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I have a number of acquaintances who continually remind me how well read and knowledgeable they are. I have come to asking them when they do, just what their main source of information is. For professionals, they seem anxious to cite the NY Times as their primary source. Often, I am not sure that that is their primary source as much they want to be seen as a super sophisticated “consumer” of news . . . “Ah yes. I read in the Times, don’tcha know. . . ” Generally, across the board, professionals and regular working stiffs, cite, to a surprising and alarming degree in my view, NPR and Public Television.
While I don’t think public broadcasting has quite the cachet of “the Times”, I suspect, again, this need to be seen as a sophisticate, well informed, is a factor in our society’s progressive element. The big three TV news networks are not mentioned so much but Sunday talk shows seem to hold an attraction for the self proclaimed “well informed”. Certainly Fox News is almost never mentioned unless it’s to impress me that, yes, they tune in occasionally but are consistently revolted by the distortions offered by that, ugh, network. Talk radio? Oh really…do you need to ask?
Thus, I offer this excerpt from a quite informative piece in the Washington Times
In Mein Kampf, Adolph Hitler offered appalling insight into use of the “Big Lie Strategy:”
“ . . . in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted . . . and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods.”
“Vladimir Lenin explained how the press can become a key tool in spreading lies: “The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses.”
What will it take for the mainstream press to get a grip and return to do its job? Where are the modern Woodwards and Bernsteins? DLH
I think I read somewhere that Goebbels the master propagandist (a different concept than the big lie) thought the so called intelligentsia easiest to propagandize. They had no sacred cows to go up against. They were vulnerable to wanting things explained. They did not like loose ends as regards their superiority. Give them a plausible theory (however bogus in reality) and they internalize it . . . particularly when it fits with their sense of superiority . . . eugenics and abortion were concepts the pseudo intellects glommed onto early . . . and they pushed it on society.
Breitbart has died but there are others willing to pursue and report the news.