Are we told who to dislike?

@itallmakessense

I completely agree. I feel helpless every time I open a newspaper. I do not watch news. Haven't done so since before Covid. However, there is so much wrong with what is going on in the world it is, for me, overwhelming.

I remember when the photo of the young Syrian boy on the coast of Turkey - how shocked we all were - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/sep/02/shocking-image-of-drowned-syrian-boy-shows-tragic-plight-of-refugees

Also for me the story of the journalist tripping up refugees - https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/sep/08/journalist-appears-to-kick-and-trip-fleeing-refugees-video

Both of the above were in 2015 - it has taken 10 years for us to become immune to the horrors of conflict and children dying, while the increase in billionaires sit and want even more.

I try to focus on my family and loved ones and if the headline in the paper upsets me I don't read it. I agree we are being brainwashed.

I do think that people are easily manipulated by the media. Look at every comments section on articles about PIP. Some people are sympathetic and they understand that disabled people need help to get by and there's people who've been sucked in, praising the DWP for the reforms.

The media are guilty of using inflammatory language as well. Words like perks and freebies. It's designed to anger ignorant people and make them think disabled people get special treatment.

I suggest our choices are precisely that: ours alone.

The media (including creators of BBC programmes etc) exist to make money and they do so by attracting our attention.

On that basis they'll inevitably produce TV shows and news (etc) which are emotionally affecting.

Fear and anger are the root of all emotion. Lots of people like to watch things that make them feel those ways.

If they are too much, just turn over/off. If they say anything which surprises or shocks you and you're bored, check if they're correct. If you're unsure how to, guides exist/advice is available, or ask a 12 year old. Once one knows how it rarely takes more than a minute

I don't ever worry and encourage everyone else not to, it's worse than futile because it's also bad for our health.

Good luck all

There was a time when I trusted the broadcast news in this country but I've taken much of the print news with a pinch of salt when as a student we had a group project over a year of pulling stories from the press and comparing them against each other and the actual facts of the case. This was in the early 1980s. What we found pretty **** echoed a national survey. The majority of the papers were off to the right of the facts of the story, there were only three papers close to the actual facts. One to just to the right, one just to the left and one almost bang on. To the left was the Morning Star. It is hardly recognised by the reast of the print media unless they want to hit on the left. Just to the right was the Guardian. The paper in the facts was the "pink un", the Financial Times. The feedback on the nationwide study noted that the Ft sticks to facts rather than opinions as their readers don't want opinions, they can make their own. They want the facts so that they can anticipate behaviours.

Broadcast media seemed less affected at that point. It seemed to come later when the first Tory Chair of the BBC was appointed. He'd been a wet who believed in an unbiassed, fair press. For me social media has beena a huge bonus in understanding or other countries but it gets tied up in arguments between people who already are staunch in their views and will argue them until the cows escape to explore the galaxy. There is not respect for each other, no ability to listen and if your argument doesn't hold up resort to the personal. Here is another bad thing which I'll say. I really noticed a difference after the Brexit vote. People who would never have made a discriminally statement now drop them with inpunity and Facebook is generally a war zone or a scam lol

I have always believed that you don't believe the first opinion, or the second etc as all of us see things and remember things differently. I don't jump into like or dislike. It really ashames me but they do seem to be copying the Torys (and LibDems) in practicing divide and conquer. Attacks on the elderly, the disabled, the asylum seekers but not the rich.

The MSM, the BBC and most media are pro establishment. If something is being attacked, usually the poor, the disabled, migrants, the working class, I'm guessing that comes from the owners and paymasters of big business, big media and the establishment. We get fed extremely offensive and negative stuff about people on benefits, there's stacks of series on it, yet where are the documentaries about the rich hoarding wealth, avoiding tax, the big corporations exploiting people, basically the owners of wealth treating society and the rest of us like peasants? Nowhere in sight.

I have just decided to go off Fb for a few months for this reason. Backbiting, disinformation, slanted news and fake news is the norm there.

We are paying for the corruption, hypocrisy, mismanagement and criminality of those in power. That's it