Corporate Media is an Unreliable Narrator
Treat them as such.
Photo by Muhammad-taha Ibrahim on Unsplash
I was a bit of an idiot in my reading career until I got to college.
I didn’t realize there was such a thing as an unreliable narrator until then.
In my first year in college, I was assigned the book “The Good Soldier” by Ford Madox Ford. I read it. I thought it was fine, but nothing earth-shattering. Then I got to class, and my professor told us “You can’t trust the narrator.” The narrator in that book is unreliable, makes mistakes, and sometimes doesn’t remember what he already said.
I was blown away and embarrassed that I was in my late teens before I learned that authors had been messing with me and I didn’t know it.
Here are some examples:
Huckleberry Finn – The narrator is a child, with a naïve perspective on the world.
Catcher in the Rye – Holden Caufield is a teenager, not much better than Huck.
One Flew Over the Cookoos Nest – The narrator is a patient in a mental institution.
There are countless other examples of storytelling from an unreliable narrator, including movies in the present day, all the way back to the early myths of human history.
The moral of the story is, to always consider the source. If you come across a first-person narrator in a novel, take what you hear with a grain of salt. Question their motives and their point of view.
Treat any story you hear in real life the same way.
Media is a business, run for profit.
The media doesn't exist to inform you. Media exists to profit from you. If they happen to inform you, that’s great, but that isn’t their first concern. Profit is. That doesn't make for-profit media evil. But it also doesn't make it your friend. They aren’t looking out for you. Look out for yourself.
The mantra of “if it bleeds, it leads” will always drive media. Titillating, sensational, and negative stories will nearly always get more airtime than stories that simply inform us or uplift us.
That is partially our fault. We will click on negative or sensational stories more, just as we always bought more of the physical newspapers that frightened us than the ones that informed us. The media simply exploits our human nature to sell advertising.
That is the business model.
Degrowth is a threat to that business model.
For-profit media and degrowth.
I can't think of a much worse news story for for-profit media than degrowth. Degrowth is telling people who are consuming for-profit media that they shouldn't be consuming for-profit media. Degrowth shows that advertising is one of the influences that has led to overconsumption and overshoot. Advertising is also the media business model.
As people begin to understand degrowth more, they will understand to a greater degree that the media is trying to sell them a way of life that is ultimately destroying them.
So don't expect a lot of coverage and degrowth on cable news, in your local newspaper, or on your news feed. Here is a list of the top media companies in the world.
You may see a story on degrowth on one of these sources now and again. If you do, it is likely to be a very negative piece, like the one we saw recently in the Washington Post.
These companies make money from more and more consumption. These companies want you to buy more things so they can advertise more so they can make more money and so on and so on, ad infinitum.
A degrowth world that cautions us to pull back from the brink, respect our planetary boundaries, and put the brakes on consumption isn't compatible with the big business media model.
Contrast the list above with this one. The 10 most Unbiased News Sources in 2024.
1. Associated Press
2. Reuters
3. NPR
4. BBC
5. PBS New Hour
6. CBS News
7. The Guardian
8. The New York Times
9. CNN
10. NBC News
You may quibble with this list. But I venture if you get your news from this list, you will likely be a bit more well-informed than if you get your news from news sources in the first list. What I like about this list, especially the names at the top of it is that these news sources are far more boring than those on the first list.
Maybe it’s just me, but that’s the way it should be. Information is not entertainment. It is meant to inform, not amuse you or scare you.
Back to the unreliable narrator.
We humans are simple creatures. We do what we are incentivized to do. If we work for a for-profit media company, we are more likely to make decisions that further that profit. Large media outlets whose mission is ultimately the profit of shareholders are going to have a hard time getting to the story of degrowth, without a reflexive “degrowth bad” reaction. That is understandable. Degrowth is a threat to their business model.
Just understand that any news organization that has a for-profit mandate will always put profit first. That doesn’t make them evil. It makes them unreliable narrators. The scorpion stung the frog because it was in his nature. For-profit media props up a growth for growth’s sake world and ignores degrowth because it is in its nature.
Go out there and find some crazy news sources.
A media diet is just like your normal diet. If all you put in is junk, you're not going to be very healthy. Your media diet works the same way. Get your news and your information from a lot of different places. Seek out people and sources that disagree with you.
A resource you might want to check out is Ground News. I don't use them all the time, but I do check in now and again if I find a new media source. Ground news will tell you if a news source is more liberal or more conservative, so you can be a more informed consumer.
So, delete the preset media options on your phone, tablet, or computer. Never get your media from one source. Don't watch cable news, its purpose is to anger you, not to inform you. If you are going to read a conservative paper, read a liberal one, and vice versa. The algorithm will try to give you more of the same thing you just read or “liked”. Walk away from the algorithm. It isn’t good for you. It’s good for profit. Seek out new sources of information. It will keep the media, and you, more honest.
When I first came across degrowth, I didn't understand it and it sounded like a terrible idea. And here I am writing a blog about how degrowth is the answer. Don’t get your information on degrowth from just one place. Go out there and find more.
You have the most wonderful supercomputer nature ever invented between your ears. Use it or lose it. But who knows; that 3-pound supercomputer may be an unreliable narrator too.
One of the features of all media, even the better ones, is what they ignore or leave out. Almost all of what is covered is what is within the orthodox realm, regardless of how they cover it. Degrowth falls within the unorthodox, hence largely neglected. One reason why platforms like this one are so important. thanks!!
Hi Matt... Check out an important book, 'Propaganda’ (Formation of Men’s Attitudes) by Jacques Ellul. Mainstream media is parasitical in nature ... which undeniably influences us all to varying degrees. Even as the book was written more than 40 years ago, it is an amazing effort to understand and perhaps raise awareness, about the “pernicious and detrimental” effects of propaganda, that we live through our entire lifetimes. The book is an essential myth-buster, to understand why propaganda can be all pervasive and why is it so difficult to vanquish.