The Use of the Media

In 2005, Project Censored chose this story among its top 25 most important, titled “The Media Can Legally Lie,” and lie they’ve done about 9/11 from that day to the present. Those old enough to remember won’t forget, including how media lies turned it into perhaps the most hyped ever event, especially on television. The media bends and stretches the truth to the point that the original story is unrecognizable in order to make the home country seem better than they actually are. In 1984, George Orwell presented an extreme version of this censorship with Winston Smith’s employer, the “Ministry of Truth.” Governments want to control the information that gets into the hands of their country’s citizens to help control the thoughts of the citizens. Governments use the media to instill patriotism in the citizens of their country through selective presentation of facts, glorification of the home country, and denigration of other countries.

Every day in newspapers and magazines people are bombarded with stories of their country’s victories, and the failures of other countries. Strong negative language is used to highlight the shortfalls of the enemy country, and extremely positive language is used to support the home country’s efforts. For example, reporting of the same story by journals from two different countries results in two different views. Both of the stories are related to sanctions against Iran by the United Nations. One of the articles is from The Jerusalem Post and the other article is from The Wall Street Journal. In “The Price of Iranian Sanctions” in The Wall Street Journal, the language Con Coughlin uses language that is strongly opposed to the Iranian effort to develop nuclear weapons. Coughlin says that“ watching how a conventionally armed Iran manages to destabilize the entire region only serves to underline how dangerous a nuclear‐armed Iran would be” (Coughlin 1). Coughlin presents to the reader that Iran is a large