

The slow response to racism from public Policymakers & the Media helped fuel racist sentiments targeting Asians

Pushback from China CGTN

Media Soft Power. After facing continuous negative news from the West, CGTN has taken to YouTube to give its own side of the story.

CGTN, formerly known as CCTV-9 and CCTV News, is an international English-language news channel based in Beijing owned by China Central Television, a state-owned broadcaster.

Closing Thoughts on Agenda-Setting Campaigns in the Media.

Agenda-Setting Campaigns are a form of propaganda because they lack neutrality and only show one side of the issue. Thus leaving viewers to believe there is no other alternative to the one–sided version of the facts.

News Organizations should go back to reporting and doing investigative journalism and keep opinions away from the front page. Although today China is the primary country receiving negative and outright bias news, History has shown it can easily be turned against any other country, group, or people.