You know it’s bad when even a Hollywood star recognizes that there is a problem with our increasingly sensationalistic corporate media. During a question and answer Zoom session with The Hill, actor Russell Crowe weighed in on the state of the media.
“My theory, when you’re talking about social media, right about the 70s, the language of tabloid newspapers started to drift into the larger national broadsheets. Started to drift into television news. Started to be part of everybody’s mornings when they woke up,” Crowe said.
He continued:
“These extreme reactions and us talking about whatever a particular event that happened in such extreme ways. And that tabloid hunt-to-kill attitude when they believe they have found somebody who has committed a quote-unquote sin. And then that inability of the same tabloid language to apologize to that person when they say, ‘Oh dear, we’ve got the wrong target.’”
The actor also discussed the cancel culture phenomenon that has become prevalent in western society. “That type of language has come into social media, where people feel a need to have this hugely angry response straightaway,” he explained. “Or they think the way to solve this problem is by having the neatest, zappiest, zingy-est putdown that deconstructs somebody else’s image of themselves. And all of this is not taking us anywhere good.”
The “Gladiator” star then pointed out the role of the media in shaping the opinions of the public. “The problem is actually the argument in itself,” Crowe added. “The fact that we feel the need to have such a strong opinion on things, when if in reality we broke it down, we are having an opinion of something that has already been told to us as a biased opinion.”
Russell Crowe hit it on the head in this interview. The corporate media, which I affectionately refer to as “the enemy of the people,” has adopted a “hunt-to-kill attitude” when it comes to enforcing its political agenda on those who transgress the holy precepts of the church of wokeism.
Over the past few years, the Fourth Estate has grown increasingly brazen in pushing its agenda and punishing those who do not fall in line. In early 2018, CNN publicly confronted a woman who promoted a pro-Trump social media account that was ostensibly created by Russian agents. The reporter badgered the woman on camera, asking if she knew she was involved with a supposedly Russian Facebook account.
But apparently, harassing an older lady wasn’t enough for CNN. Remember when they came after a Reddit user for creating a meme showing President Trump bodyslamming a wrestler WWE-style? The fake outrage that followed inspired the news outlet to uncover the identity of the meme maker and threaten to release his name to the public if he ran afoul of the Sanhedrin of Woke once more.
But even more recently, BuzzFeed threatened to unveil the identity of Carpe Donktum, a well-known pro-Trump meme maker. Donktum has become the Jedi Master of the world of memery, so it is not surprising that the corporate press would seek to intimidate him.
The reality is that left-leaning media has no problem threatening to place people in danger for having the wrong political opinions when it serves their fancy. It is not only people on the right who have warned about the danger of the left’s embrace of cancel culture. Journalist Matt Taibbi decried the increasing dominance of woke culture in the world of journalism. Former MSNBC producer Ariana Pekary recently published a blog post taking the media to task for its reliance on pushing outrage to boost ratings.
The dominance of woke culture in establishment media has become problematic in that it has led to large media outlets wielding their platforms as weapons against the opposition. But the real danger lies in the fact that these individuals are not limited to using cancel culture against famous celebrities whose lives might not change as much if they get canceled. These people will not hesitate to go after everyday citizens and ruin their lives if it helps them achieve their objectives.
Only when the American public starts pushing back will there be change in the Fourth Estate. Unfortunately, it does not appear that a backlash is on the horizon anytime soon.
Let me know what you think in the comments below!
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