America (or the American media) have a skewed perspective on the world. Every piece of news comes out looking all upside down or sideways. Think back to almost every major leak by wikileaks, or to Edward Snowden’s revelations. It’s almost as if the people who do the news are looking at the issues while hanging from monkey bars.
There’s a weird formula that all major episodes with a whistleblower go down. They follow this outline:
- Leaker leaks his leak saying US Government/party/candidate did terrible things X, Y, and Z.
- Sometimes some foreign news outlets will run the following story: US Government/party/candidate did terrible things X, Y, and Z.
- The ubiquitous story in the US becomes: Leaker leaks his leak! Tune in to hear us discuss whether we think Leaker is a good guy or should be tried/murdered! The token devil’s advocate will say “but what about X, Y, and Z?” and be quickly dismissed while we discuss all the dirty details of Leaker’s personal life.
Consider the following cases:
Even some of the most balanced seeming reporting, e.g., settles on the question of whether Snowden (and the few press who cooperated with him) is a criminal and should be punished and not on the issues his leaks expose.
This happened again after wikileaks leaked the DNC’s emails showing their concerted (and corrupt) effort to make sure Hillary Clinton got selected as a candidate over Bernie Sanders. I’m not sure what this skewed perspective means. Maybe it’s something to do with political pressure on the media. Maybe everyone in the media has a particular sort of state apologist’s perspective on the world. Maybe it just makes for more watchable news to talk about a guy than to talk about terrible government wrongdoing. I’m not sure which of these is true. It’s simply concerning, and, I would think, depressing for those who may leak the next terrible wrongdoing by various American actors. Our only hope, really, is the alternative news outlets.
Tune in MWF for more content.
Peace be with you.
-JS
The Thoughts of Jonathan Sonantis 