I once taught an off-campus media course for Grace University here in Omaha with a part of the class designed to help students understand the "whys and hows" of media bias. I used examples of advertisements, television programs, newspaper stories, and so on to show how the subtleties of propaganda were constantly used (often without a conscious calculation by the writer) to persuade us.Well, I taught that class in the 1980s when "subtle" was still the word for media inculcation, when a journalist used (in addition to selection of stories, sources and facts) more finer, more understated techniques of agitprop.
Those days are long gone.
Indeed, nowadays the daily examples of over-the-top disinformation, newspeak, and ballyhooed brainwashing are legion as any visit to the Media Research Center, NewsBusters, Accuracy in Media or even this modest little blog will show.
But our response to the mainstream media's overarching liberalism and unfairness must include more than frustration, anger, or a laughing dismissal.
It must also involve:
* a passionate dedication to free speech;
* the provision of excellence and constancy in our own communicative efforts;
* an ongoing resolve to police the MSM and call attention to their hype and obfuscations;
* the generous support (through finances, direct involvement and prayer) of those organizations, publications, web sites and individuals who are yet telling the truth in the public square;
* and, most basic of all, a firm commitment to teach one's children how to be wise and discerning in the face of the comprehensive, aggressive indoctrination campaigns of the MSM and the government school system.
Keeping oneself unstained by the world starts at home.
