Narcissist Media vs. Honest Media
As usual, Orwell was right.
To best show the regard with which I have held journalists, the media, and the news over a lifetime, throughout my youth my Grandad Ad and Uncle Mike had their own small SF Bay Area newspaper, The San Leandro Observer.
This meant I constantly heard them discussing the news and the media as serious journalists during my formative years. Of course my first official job was as a paperboy. Fortunately, I was allowed to retire after I became the fifth and final kid a vicious fighting dog bit on my route.
Much more fun was “the office.” As the first grandchild of the generation, I was completely encouraged to explore and participate in whatever interested me. This meant their almost warehouse-sized office was my amusement park full of all kinds of 1970s hi-tech and other interesting machines that my uncle thought a good investment for “the paper.”
I have many fond memories of hanging out with my gramps and uncle at “the office.” I would usually explore their cavernous “fortress of solitude” as they had discussions and heated arguments about articles, what new tech my uncle wanted to get next, and many other things that were way over my disinterested head.
Sure they got intense and loud sometimes but I was never bothered by their passionate disagreements because I consciously knew there was always a strong father-son love, support and common commitment to the truth between them.
They also always made the time to explain everything I wanted to know in a fun way. As family goes, I have been pretty lucky like that in most circumstances. In fact, one of my Dad’s nicknames for me “Lucky,” although his favorite was “Punk.”
Regardless, my Mother’s father and brother were the ones who gave me shining examples of how the news, the media and journalists were supposed to conduct themselves. Yes my uncle and especially Grandad Ad were a bit eccentric, but it is by their examples that I have always strove to be as honest, honorable, entertaining, passionate and fierce in the telling of the whole “truth and nothing but the truth,” as they were.
This personal history should help exemplify why I would never attack or dismiss “the news,” “the media” or “journalists” trivially, for clicks, or without just cause.
The media, news and journalists in higher education
To conclusively exemplify my appreciation and need for honest and insightful information, as someone who graduated with an International Relations degree in 1990, accurate news, trusted media and good journalists were central and essential to my education and knowledge base. I recall having subscriptions to U.S. News & World Report, Foreign Policy, Christian Science Monitor, The Economist and access to most other high quality publications via the university library.
Luckily for me, a primary focus of my I.R. education was learning how to “read between the lines” of what is being reported. This is primarily done by knowing who and where “the news” is coming from, calculating what conscious or unconscious agenda or bias they may have, and spotting the lies, equivocations, confessions, or any other “red flags” written or unwritten, in-between the lines.
Clearly, the ability to find and understand the unvarnished and complete truth of most situations via “reading between the lines” was, is and will always be a highly valuable skill to have. Also what is clear is this skill needs to be taught far more, because far too many don’t recognize the truths that really matter, even when they are right in front of them.
As we have seen, people not being able to see through obvious lies and liars are big parts of why so most of us live in countries of falsely created problems and dishonest messes today. Always remember the whole truth is rarely on a narcissist’s side, which is why they are so driven to control it, and thus keep any real public scrutiny off them.
Captured Media
One thing that has been increasingly triggering me about the truth and media over the last year has been the conversion and near complete capture of American legacy, corporate, mainstream and major digital media by seemingly 100% self-serving people, thus anti-democratic forces.
What is dangerous propaganda is the attempt to dismiss these predatory capitalists with the illusion that they are all about profit, when most current media overlords already have multi-millions if not multi-billions of dollars.
Sure, they compulsively want more money but what they really want now like all entitled narcissists (clinical or not) is more unchecked power and control over the law, the government, the public’s mind, and thus our subservience.
Their success in buying elections with propaganda and lies via the media under their control proved that they succeeded far more than most realized in information capture and targeted mind-control via the spread of false truths and logical fallacies.
Too much? As it often confirms, a favorite mid-1990s conversation in a Santorini cafe with a nice young American brings it all into clarity. i.e. Whoever controls the bias of “the news” controls the impressionable minds of its viewers in a very Orwellian/Big Brother way.
As he explained,
“I just came from Israel and Palestine, but it was not relaxed there like it is here in Greece. When I was in Israel, I watched the news and I hated the Palestinians, but then I went to Palestine and watched the news, and I hated the Israelis. Here it is just peace and fun.”
This memory touchstone is an important reminder that even an open-minded and reasonably informed traveler can be programmed by any biased media into a strong visceral negative reaction, and in completely opposite directions, depending on who is telling “the news.”
That is the power of the media, and thus a primary responsibility to not be that way for anyone claiming to be “fair and balanced,” or that they report “the whole truth.” Otherwise, to paraphrase Orwell, it’s not journalism, it’s just public relations.
Then it all changed
What I had never considered, understood or was able to process until the late 2000s was that the greedy and completely self-serving wannabe oligarchs (who kept buying up all the media outlets Reagan and Bush x 2 were able to allow) have been exhibiting seemingly near perfect impressions, tells, symptoms, vibes and behaviors of narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths all along.
Remember, the term malignant narcissist was primarily coined to describe hitler’s nazi “quintessence of evil,” so it would all seem to align with almost anyone who is compulsively greedy, selfish, bigoted, racist, misogynist, entitled, has no real principles other than being out for themselves, and narcissistically abuses others so they can feel big. Sound like anyone you know?
The Fox News revelation
As previously noted in the CNI library, long before any true understanding of narcissist psychology, I had known since March 2003 that media operations like Fox News were literally programming their audiences with manipulative lies, red meat, false hopes and right-wing Christian propaganda, thus they were purposely triggering and gaslighting conservative fears, insecurities and beliefs with narcissism.
If you follow my work, you may have heard the story of how I learned exactly what Fox News was the very first time I tuned in. It was about a week into Iraq War II, I had watched everything on CNN and MSNBC to the point where it was all repetitive, so I decided to try this fairly new-to-me channel with a slogan, “Fair and Balanced.” This was of course “Fox News.”
I will never forget what happened next. It was 1 a.m, a week into the war, and right off the bat the anchor Brian Wilson came on and immediately started with, “As we all know, our troops are doing the Lord’s work in Iraq.”
Wait! What? Did they really call this new “news” channel “Fair and Balanced?” “Fair and balanced” between what? Between Republican NeoCon ideology and right-wing Christianity?
Whatever the answer was, Fox “News” instantly confirmed that Australian Rupert Murdoch’s oligarchic “conservative news” was shamelessly merging political beliefs and religious blind faith. What better way to manipulate decent religious conservatives into supporting Cheney/Bush’s arrogant, foolish, dishonest and profiteering war Osama bin Laden wanted to trick the U.S. into.
Ergo, those who disagreed with the war were portrayed on Fox “News,” as being against “the Lord’s work in Iraq,” and thus not a good Christian and they “were not supporting the troops.” Indeed the psychological manipulation of conservative Christians and the country at large during Iraq War II was a key divide and conquer trauma trigger used by American oligarchs for years.
They always want to divide Americans and keep us fighting against each other so no one pays attention to the narcissist millionaires and billionaires raiding America’s wealth, and corrupting our system of government for personal gain, glory and power.
What a strange coincidence that is the exact same kind of psychological manipulation a malignant-type clinical narcissist would use to trick the ill-informed, innocent, struggling or the vulnerable in every religion or non-religion, and this behavior seems to also be at the center of everything trump and his rogues gallery of swamp creatures say and do as well.
Indeed, all societies must come to understand that this level of narcissism is normally a compulsive and incurable personality disorder that must be contained with firm barriers, because like all egotistical children, they won’t stop until stopped.
They can live good lives. They just should never be in jobs they are psychologically incapable of, such as those in government where the job is to look out for other people’s interests above their own. A pathological narcissist by definition puts themselves first, last and always, which normally means most to all of their promises are empty, and most claimed accomplishments are illusions.
If you remember these empirical CNI truths, distinguishing the differences between narcissist and honest media will become much easier in time, although as I have sadly noted, it appears most major American media is now owned by and/or serving narcissists whether they know it or not, and that is truly Orwellian.
Part II explores the CNI psychological details behind honest media beening captured by a very well funded, politically connected, 100% self-serving narcissist media.
From a CNI philosophical and solutional POV, the repair process starts with more people becoming psychologically aware and thus better armed with empirical knowledge, defenses and strategies against the dark arts of malignant narcissists, sociopaths and psychopaths, so please support the CNI effort if you are able.
After watching the Carter funeral where his many visionary acts as President were highlighted for an hour, the follow up completely ignore what was said and fell right back into extolling his post presidency. There is a script we are following that has nothing to do with truth.
✨️Excellent read, my Friend !✨️