In a chilling video circling social media, fake news is brought into a new light by the actions of the Sinclair Broadcasting Company. The video shows dozens of local news sources reciting the exact same script, including quotes like “the sharing of biased and false news has become all too common on social media. More alarming, some media outlets publish these same fake stories without checking facts first.” In each of the videos from these news stations, anchors emphasize that this kind of media “is extremely dangerous to our democracy.” Ironic.
These news stations include local affiliates for Fox, CBS, ABC and NBC, sending a shiver down your spine and taking you back to high school when you read George Orwell’s “1984” for the first time. Aside from each station getting the exact same lines to spit out on TV and making you wonder if you’ve heard their words before, the fact that all of these stations were prompted by Sinclair to recite the same information really makes you raise an eyebrow.
After all, what kind of “one-sided news” are they talking about when they’re all saying the exact same thing? That seems pretty one-sided to me.
The worst part is that Donald Trump (he really can’t stay out of anything), the self-proclaimed watchdog against “fake news” outlets, tweeted in light of this in support of Sinclair. He wrote on Twitter on April 2, “So funny to watch Fake News Networks, among the most dishonest groups of people I have ever dealt with, criticize Sinclair Broadcasting for being biased. Sinclair is far superior to CNN and even more Fake NBC, which is a total joke.”
If Sinclair dished out the script to local news stations, wouldn’t that make them less credible? I’m just glad he managed to integrate his hatred for CNN in there, it really would’ve been missed if he didn’t mention it in every other tweet.
So while we slowly melt into the reality of a fictional book published in 1949, it’s nice to know that we can count on our president to do nothing for us. In all seriousness, this is preciously why “fake news” and distrust in the media exists, and it doesn’t help when the corporations in charge have their reporters repeat the same thing like robots.
How are we supposed to go forward when no one knows what’s real or not? How are we supposed to stay informed as citizens when no one can solidly define Truth anymore?
Along with all of the other political corruption in the country, distrust in the media – which has historically been used to help keep corrupt officials and politicians in check – only continues to grow, which means it’ll only get more difficult to hold those in charge accountable. We will be running back and forth, ignoring everything on the “other side” and not only dividing the country, but also letting the people in charge get away with a lot more (if you haven’t noticed already).
Grab your time-travel machines and throw them out the window, because you aren’t going to be needing them to get to the plot of your favorite futuristic, dystopian movie or book. In a few years, you’ll start to see you’re living it.
Not to be paranoid, but if we ignore things like this that are aiding in the essential brainwashing of people to think a certain way, we might start working for the Ministry of Truth and stop having opinions that are our own while we’re at it.
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