Today's Mainstream Media are Choosing Sides

It’s 12 in the afternoon, downtown South Jakarta, in a mall’s food court filled with people and I’m waiting for a friend. While I was waiting, I was reading a book called “Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki” written by a Japanese author, Haruki Murakami. Just bought it recently at a bookstore nearby, and I’m already diving deep into the story! “Aww, poor Tsukuru!” I said, finding out what had happened that made him colorless. The book was entertaining, but was not enough to kill time and the annoying feeling of waiting for someone that supposed to be here half an hour ago. As I wait for my friend to come, I sat down on a chair, with my eyes pondering around the court. One by one looking at each person that passed by. Seems like no one that I actually know are here. Strangers after strangers, I became impatient enough to shout deep down in my heart “Where on Earth is he??”. As soon as that came out, I sighed and let him be late. I was all alone sitting on a chair in the food court when everyone else was laughing and enjoying their time with their dear friends and family, overthinking about my miserable life. Then, suddenly my phone ringed. *BEEPIDIBOPIDIBOOP* I reached out to my phone in my pocket and quickly check what’s going on. At first I thought it was one of those cool kids in campus, spamming the group chat how cool it is to hang outside of the campus with them. But well, what do you know?! It’s a message from the academics division reaching for students who are interested in joining the University of Science Malaysia’s IMPACT18. I quickly took notice of it and began contacting the division. First, I was going to sign up for the Public Speaking contest, but my mind held me back and said “Dude, you cannot even talk to girls! How are you going to manage winning that contest, if every words you spill out of that mouth are incomprehensible and creepy enough for even a girl with quadrillion zits on her face to run as far as she could from you?”, and soon as that unsupportive voice came out I quickly changed my mind. Looking at the available contests, my soul clicked on Feature Writing faster than Usain Bolt running from the Olympics to a 7/11 for some free Slurpees. I thought writing was my kind of thing. I knew I had the words, but never really the voice to speak it out. Right on that moment, I made the decision to join the writing contest and dedicate myself everyday on this article.

Pondering as always, inside a mall all by myself (again), I was clueless on what should I write about in this article. I also happened to be sitting in front of the food court’s TV. Then out of nowhere, a question pops up in my mind. “What if the political things we see on mainstream media are all fabricated and heavily scripted?” I asked myself. I know it sounds like Trump and the right wings are getting into my head yelling “FAKE NEWS!”, but no. What if it is possible and what are the consequences we on earth might face for having major media companies controlling our opinions and decisions? When that question pop up, I started my deep analysis through this issue. 

  After countless of hours spent on research, watching commentary videos online and inspecting the mainstream media itself, I came out with a solid conclusion that the mainstream media is blatantly bias. Two real life examples are the frenzy between Fox News and CNN in the United States. After Trump got elected as President in 2016, it became clear who these two major media politically side with. They now function more as advocates and cheerleaders than they do as actual reporters. Fox News is constantly leaning towards a Pro-Trump and Conservative Republicans support, while CNN supports everything the Liberal Democrats and Anti-Trump stands for. This leads the mainstream media into a narrative that any opposing point of views they disagree with are bad and their loyal viewers must oppose those opposing POVs, often by blurring the lines between opinions and facts, accepting opinions as facts and taking things out of context. The mainstream media became what I called “One Eyed Media”, where they only see one point of view as facts and evidence, and shoving their viewers with one agenda. This means that these media are in no way neutral and would likely report biased headlines rather than standing in between it.  I do not need to show some crazy charts or provide some secret documents to prove these claims because just like what I concluded from my analysis, they are being blatantly bias. I mean, try turning on your TV or go online and check out their political headlines. 9 times out of 10, you’ll see headlines either supporting their political preferences, or bashing the opposing side. One real life example is during the 2016 US Presidential Election. Again, look it up online and see how many of Trump’s speeches aired on Fox News versus CNN. It’s most likely 9 out of 10 aired on Fox News than CNN. Same goes to Clinton’s speeches, 9 out of 10 of it is aired on CNN than Fox News. There you have it, they somehow thinks it’s a good idea to choose sides rather than reporting both!

Also, let’s point out that they do not like anyone who criticize them and will do anything to take them out of the picture. Starting by sensationalizing them with what they called the “HOT NEWS”. You can take an example from the heat between the Wall Street Journal and famous youtuber, Felix Kjellberg (also known as PewDiePie). Obviously, I’m just going to simplify the story to you because of the words limit sake. Long story short, Felix once made satirical videos that unintentionally offended trigger happy folks online. WSJ took a notice of this, then decide to make a full article, taking things in the video out of context and label Felix as a Nazi Fascist. As a result, the article they made affected Felix heavily, losing him his own company (Revelmode), a Youtube Red series in production and a business contract with Disney. Felix then made a response denying the allegation and criticize WSJ for taking things out of context. And then of course, the whole mainstream media hopped on to the wagon and began spreading the same shit over and over again, enough for trigger happy folks online to rant on social media. Affecting Youtube, as a whole. Sensation is truly a lucrative business to these media.

Now, I know what you are thinking. “So, what? Why should we care? It doesn’t affect our lives!” you thought. Look, it may not affect our lives individually, but it will eventually affect all of us as a society. We should care, otherwise they’ll keep steering the narrative and the public’s opinion! With the mainstream media being blatantly bias, many things went unreported and uncovered. Many things like reports that involves science in it were misinterpreted too. Often enough, people and things they don’t like gets unfair coverages with mere opinions as their facts and evidence. But for those they chose to side with, it’s all positive headlines and nothing to criticize about. It’s clear where they are heading towards today. Instead of reporting for the interests of everyone while still staying neutral, they decided to go with the interests of their conglomerates and whichever group of people pay them the most. Sadly, these media has already affected many people. From the 212 movement in Indonesia, to the ANTIFA group in the US. These are the aggressive oppressive groups of people born from swallowing down their throat whatever the mainstream media narrative sensationalized. Let’s not forget that it also affects normal day-to-day people’s opinions. Here in Indonesia, It’s rare to see any positive headline about Israel or any other social groups like the LGBTQ and Flat Earthers. I am not saying this because I agree with them or defined myself as gay, but trying to point out that the mainstream media here are being 100% bias and quickly labelling these ideologies as bad instead of reporting and covering their pros and cons. And with that constant unfair coverages, these groups receive constant negative feedbacks from the majority of normal people here in Indonesia. That’s why we should care, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. We must realize that everything has two different sides and these major media should not cover just one side of the story, but both. It is their responsibility as journalists to reveal the whole truth, not the fabricated one. 

In this tiny room I sleep in, I saved the file and shutdown my notebook. Finally done with the feature article that will define my future as a writer. Competent or not, least I did it and finished it at the end with not more than 2000 words. I’ve proven the jury that this words limit rule is a piece of cake. No cutting out paragraphs needed. Easy peasy lemon squeezy. No reference was needed too, as anyone even myself who are open minded enough could see through their “scripted” news. Scripted with a little bit of flavor for the supported groups. I then stretched my arms wide and yawned, thinking what a journey writing this article is. I’ve never felt joy writing like this before. And now I’m up on my bed, ready for the nightmares of not winning this competition to come. Also wishing readers luck and thanking them for reading it.