The sad truth

In the US, media are controlled by just 15 billionaires and/or 6 corporations. 5 companies own 81% of the newspapers in the UK. This means our perception of reality is being manipulated all the time.

After all, it really seems like Big Brother’s watching us.

What can we little ants do to stop this gigantic shoe from stepping on us? (Yup, I’ve watched Antz quite a lot when I was a child…) Well, we can obviously read and watch independent media. Easy.

Ehm, it’s not so easy, actually.

According to Wikipedia, independent media refers to any form of media […] that is free of influence by government or corporate interests. But can these media really be influence-free? First of all, any article, piece of news, or tv programme is written/created by people. And most people tend to have their own opinion about stuff. It is almost impossible, therefore, not to contaminate our work with our own personal ideas. Self-censorship also has a big impact on independent media; after all, nobody wants to have trouble, right?

Moreover, we shouldn’t forget that independent media are businesses, and businesses need to make money. Their income is mostly based on their relationship with advertisers, and in order to attract more advertisers, media need to attract more audience.

And that, my friends, is how we become part of the equation.

Independent media, as any kind of media, are constantly trying to please us in order to get more attention from possible investors. That’s why they can’t really be objective: journalists don’t write what they want to write, they write what they think we like to read.

This is the sad truth, and the reason why we really need some kind of revolution in the media industry ASAP.