Unlearn16: Class is in Session - The One Where I Paint Some Yellow Journalism

00:00:00.000 classes in session. Hey, everybody, and welcome to unlearn 16 classes in session guys paramenopause

00:00:10.740 is a situation I almost how my ear pods look, I almost just forgot the name of my podcast. I've

00:00:15.640 been doing it for five years. That's wild. I also found this fidget spinner for those of you can't

00:00:20.160 it's like a it's like a 3d printed model that you that you slide in out like fits together.

00:00:25.400 and I don't know if it's Anna's, but now I'm super distracted. Anyways, for those who are

00:00:30.400 just listening to me, it looks like a little red Christmas tree and an inner coil comes out of the

00:00:35.660 bottom and then you slide it back in. Nonetheless, not the point of this video. Today, you just get

00:00:42.080 me, but next week, I'm going to give you a teaser. Actually, you can wait to the end for the actual

00:00:47.620 hint, but next week's guest is going to be awesome. Just saying, I'm just saying

00:00:55.840 she's going to be awesome. Okay. I gave you a little bit of hint. There's a better hint coming

00:01:00.460 at the end. I hopefully my ADH brain will remember the hint at the end. If I don't remember it,

00:01:06.300 just put it in the comments. I don't know. I'll type it. Um, what do I want to talk about today?

00:01:11.120 Well, I think we have to get a legitimate and a rational view of what goes on with our news. Is it created and curated? I hate to be the bearer of bad news. Of course it is.

00:01:28.980 who's creating it, who's curating it, who has that power, and to what end. And I think

00:01:36.420 a lot of people like to talk about government. They like to talk about propaganda. They like

00:01:41.660 to talk about, you know, sort of governmental ability to obfuscate. Is that a word? Obfuscate?

00:01:50.500 cloud reality for its people to maintain power, yada, yada, yada. Sure. But I'm going to say this.

00:02:00.320 I believe that the news and information in general is controlled and curated,

00:02:07.680 curated, curated. I'm going to have a problem today. Not necessarily by government,

00:02:14.840 although government can be the conduit. I think it's always been controlled and curated by a

00:02:24.300 certain group of people, the people with money, the people with power, in order to do one thing.

00:02:32.700 And that one thing is more money. Even when, and we're going to speak about it today,

00:02:41.460 Even when we talk about war and the government propagandizing war and censoring and bolstering and all of the things they do through media, although now it's much more difficult, it's always been to the end of winning, getting support for the war and winning the war.

00:03:01.980 And what is that about?

00:03:03.540 It's about money.

00:03:06.120 The goal is always the same.

00:03:08.420 And I also want to stipulate

00:03:11.800 It's been going on since the dawn of time

00:03:15.020 It is not new

00:03:16.220 In fact, I would argue that

00:03:19.620 Right now, maybe just before AI

00:03:23.460 And I'll talk about AI at the end

00:03:25.720 But we've had the most access to the most information

00:03:30.040 Ever

00:03:31.740 Right now, we are the least

00:03:36.080 limited in news sources drawing from different realities, different perspective, different

00:03:43.060 points of view, different points of the world right now. The problem is now they flooded the

00:03:49.700 zone, right? It's just so much information. How do you know what's true? Who's selling it?

00:03:54.520 What they mean by it? All of those kinds of things. And let's be honest, me with a cell

00:03:58.680 phone somewhere is not the same as an investigative journalist. I'm going to be super clear about

00:04:03.800 that. So I want to talk about the history. I want to talk because I think we need to understand it

00:04:10.380 so we can stop pretending as though we're living in a unique time. We're not. We need to understand

00:04:16.040 the history. We need to understand the goals. And then I'm going to serve up. I'm going to

00:04:21.400 give you my possible solution. And not that it's going to be perfect, but I'm going to give it a

00:04:28.100 Anyways, number one, yellow journalism. As long as there's been the spread of information, as long as there's been a way that people have tried to negotiate and gain power and gain support and change anything from their community to their cities, to their towns, to their countries, there's always been a level of propaganda.

00:04:55.700 I mean, that's advertising, that's selling yourself. There's so many different words. Nobody rolls into the job interview and is 100% honest. No, no, no. Same with the relationship. You put your best foot forward and later they find out you don't want to hike.

00:05:10.060 um but in in more established senses as soon as we started establishing the flow

00:05:19.020 and the commercialization or the commodification of media and information

00:05:24.880 books newspapers right we were doing it for one purpose to sell to make money now

00:05:36.940 Some people could argue selling reality would make the most money

00:05:42.080 Sure, unfortunately, and this is where people come in

00:05:46.080 People don't necessarily want to buy, understand, go through all of the different levels that it takes

00:05:58.260 All the different intellectual capacities and bridges it would take to understand the goings-on of the real world

00:06:06.480 and what's going, you know, what's happening and what reality is. We kind of want bite-sized

00:06:11.440 versions. I think we've always wanted bite-sized versions. We've just gotten to a point where the

00:06:16.480 bites are about 30 seconds. Bites have just gotten smaller and we're not really chewing our food. We

00:06:22.600 just swallow it and hope it doesn't get caught in our throat. I love a good metaphor. Well, let's go

00:06:27.760 back to yellow journalism. So yellow journalism was this idea that if you sensationalize the

00:06:33.520 heading okay yellow journalism i think was born i and i'm gonna i'm gonna get this wrong and

00:06:38.700 somebody's gonna call me on it i believe it was born um of in a newspaper genre i think about the

00:06:46.780 the uh american uh spanish-american war but this idea that if you sensationalized an idea

00:06:55.280 um what happened that more people you know you just you just made it a bit bigger you made the

00:07:02.120 headline a little bit bigger that people would want to buy in. So there's another famous headline

00:07:10.860 that says, if it bleeds, it leads, right? That people, if given the option, they would rather

00:07:20.760 see a headline that infers horrific, horrific, catastrophic realities. And you're much more

00:07:31.160 likely to pick that up in order to get the whole story. And you might be disappointed

00:07:40.400 by the story, but they don't care. You just picked up the paper. So who cares? The accuracy

00:07:45.420 of the story becomes a secondary issue. That's been around since the late 1800s. If it bleeds,

00:07:56.400 it leads, this idea of yellow journalism, sensationalized storytelling, using exaggeration

00:08:03.320 and hyperbole to draw you in, to leave you as a cliffhanger. All of that has always been true.

00:08:12.920 Why? To sell papers. You guys ever seen the movie Newsies? Highly suggested. But it's to sell

00:08:18.380 papers is to sell the story. Because for the most part, people's lives are boring. You go to work

00:08:27.480 for eight hours a day. Back in the 1800s, my God. There's a level of wanting to be entertained a

00:08:33.860 little bit. So you go through that and you see, okay, well, that makes sense. You have newspapers

00:08:42.740 and very few. Let's remember that back in that day, we would have had a lot of monopolistic

00:08:48.100 formation, right? But you have newspapers wanting to sell and wanting to serve a certain element of

00:08:54.560 the public. Do I think there would have been an agreement or a tacit underpinning between

00:09:01.620 major newspapers and the government? Of course. Of course there will be. There will always be,

00:09:07.500 but make no mistakes, it's always about money. So they run the right stories, they get the right

00:09:12.360 breaks. They give support to the right politicians. They get the right zoning legislation or they get

00:09:19.340 the right tax break, whatever the case may be. These connections, these pieces haven't necessarily

00:09:26.400 been how do I control and manipulate the public? It's how do I get the public to buy in so the

00:09:34.400 bottom line is to make more money? We'll go to World War I. So World War I, I know a lot of you 0.79

00:09:39.440 guys would have taken history and you would have done World War I. And one of the major assignments

00:09:43.060 every teacher always does is this idea of propaganda. Those propaganda posters of World

00:09:51.340 War I were awesome. It was awesome because there's no counterbalance to the story.

00:09:59.380 So the United States, the Canadian government and the United States government and every

00:10:03.820 world government, puts forward advertisements to get young men to join, voluntarily join the war

00:10:14.260 effort. And in Canada, it was always these really sort of pseudo-cartoony drawings of young white

00:10:23.840 men, because let's be clear, in the beginning, it was deemed the white man's war. Why? Because

00:10:29.740 Canada was horrifically discriminatory, bigoted at that time. They didn't want anybody else

00:10:35.740 joining. Don't worry, they'll change their mind as soon as they need people, which is, in all

00:10:40.360 fairness, how everything changes in this world. It doesn't change because we realize we're bigots.

00:10:44.380 It doesn't change because we think everybody deserves human rights. It changes because

00:10:47.780 the government and the people in the industry realize that we need those people to do better.

00:10:52.200 And all of a sudden you get voting rights for women and African-Americans have more rights.

00:10:57.100 It's, it's, it's done for practical purposes. I don't think it's ever been done one time for

00:11:03.280 ethical or moral reasons. I could cite the civil war in the United States, but I'm not going to

00:11:07.860 go that far back. So World War I, you have these pictures of these young men pointing the, a gun

00:11:15.360 thrown over their shoulder, huge smile on their face. And these images would say things like,

00:11:21.580 Come see new places, investigate new lands, protect people across the globe, whatever it was selling, right? Clearly a lie. Clearly. Now, to what end? Was it really because we thought we were the good guys, they were the bad guys?

00:11:42.880 Well, not in World War I, guys. World War I, if you look at the foundations of World War I and how it happened and why it happened, it was never good guys versus bad guys. It was all of these leading factors. You had rampant imperialism. Why do you have rampant imperialism? Well, to make more money.

00:12:03.000 you had a heavy level of militarization why well because the industrial revolution it just spawned

00:12:10.100 all of this stuff ahead you did have this idea this sort of notion that that our way of life

00:12:17.160 was better and therefore we got to go teach them how to be how to be better you know as we are

00:12:22.580 um but nonetheless again that was all leading to if everybody's doing things our way our way

00:12:30.920 makes us more money, makes us more secure, makes us grow. That's the end game. And let's be crystal

00:12:39.840 clear, war is about making countries money, selling to the right people, creating all of

00:12:46.780 these munitions, creating guns, creating tanks, creating bullets. All of this stuff had huge,

00:12:53.160 huge economic impacts to who? Only the winning country. War is a moneymaker to the country who

00:13:01.860 wins. So it makes perfect sense that that level of propaganda would be pushed there.

00:13:08.040 Now, when we're talking in the late 1800s and early 1900s, we talk about literature and who

00:13:12.980 was allowed to write and why they were allowed to write. Well, it was all men. Particularly, 0.99

00:13:18.140 it was all white men well to what end well because they controlled that industry right that culture 0.69

00:13:26.760 that belief system any woman that tried to write well they used pen names they used fake they used

00:13:32.500 pseudonyms in order to get their work published and in order to get it distributed because it

00:13:38.340 it had weight it had meaning it had purpose but gatekeepers were there in order to make sure that

00:13:45.820 only certain people's ideas got hurt. Well, to what end? The publishing gatekeeping is probably

00:13:56.180 one of the most significant things that nobody ever really talks about, right? We don't have

00:14:04.340 that issue anymore. But if you have a place like Random House or Penguin or whatever, whatever

00:14:09.860 publishing company, they get to decide what has value and what doesn't. But I promise you,

00:14:16.500 they're deciding what has value and what doesn't based on the market of the day.

00:14:22.360 Not what is good. Not what is true. Not what is brilliant. Not what has foresight. What will sell?

00:14:33.760 Let's take that in

00:14:36.420 Because I think it's so incredibly important

00:14:40.440 When we look at the shape of things

00:14:42.560 Because as World War II ramps up

00:14:47.920 Everything shifts a little bit as well 0.59

00:14:50.920 Because World War II is about to bring with it

00:14:53.760 Television

00:14:54.680 Right?

00:14:57.900 Is about to bring with it certain video imagery

00:15:01.420 of what went on in World War II. And so now we need to carefully curate that.

00:15:08.340 What gets on TV? How does it get on TV? Who has access to that technology? Who has access

00:15:14.060 to that messaging? What messaging is going to serve the nation? And why do we want it

00:15:20.420 to serve the nation? Say it with me, because it makes us money. So in World War II, the

00:15:26.020 propaganda wasn't, you couldn't really sell it the same way as you sold the first one,

00:15:30.160 right? Because all those young men who were convinced and those families that were convinced

00:15:36.820 to send their 18 year old boys off to war, that it was going to be this incredible, amazing

00:15:45.160 experience. And, and it, you know, everybody would want to join this adventure. You can't

00:15:50.940 sell it that way anymore. It doesn't work because they're like, you are lying.

00:15:57.520 it. So what do they do? Well, they shift. Now, obviously, World War II has some evil, horrific

00:16:08.180 villains. Obviously, there's no question about it. But funnily enough, in Canada, those

00:16:19.320 villains, the rise of that of that kind of mentality and ideology that was rampant over

00:16:26.000 Canada. It was rampant over Canada as well, because we'd just gone through the Great

00:16:32.560 Depression. Everybody was desperate. Nobody had money. It was scary. It was violent. It was

00:16:39.300 devastating. And so in that condition, people tend to turn to radical extreme ideologies that

00:16:48.420 say, don't worry. I know who's to blame. Them over there. And them always changes. Them over there.

00:16:57.980 I'll get rid of them. I'll deal with them. And I'm going to make your life better. And what is 0.99

00:17:02.180 your life? What is the primary driver of your life? Economic security. Economic security.

00:17:11.440 So listen to me. So we had huge problems in Canada. Want to know why we didn't care about

00:17:15.080 World War II, even though we joined relatively early. We joined relatively early because we

00:17:20.840 want to be on Britain's team. We want to be on the winning side. I wish it had to do with morality

00:17:28.160 and ethics. I do not believe it did. There's a reason why World War II really started when

00:17:34.680 Germany took over the port in Poland, right? And then it was about six months of a phony war. 0.71

00:17:42.300 nobody wanted to go to war because a they know it was horrible b they can't they have no way of

00:17:46.760 convincing anybody of how to join and and the only time we ever had a significant push wasn't with

00:17:54.160 the the destruction of minorities wasn't with taking away their civil rights wasn't with the 0.67

00:17:59.960 horrific levels of anti-semitism anti-communist sentiment the way they treated gays the romani

00:18:08.020 It doesn't matter. None of that mattered. As soon as they stepped into Poland and took that port, we went rut row. Well, why money? So now we have a shift in propaganda, right? We have a shift to say, well, now we're fighting evil. 0.85

00:18:26.620 And then you started seeing, it was no longer propaganda imagery of the kid pointing and saying, oh, I'm going to have a great adventure. It was propaganda of the evil on the other side.

00:18:43.540 And so now the images were, you're not joining to get a better life, to see the world. You're joining to fight evil, the Japanese and the German. 0.98

00:18:54.640 Now, again, I'm not going to disagree with the evils of war and what was going on, especially in Germany. But I am saying this. Right before we invaded and chose up a team, our government didn't care. Our people didn't care. 0.92

00:19:14.460 Some of the biggest billionaires in the United States, or not billionaires, millionaires at the time, didn't care, and they sided with what Germany was doing. 0.69

00:19:23.620 Want to know why?

00:19:25.620 Because he was a capitalist.

00:19:30.380 So you had big money making decisions and pushing in different ways to ensure certain things happened in order to make more big money and secure more money.

00:19:44.460 so world war ii rolls around that ends people get stories and and as it comes back television

00:19:56.660 is sort of front and center right 50s television 50s and 60s tv was on all the time as soon as

00:20:04.020 everybody could afford that one black and white in their living room it was on 24 7 what do we

00:20:08.980 put on that television station? Entertainment. How do we entertain? How do we get families

00:20:17.820 to focus? And in the beginning, in the fifties, we had this huge economic boom. So it was

00:20:23.360 flat out entertainment at all times. How do we draw people in? How do we make them laugh? How

00:20:29.240 do we give them a break in their day? How do we keep them watching? And you keep them watching

00:20:35.440 for one reason, so that they watch the advertisements, so the advertisements that are paid, pay for

00:20:42.820 the program that they are watching. The program survives based on the advertiser's revenue

00:20:51.800 of that program. Now, do I think that advertisers could have a vested interest in certain political

00:21:01.120 outcomes in order to bolster sure can advertisers then kill the news and television programs of

00:21:07.820 course i'll get to that soon but again even when it seems as though it's a polit it's strictly

00:21:16.060 political and ideological i still make the argument it's it feels ideological

00:21:22.060 To make more money

00:21:24.680 It's not ideological

00:21:27.300 They are not fighting

00:21:29.220 For moral and ethical

00:21:31.360 Reasons

00:21:34.340 To gain something

00:21:37.940 Objectively right

00:21:39.700 Their morality

00:21:44.880 Will never cost them money

00:21:47.160 And there's a reason for that

00:21:48.580 Because their morality and their ethics

00:21:50.160 Do not come first

00:21:52.060 the government's, the company's, period. So we then roll into Vietnam. And Vietnam is this,

00:22:06.700 well, I guess pre-Vietnam, we realize the power, I'm mid-Vietnam, we start to realize the power

00:22:14.640 of television. So Vietnam becomes the first, and let me be very clear, only fully televised,

00:22:23.540 almost uncensored war, because I don't know if they knew the ramifications.

00:22:31.440 It was all of this ability to garner kind of footage, throw it on TV. And this is actually

00:22:41.480 quite interesting. Because everybody says it's the media that shut that war down. Well, I'm going

00:22:49.780 to say two things. It didn't shut the war down. You understand? The war went on until 1975. All

00:22:56.560 the protests in the streets didn't amount to anything. It ended when it ended because it was

00:23:01.020 done, because money didn't make sense anymore. But I'm also going to say this. The reason why

00:23:06.720 it was a fully televised war is because people

00:23:08.740 wanted to watch

00:23:09.520 it might have drawn a lot of

00:23:14.500 criticism

00:23:14.900 people might have hated

00:23:19.000 the war right

00:23:20.540 and they did a lot of people did

00:23:22.340 but

00:23:24.160 man did it make people

00:23:26.600 glue to their seats

00:23:28.020 watch that war

00:23:30.100 so there was this

00:23:32.300 controversial

00:23:33.800 contributing or

00:23:35.480 counterbalance to, well, on a television show, they want to sit down, they want to watch TV,

00:23:43.220 and they're watching all of this footage because it's brilliant and because they know, and it

00:23:48.860 keeps them in their seats and they watch the advertisements because they're waiting for this

00:23:52.180 horrific footage to come out. Because again, if it bleeds, it leads. Make no mistake. It had this

00:23:57.980 negative side effect, but the war itself made money, made money for those television stations,

00:24:05.740 made money for those news programs. It made money. It captured people in their seats.

00:24:11.000 So there's a reason the government didn't have a blanket censorship law.

00:24:17.720 What's more powerful? Propaganda. You don't think the government could have shut it down?

00:24:23.580 Of course they could have. Bigger fish to fry, guys. Bigger fish to fry. It's actually probably an example of how money wins out over politics and governmental propaganda. Money wins out.

00:24:42.700 The money of war and televising it wins out over the propaganda or the needed control factor the government would have wanted in order to spin that war.

00:24:59.680 But it is the last fully televised war and there's also reasons for that.

00:25:06.880 Now, in the middle of this war, you also have the power of TV come into play.

00:25:10.360 Again, a little piece of propaganda, a little piece of how do we control, how do we manipulate. And I'm saying all this not just to say the oligarchs and the government and people in power, but guys, we bought in, right?

00:25:23.740 Let's not undervalue

00:25:26.520 The only reason money is getting made

00:25:29.940 Throughout yellow journalism

00:25:32.080 Whatever form it's going to take throughout the years

00:25:34.360 Whether it be a newspaper by Hertz and Pulitzer in the 1800s

00:25:38.160 Or the National Enquirer

00:25:39.820 Or Entertainment Tonight

00:25:41.540 It doesn't matter

00:25:42.200 We're buying in

00:25:44.060 That's us

00:25:45.280 That's our weakness

00:25:47.640 That's our failure

00:25:49.960 That's our short-sighted

00:25:53.740 ability and desire to want to be entertained rather than informed. That's on us. I can't

00:26:02.540 blame somebody else for that. So right around that same era, you would have had JFK going up

00:26:09.180 against Nixon in the first televised political debate. And right here, you're about to learn that

00:26:15.340 But the perception of things is the only thing. So you have JFK, young, good-looking guy, coming on TV for the first time, but his camp understands the media a little bit. He gets a tan. He calls ahead. He finds out the background is going to be a light-colored background, so he wears a dark suit, right?

00:26:37.420 Every time he speaks during that debate, for the most part, he speaks directly to the camera as though he were speaking to the American public. Nixon, who's way, way more accredited, way more experienced, in all fairness, way more intelligent politically, whether you agree with him or not, neither here nor there.

00:26:57.420 um when he gets to the stage he realizes oh kennedy had a tan so i'm going to use makeup he

00:27:03.860 uses makeup halfway through the thing the heat of the lights is melting him like a wax figure

00:27:08.100 number one number two he wanted to wear a light color suit to look like more of a man of the

00:27:13.040 people he blended right into the background because he never thought to check that to check

00:27:17.420 that background coloration and number three every time he spoke because he was used to debating and

00:27:24.100 winning a debate in real time against an opponent, he looked directly at Kennedy. He wasn't used to

00:27:31.020 having to win over the audience. He was used to beating his opponent. And when you look at your

00:27:36.700 opponent and you make points and you make them uncomfortable, that's how you win. So anybody who

00:27:44.980 listened to the debate, Nixon won hands down, Democrat and Republican alike. Anybody that saw

00:27:50.340 that debate, said JFK won it, hands down, Democratic and Republican alike. Well, what does

00:27:58.320 that say? Everything we are just shifted. Now, it's not to say that prior to that, there weren't

00:28:05.380 gatekeepers. What made the news? What didn't make the news? And I also want to point out this.

00:28:10.720 It's just as important to check bias about what makes the news. Are you telling the full story?

00:28:16.700 Because I think the full story, I think we've undervalued a lot of our investigative journalists because I think they're incredible about how they research the story, the vetting, everything that goes into before you put that kind of stuff on a news broadcast or in a paper.

00:28:36.840 What we don't talk about enough, I don't think, isn't the ethics or the goal of those reporters to do their job, it's not the bias of the stories that are told, but the bias of the stories they chose not to tell.

00:28:56.660 i think the biggest method of control is limiting information i think that's changed today but is

00:29:10.700 limiting information what was left out purposefully what was left out because our culture

00:29:17.740 and our intelligence and our awareness is limited what wasn't being said

00:29:23.380 because as a citizen as an educator as a as a student i can't possibly understand the bias

00:29:35.060 about what wasn't said how do i know the stories that weren't told i can check now the stories

00:29:41.460 that are told and we'll talk about that in a bit you check the bias you you double check information

00:29:47.220 You can try to vet it yourself. It is important, but what didn't get told? What story wasn't

00:29:57.500 covered? And not just because they've decided it's not worth it, because the people don't

00:30:02.260 want to listen to it, because it's too hard to understand, it's too complicated. That's

00:30:05.780 problem number one. Problem number two is also what story doesn't make us money? Problem

00:30:12.680 number two, meaning does it cost us more money than it's going to make us? Does it cost us money

00:30:17.440 with advertisers? Does it cost us money with governments? What's going to cost us money?

00:30:21.860 There's a ratio there. And number three, and this is the real scary one, we live,

00:30:29.460 we have for quite a while, and I'm assuming every country does, we live in this cultural

00:30:35.900 echo chamber about what's important, what has value, what has weight, and what do we just simply

00:30:44.320 not understand. The reason why diversity is so incredibly important in our media outlets

00:30:49.120 is for diversity of thought, is to say, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, this story in Sri Lanka that

00:30:54.060 you're missing, you don't understand it because you don't understand the culture, you don't

00:30:57.300 understand the language, you don't understand the history and the ripple effect because you're so

00:31:00.880 wrapped up in what happens in North America or Western Europe. Those are incredibly important

00:31:08.200 caveats. And like I said, I mean, all of this is shifting today, but with the shift that we have

00:31:15.260 today comes something else. So we have Vietnam, we have the shift to televised war. And then we

00:31:25.000 come to the Gulf War, the first Gulf War, 91, and the American government recognizes,

00:31:35.340 as does everybody, war on TV makes money. But if we can curate war on TV, it can make news money.

00:31:47.520 We can use propaganda to control it. And then we can still make money off the back end as well

00:31:54.520 as a government, and I think a deal was hatched. So in this war, for example, it wasn't unfettered

00:32:03.280 journalism, right? It wasn't fully televised and uncensored. It was heavily, heavily curated and

00:32:08.700 censored. So if you were part of the media, you would be put in media pools. You would stay in

00:32:13.540 one particular hotel. A general would walk in once or twice a day, give you the news of the day.

00:32:19.840 you're not going to find it you're there just to hear it in in country but in a very closed

00:32:28.960 limited curated system if any journalist was going to leave that system they would and they

00:32:36.620 would do this they would have to go with military escorts and those military escorts would take them

00:32:43.060 to places they wanted to take them when they wanted to take them and they would make sure

00:32:46.900 that the picture and the imagery was exactly what they wanted them to see. And then CNN ran that war

00:32:53.180 for 24 hours a day for the entire duration. My mom watched it as though she thought she was

00:32:59.960 watching reality. Smart bomb after smart bomb after smart bomb hitting the target. Do you know

00:33:05.540 in that war, number one, they use the same video on loop. Number two, only 7% of all the bombs

00:33:12.040 dropped were smart bombs? 7%. So even if the smart bombs were 100% effective, let's assume they were,

00:33:23.760 they weren't, but let's assume they were. Let's assume that every video, this idea of a smart

00:33:30.080 bomb, 7% of what was dropped, but that's all we ever talked about during that war. During that

00:33:37.480 war they created playing cards like like bubble gum baseball cards operation desert storm yellow

00:33:46.860 ribbon campaign you could trade you have a cut there was gum in the packages you could trade

00:33:53.020 an osama bin laden for a george w bush for this missile for that tank baseball cards

00:33:59.820 They created this yellow ribbon campaign

00:34:06.160 You tie a yellow ribbon around a tree

00:34:08.780 Show your support for the troops

00:34:10.760 You know what all those things have in common?

00:34:14.780 Heaven help us

00:34:15.540 They all make money

00:34:18.200 Again

00:34:22.840 The curation and control of information

00:34:26.920 what's going to keep people in their seats what's going to make them buy the baseball cards what's

00:34:34.220 going to make them turn on their television buy the paper what's going to make them buy into

00:34:38.500 what up what's going to keep them there number two if i can partner that with what emotionally

00:34:47.740 keeps them invested and supporting the war if i can do both things at the same time

00:34:53.660 There's money to be made on both levels

00:34:57.600 And so here we are

00:35:01.280 And not to mention, again, owners of major publications

00:35:06.580 And major television networks

00:35:10.620 Direct ties, direct links to the people who get elected

00:35:14.440 Direct ties and direct links to the laws that get made

00:35:19.560 To the restrictions that get enforced

00:35:22.700 whatever the case may be.

00:35:30.480 So we have that war.

00:35:35.900 And then we have the shift, and I realize I'm skipping a lot,

00:35:39.800 but like, and then we have the shift in the early 2000s.

00:35:45.660 And we have the shift in the creation of the internet.

00:35:48.900 i think this changes everything

00:35:54.780 um and it changes everything that and this shift in in a crazy way also coincides with 9-11 so you

00:36:07.020 have 9-11 happening 2001 september 11th obviously and then you you almost right on its tail end

00:36:14.320 Right on its tail end, you have the explosion of the internet, information at mass, and then you have that overwhelming access to information, the obsification of who we're fighting, why we're fighting.

00:36:39.900 You have this idea of the war against terror. So rather than clearly legitimize what's going on in war, you cloud it all. You cloud it all in like, you never know where they're going to be. They could be over there. They could be over there. 9-11 cost 3,000 lives, but what it really cost was a boatload of economic potential.

00:36:58.700 not only like you you can't find osama bin laden all of a sudden there's a gear shift

00:37:05.020 going into iraq iraq arresting saddam hussein him getting hanged in their public square why

00:37:11.120 power money

00:37:14.000 you were american after 9-11 you were terrified that that was going to happen twice how did the

00:37:21.660 biggest industrial militarized power in the world not see that coming and how come we couldn't stop

00:37:26.580 it. Well, because will, will, the will to get something done will always, will always

00:37:36.280 surmount, overcome military might. It just will. And nobody wants to talk about that.

00:37:44.060 So they distract from that. And then all of a sudden you started seeing the, the advent

00:37:51.500 Of entertainment news

00:37:53.800 And I think it was twofold

00:37:56.300 Number one

00:37:57.040 We were freaking overwhelmed

00:37:59.340 We were overwhelmed with news

00:38:04.360 We were overwhelmed with information

00:38:06.800 And we wanted a way to shut off our brain

00:38:09.440 And eventually CNN wasn't playing fake wars

00:38:12.760 They were talking about the Kim Kardashian's latest breakups

00:38:15.600 We liked it

00:38:17.320 That's us

00:38:19.200 We turned off real news programs in favor of Fox News because it was entertainment.

00:38:24.840 It's been categorized as such.

00:38:27.460 We did that.

00:38:29.040 We didn't pick up a newspaper anymore.

00:38:31.040 We picked up an acquirer.

00:38:32.260 We did that.

00:38:34.900 Because all of a sudden we realized that actually being informed was hard work.

00:38:41.900 We didn't want that.

00:38:44.560 It was exhausting.

00:38:46.420 And with the advent of the internet, we have all of this information at our fingertips.

00:38:51.720 And what do we look up?

00:38:53.580 Latest rumors of cheating scandals in Hollywood.

00:38:57.520 What?

00:39:00.960 What?

00:39:02.220 It's an amazing distraction, though.

00:39:05.000 It's an incredible distraction.

00:39:07.260 We wanted it.

00:39:09.080 We have everything at our fingertips, and we're still claiming to be controlled.

00:39:13.720 Why?

00:39:13.980 Well, now what's happened is there's been a flood of information. So on the internet, how do you discern what is true, what is real, what is manufactured? And you used to be able to sort of delineate between sources.

00:39:31.680 But now our real problem is the advent of AI

00:39:36.560 And with the advent of AI

00:39:38.180 You can't trust your eyes

00:39:40.600 You can't trust your ears

00:39:42.720 I can't trust a picture anymore

00:39:44.560 You can't trust a video

00:39:46.500 And if you can't trust those things

00:39:49.880 Investigative journalism

00:39:53.120 Becomes very, very difficult

00:39:56.660 To trust at all

00:40:01.680 And now, and this is where the current administration of the United States is, unfortunately, very, very intelligent at this.

00:40:15.280 The creation of fake news, the idea that some news, not all news, is actually justifiable, is actually real.

00:40:23.740 if you highlight that enough people start to question everything and as soon as people start

00:40:33.400 to question everything especially with the rise of ai because now there's this legitimate reason

00:40:37.900 to question everything they can believe nothing and if they believe nothing if they if they can't

00:40:45.440 believe anything, then they're truly at the mercy of individuals who can best wield and

00:40:56.900 manipulate a story in order to sell so you believe in them, not in the story.

00:41:06.300 That's what it's come down to.

00:41:08.040 If I can make you believe in the person

00:41:13.460 In the cult

00:41:15.060 In the individual themselves

00:41:18.920 Everybody's lying to you guys

00:41:21.960 Just trust me

00:41:22.960 I know what the truth is

00:41:24.520 And the goal is still the same

00:41:27.120 The goal is still about money

00:41:30.240 You think that bad stories about Trump

00:41:34.400 and him threatening news agencies and all of this stuff.

00:41:39.340 It's all play.

00:41:41.440 It's all a play, guys.

00:41:44.040 It's all political theater.

00:41:47.900 Right?

00:41:49.680 The slow monopolization of media is a play.

00:42:00.920 It's a play to make us not trust that media.

00:42:04.400 ever. But if we don't trust that media ever, if I can't trust a story ever, if I keep waiting for

00:42:13.180 the newsroom, you guys ever see the newsroom with Jeff Daniels, incredible show. If I keep waiting

00:42:17.780 for billionaires to decide they're going to use their power and their ethics to, to spread the

00:42:26.960 truth. We have two problems with that. Number one, I don't know if that person exists. Might

00:42:32.320 be waiting a hell of a long time. And number two, how will we know in this era, in this

00:42:46.200 time, if that's the truth? Because they've been able to discredit all clear lines of

00:42:59.700 reporting and of truth telling. And number three, and this is the worst one. Are you ready?

00:43:06.900 I don't think the public wants the truth.

00:43:14.520 The truth about the economy, the truth about the political system and representation,

00:43:20.060 the truth about the environmental degradation we are putting upon this planet. I don't think

00:43:24.700 any of us want the truth. I think for the most part, we want comfortable lies.

00:43:31.800 We want a clear enemy so that you go off and that person, you're going to get rid of that person

00:43:37.500 because that group of people, whoever they are, and remember, it doesn't matter who they are,

00:43:41.000 as long as they're a minority that can't fight back and can't really control the narrative.

00:43:45.740 I can get rid of them. I can control your future better. You will have more food on the table, 0.96

00:43:51.680 a house, you know, a nice house and roof over your head. Your kids will be fine. They'll go

00:43:57.200 to school. Everything's going to be okay. Your way of life's not going to change. I'm going to

00:44:00.980 promise you that. Just believe me. Everything else is background. Just believe me.

00:44:08.920 Don't look too deep into economics. It's too hard, guys. It's too hard for our brains.

00:44:14.260 We're not educated enough. Don't look too deep into politics. It's too convoluted.

00:44:17.920 don't try to understand history too deep don't try to play you don't have time you work you know

00:44:25.600 eight ten hours a day you have three kids you have a family you got to make sure that roof

00:44:29.740 isn't leaking you worry about you i'll worry about the rest i don't think the public wants it

00:44:35.040 we want a national inquirer

00:44:41.120 In this age of we can know everything, we literally almost want to know nothing.

00:44:50.600 We want to think the solutions are simplistic and painless.

00:44:55.100 We want to think technology will save us.

00:44:57.880 And for the most part, the majority of us are all waiting for the billionaire to come along with a conscience to lead the world down the right path, whatever the hell that means.

00:45:16.200 So, do I think we have a problem?

00:45:21.840 Do we have the solutions? Absolutely.

00:45:24.160 I think part of the solutions would establish that if you want to consider yourself a democratic nation, a truly democratic nation in the pursuit of truth, you have at least one television station dedicated to such.

00:45:37.640 One television station that nobody touches, that has a consistent economic basis, that is required to have different perspectives on that show, that is required to vet and be held accountable by the court system, by judicial externalities to make sure they are telling.

00:45:59.520 And when they don't tell the truth, that they own it, that they go back and that they actually change the...

00:46:06.280 It needs to not be contingent about who's in government, what advertisers they're putting on air.

00:46:14.800 But the second part of that solution is the real big problem.

00:46:18.800 Let's assume we could create that.

00:46:20.700 this diverse news agency that did nothing did nothing but run news story heavily vetted and

00:46:32.700 and and diverse in its opinion and its background in its agency and everything 24 7 because the

00:46:40.880 second part of that story that nobody wants to admit that everybody wants to throw their hands

00:46:46.260 up and say, but that's not the real problem

00:46:48.140 is us. Are we going to watch

00:46:50.260 it? Dismissed.

Unlearn16: Class is in Session - April 14, 2026

The One Where I Paint Some Yellow Journalism

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