15 Ways that Media corrupts distorts public perception and shackles the truth - Decline #2

1. It sentationalizes events that have gut appeal to the population. Outrage is cultivated.

2.  The Narrative is favoured over the facts. Media blurs the distinction between the two in favour of the former.

3. It reports on partisan lines with deliberate recourse to confirmation bias. Inconvenient details and context are downplayed.

4. It misleads the reader with headings that don't reflect the essence of the story. Many people very rarely read past the headings so that obfuscation predominates.

5. It uses visual imagery (decontextualized) selectively. This resonates with many people.A picture is worth a 1000 words or so they say.

6. In a rush to publish first inaccuracy is sacrificed to swifness of scoop. Apologies for errors arrive much later after the damage has been done.

7. It plays loosely with the term 'expert' to give credence to its intended narrative.This creates the necessary Echo Chamber.

8. Statistics presented often lack nuance and the assumptions that they are predicated on are conveniently sidelined.

9. It grants far too much air time to celebrity opinion that is not relevant to the issue at hand but drives up clicks and likes.

10. It promotes logical fallacies eg. If x people agree on a point compared to y people and x is greater than y than x must be correct. The Truth is not a popularity contest.

11. It creates false dichotomies of victim v victimizer as this has a visceral impact for so many.

12. Much media reporting reporting is not original but is based on rechurned reports. This inevitably distorts the details. 

13. Social media algorithms and search engine priorities favours certain media outlets over others. Thereby biasing the feed stream. Shadow banning and full on cancellation further augments perceptions.

14. Media embedded in nations that have limited freedom of speech often self censure their reports. Thereby weakening our understanding of what really is happening.

15. Media News rooms have an overhelming partisan bias. In the West this largely leans toward the globalist left and drives the narrative.

13 Ways that Modern Education is failing in the West - Decline #1

 1. Decline of rigour in favour of 'kindness' driven education. You need both but the balance has shifted away from the former. Students should not be pushed through a course to make them feel better or improve school statistics.

2. Destreaming of subjects. This results in an overall lowering of standards. Excellence at the high end is being shortshifted.

3. Political Ideology finding its way in the classroom. Most of this is of the Green/Red/Wokeist type. However any ideology (regardless of Axis position) should not be promoted to a captive audience.

4. Grade Inflation.

5. An increasing emphasis on project based assignments that can be easily compromised using plagarism and artificial intelligence adjuncts.

6. Teachers Union protecting teachers whose job performamce is far from optimum.

7. Growing administration budgets at the school boards that create endless micro-managing and wasteful interference.

8. Lack of consistent standards by schools in the absence of standardized testing.

9. Political initiatives that treat students differently based on their ethnicity. This is anti-Liberal and fosters resentment.

10. A declining numbers of  male teachers and role models in the school system. Boys are ideed falling behind.

11. Down grading of the history of Western Civilization (plus the classics) in school curricula. This results in a lack of awareness of the giants who shoulders we stand on.

12. Too much emphasis on technology as a fix-it-all for various problems.

13. Lack of discipline and consequence for bad behavior.

The West is in obvious decline.

 This off the top of my head...

These are either the symptoms or drivers (or both) for the decline.

1. Fall in Education standards

2. Extreme Media Bias, Frivolity and Twisted Narratives

3. Scientific Fraud

4. Post Truth in Academia

5. Historical rewriting

6. DEI obsession/Critical Race Theory

7. Decline of the Arts

8. Threats to open debate/Cancel culture

9. Cults of Victimhood, Self Flagellation, Entitlement and unearned respect

10. Deteriorating values

11. Cultural Relativism. Erosion of the concept of common values.

12. Institutional Corruption/Poor Leadership, Owned Leadership and Grifting

13. Aggression of Islamism

14. Illegal Immigration

15. Corporate hijack of Grassroots Capitalism

16. Overzealous state intrusion, Selective Policing

17. Growing Cycles of Debt (Personal and Private)

18. Gender Identity Post-structuralism

19. Expansion of the State enterprise

20. Middle Class Alienation and the heavy tax burden

21. Collapse of the family and the social hierachy.

22. The demise of Christianity.