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In light of recent events concerning newscasters
being lost in the fog of … memory—it may

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be pertinent to ask: can we trust the news
media?

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For proclaimed “priest of postmodernism,”
Jean Baudrillard, it isn’t lack of access

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to information that renders the news meaningless,
it’s the proliferation of images that makes

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it so untrustworthy.

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Depending on where you get your news, you’ll
see “evidence” that climate change is

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a myth, or a serious problem. Enough searching
reveals that Paul McCartney is really dead,

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Stanley Kubrick faked the moon landing and
9-11 was an inside job.

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If you look hard enough you can find the contrapositive,
underside, or opposite of any event. These

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multiple interpretations don’t make the
world more accessible—the explosion of information,

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of events, makes the ability to understand
the world nearly impossible.

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The camera lens makes every image suspect.
War is reduced to theatre, disease into telethon,

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hunger into magazine covers. It makes the
most atrocious events questionable—every

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image is possibly staged, recreated, simulated
for a political end or to push a product.

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There are hundreds of news channels all competing
for viewers, followers, and hashtaggers. Media

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and advertising operate on the same wavelength
and as a result, the line between reality,

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marketing, and news is nearly impossible to
discern. Media outlets and advertisers compete

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to keep people glued to their couches, perpetually
titillated by the explosion of content on

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the screen.

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It’s the selling of a lifestyle, a promise
of access to the truth, as something to produce

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meaning—it’s why reporters appear at the
scene of crimes, embed themselves with military

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units during war, and stand on the banks of
oceans during hurricanes—the signs of disasters

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are images to be consumed.

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While our lives may be utterly boring and
meaningless—the nightly news reports that

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there are in fact places where things take
place. It sells the promise that meaningful

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things do happen.

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They broadcast stories of actual events—but
far from giving viewers access to the world—the

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media creates a copy of an event—they create
non-events… Xerox copies of reality that

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are easily ingested by a society that has
been trained to accept advertising, suggestion,

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and disinformation.

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For Baudrillard, we’re complicit in this
disinformation campaign. People willingly

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choose deception—the masses want to be tricked,
fooled, and distracted from the reality of

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their lives.

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Simply put: we prefer the copy of reality.

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In the world of social media, we are no longer
passive spectators. We interact, create, and

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dictate news—we are the screen, the editor,
reporter, and subscriber all at once.

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So dearest viewer, if Sylvester Stallone is
in the Boxing hall of fame as Rocky Balboa,

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and if people still believe the lie that wrestling
is real how are we ever supposed to find out

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if Paul McCartney is alive?