If you didn't have a tv in your home, and you never saw the "news", did any of it ever really happen? It's the same principal as a tree falling in the forest with no one around to hear it, did it ever really fall? I think some bad things do happen in the world and are reported on by those with journalistic integrity. I believe in some form of truthful journalism but overall I believe the media can be and is often manipulated and used as a form of propaganda to propel a certain agenda at a particular time. It may or may not have been designed for this use initially, but there are far too many powerful people in high places with more money than they can spend and I have a hard time believing that the average egoist with unlimited resources wouldn't use the news to their advantage, finding some pawns willing to sell their souls for money regardless of the tumultuous effects their actions may have on society.
For example, say you wanted to pass a gun control bill, what better way to convince the people they need better gun control than for them to see a sudden rise in gun violence? Persuasion via perception. It makes for a more impressionable audience. Or let's say you wanted there to be a reform in the way our nation is governed, you would show an example on tv of a major increase in civil disobedience, perhaps a "race war", thereby making it easier to convince the public that they need a firmer, more strict, hands on approach to governing, i.e., Martial Law or New World Order. See, some people laugh at these ideas of media manipulation, and call anyone who calls into question what they see, "a conspiracy theorist", a quack, crazy, etc. because I guess that's easier to just accept what you are given at face value than to ever admit that you, an intellectual human being, could be fooled into helping bring to fruition someone else's agenda. But the truth is, most of us are not intellectual, and even fewer of us think for ourselves but rather allow others to do the thinking for us.
Most of the general public can be considered quite malleable. Malleable people make for a very compliant people. And compliant, non rebellious, persuadable people turn into complaisant people that do not resist when change is pressed upon them by someone in a position of power, even when said change is detrimental to themselves and the entire world.
That is how manipulation works.
But eh, what do I know, right?
