BY Guest contributor: PhD Behavioral Science Consultant & Research Specialist,.....(media/ethically trained journalist.), Fayr Barkley, MEd, DCH, PhD, DAC
My first media job came at age 20, after an internship with a CBS Network affiliate in a major capitol market. I ran camera, set overhead lighting, moved heavy sets, and managed sound. It was tough work, and I was the only female on the studio crew.
After the 10 pm newscast, I sat in the anchor chair on the news set and practiced reading news script that I tore off the AP Wire machine, a contraption the size of a kitchen waste can that continuously spat out news stories twenty-four hours a day. The guys in the control room obliged me by staying late and setting the studio camera on me so I could practice reading the news for the job I really wanted: television journalist and anchor. Each morning, I met with the general manager of the station, and he gave me feedback so I steadily improved.
Three months later, I was promoted out of the studio to a co-producing, co-anchor role on a five-day, live morning show. News, sports, weather, live interviews–much as you see today; that format hasn’t changed. We did entertaining fluff pieces to ease viewers at home into their hectic day. I worked hard for little pay, but I loved it.
At that time, aspiring broadcasters had to pass a challenging FCC exam to become legal, on-air anchors. It was not for the faint-hearted, and its complex technical content certainly was not taught in my school program. In journalism classes, we were trained to avoid bias and hearsay. Our job was to report facts, presenting all sides impartially. Ethics and the pursuit of truth were our guiding principles.
However, today, those principles are quickly fading. News has given way to advertising-driven ratings by way of escalating the “entertainment/lies over truth” factor and pandering to political parties–effectively becoming a public relations arm espousing only one view/one side of a story, allowing broadcasters to avoid standards of truth in favor of indoctrination. As long as the corporation claims their stories, editorials are for “entertainment,” they can present just about anything, free from accountability, which means free from speaking truth. This shift has replaced most journalists’ platforms with propaganda, fueling societal division. We have already seen the “this isn’t a news network, it’s an entertainment entity” defense used successfully in court.
Our country has fractured over gender, race, politics, religion. We’re paddling in different directions as we spiral toward extinction. This division prevents us from uniting against forces that control us, telling us what we want to hear. By staying divided, we enable those who seek to dominate.
What was once unacceptable is now celebrated as truth, a “new normal,” which means a forced delusion foisted upon us that we aren’t necessarily comfortable with, but gaslit and often shamed into embracing. We keep our mouths closed and dutifully march single file with the other sheeple, out of fear. This force-fed acceptance serves someone else’s controlling agenda, eroding others’ core beliefs and undermining traditional beliefs and dividing society while trying to convince us it’s done in the name of unity, equality, inclusion, and even “joy”–which was a Nazi key word under Hitler to rally people to support his agenda based upon emotions instead of based upon policy. We used to present all sides, and we trusted the public to make informed decisions. Now, division and manipulation reign, and our freedom to think independently diminishes.
In my search for truth, I seek out diverse sources, always look for evidence. Proof dwells in facts, not assertions, and certainly not in emotions. When ethics are lost in any industry, whether it is news, medicine, law, corporations, people suffer. Society suffers. And it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know who benefits at the peoples’ expense.
Though lying may now be the ‘new normal,’ it remains destructive. When we constantly redefine ‘normal,’ it loses its meaning, fracturing under competing, nefarious interests.
Accountability is essential to a functioning society. Transparency, a good moral compass, consequences, integrity, altruism cannot afford to be watered down or eliminated with the normalization of attributes that destroy society in favor of granting its leaders total dominion over individual and collective rights and freedoms.
Seek truth. Do not blindly trust information from media, acquaintances, or even close relatives. Everyone views the world through their own lens.
If you rely only on sensational headlines, you miss the full story. If you watch just one news source, you miss vital perspectives. If you ignore history and the decline of other nations, then you might not believe it could happen here. It can. It’s happening globally, and it’s coming for us.
This is not a political statement. It is an observation from my years as a journalist and my education as a PhD in psychology and knowledge of human behavior, media, and watching how things have been declining since my just-out-of-university days as a television journalist.
Consider all sides of an issue before drawing conclusions. The stakes are much higher than political opinion, as our future and freedom are at risk.
The choices we make today, whether guided by truth or lies, will shape our future lives and our freedoms or lack thereof.
Don’t be blinded by myopic one-issue needs, salacious headlines, hatred toward your fellow Americans, or your emotions. Look at what’s in the best interest of our country as a whole. Each of us benefits or suffers based upon our individual efforts to drill down to the truth and not blindly follow the herding efforts of the media/party/propaganda matrix.
History will be written by the winners, but who wins might not be what is best for us. To overthrow a government, one must dismantle the very rules set forth to preserve its society’s freedom. Do not allow that to happen.
I’m Fayre Barkley, and “The greatest danger to American freedom is a government that ignores the constitution.”– Thomas Jefferson
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