When the Media Is Far from Being an “Arbiter of Truth”

“And when anyone sees past the illusion of impartiality, thereby revealing the propaganda’s true form, the media recovers with yet more gaslighting: You are merely imagining things.”

The mainstream media takes great pride in its fact-checking and its unbiased approach to current events. Indeed, who could forget CNN’s Oscar-worthy “this is an apple” ad in 2019? But to anyone with a perspective rooted in history and not merely the present moment, this claim—that most journalists are trustworthy individuals who care about facts and truth—is observably false. Why?

Because today’s talking heads share more in common with literary totalitarians than with average Americans.

In 1945, C. S. Lewis penned That Hideous Strength, a novel in which he briefly describes the first part of the modern media’s twisted strategy to acquire and grow its power.

Step one: Mold your audience.

The media in Lewis’s novel thrives off of a certain segment of the population, the “educated” readers. These individuals are “educated” only in the sense that the media tells them that they are educated. This process occurs when an “educated” person consumes the media’s lies on a regular basis. After explaining the method to the novel’s protagonist, an insider declares that the “educated” readers “don’t need reconditioning…They’ll believe anything.”