Gaslighting: How the Mainstream Media Tries to Drive You to the Left

[Ubiquitous]

It's no secret that the mainstream media has abandoned objective reporting
for a long time. The left-leaning -- and often more than leaning --
narratives from the press are hard to miss.

But there's more at play than just reporting the news from one particular
viewpoint. The mainstream media, along with social media and cultural
tastemakers, attempt to lead the public to question anything that doesn't hew
to a far-left narrative. The end result, in the hopeful minds of the media,
is that everyone who consumes their media will move to the left politically
and culturally.

It's a form of what we've come to know as gaslighting. For the uninitiated,
gaslighting is "intentionally distorting reality to make you feel like what
you're seeing or feeling isn't real," according to Forbes. The term came from
the 1944 film Gaslight, in which Gregory Anton (Charles Boyer) manipulates
his wife (Ingrid Bergman, who won the Best Actress Oscar for her role) into
thinking that she's insane.

Instead of making you think you're crazy, the media wants you to think that
your conservative, libertarian, or even non-woke liberal beliefs are insane.
And it's masterful manipulation.

Christian blogger and author Natasha Crain makes the case for how the
mainstream media gaslights normal everyday people in order to drive them to
the left in a recent blog post entitled "How Mainstream Media Gaslights
Christians (and Everyone Else Who Disagrees with Them)."

"Not only is mainstream media not trying to be objective, but they're also
openly advocating for specific viewpoints. And not only are they openly
advocating for specific viewpoints, but they're also strategically
manipulating public thought," she points out.

One way they do this is good, old-fashioned peer pressure. It's a more
sophisticated and insidious take on, "Everybody's doing it." The media
mainstreams radical thought and attempts to marginalize or otherize anyone
who doesn't agree with the far-left position on most any issue.

"Make no mistake: The appearance of unified thought coming from sources
people perceive to be representative of culture at large is very powerful--
especially when you're in a worldview minority," Crain writes.

"And media wants to capitalize on that aspect of our humanity that makes us
question our beliefs just because they differ from the norm," she continues.
"But remember: There's no such thing as democracy when it comes to what's
true about reality; numbers will never determine truth."

The media also manipulates language to drive the conservation to the left.
One of the most invaluable tools to reporters and editors is the AP
Stylebook. I've relied on it for years as a writer and in my church
communications career. Here at PJ Media, it's the basis for many of our
grammatical and stylistic conventions -- other than its more woke
recommendations, which we ignore.

Crain points out some of the AP Stylebook's recent guidance on how to write
about transgender issues. The AP recommends:

• adopt the language "sex assigned at birth" rather than something
like "birth gender" or "born a girl," presumably to emphasize how
arbitrary the sex "assignment" decision is;

• describe a transgender person using phrasing such as "is a woman"
rather than "identifies as a woman," presumably to emphasize the
certainty of a person's new identity;

• avoid terms like "biological male," which they say are used by
"opponents of transgender rights" to "oversimplify sex and gender";
and

• not use phrasing that "misgenders people or implies doubt, such as
former men's swimmer or currently competes as a woman."

That's just how the AP Stylebook approaches one issue. You may have noticed
media outlets everywhere capitalizing the word "Black" when referring to a
black person. That's the AP's doing, and because the Stylebook is so
pervasive, it has served to help nudge reporting ever more toward the left.

The topics the mainstream media chooses to cover also play a role in the
ongoing efforts to drive the conversation leftward. As Crain reminds us,
think about how breathlessly media outlets report about a celebrity who
becomes transgender or changes his or her pronouns. Consider how much more
coverage events like the Women's March get as opposed to rallies like the
March for Life.

"I regularly visit the Facebook news tab to track this phenomenon and see
what they're pushing users to consider important," she writes. "From the
looks of it, they really want me to be aware when a celebrity changes
pronouns (Demi Lovato this week), when new state abortion restrictions have
(allegedly) jeopardized a woman's health, and that Christian nationalism is a
terrifying threat."

"Story selection strongly shapes our view of what the 'world' is talking
about, and that can significantly influence what we believe is most important
if we're not careful," she continues.

Fearmongering is another tactic that the media uses effectively to manipulate
us. Think about how many scare tactics the media has used throughout the
COVID-19 pandemic, and media outlets are trying to do the same with
monkeypox. Witness the weeping and gnashing of teeth over the Supreme Court's
overturning of Roe v. Wade and the supposed slippery slope of rights
reversals that are sure to come. And how many times has someone in the media
told you that our time is running out to save the planet?

The way the media reports on these issues and more like them is a strategy to
whip readers and viewers into a frenzy. "We must do something," they
breathlessly intone, and many people fall right in line with their far-left
solutions to the problems that aren't really emergencies.

The media also loves to drag out people who claim to be conservatives or
Christians but support their policies. Whether they trot out a left-leaning
pastor or a fake conservative, it's all part of the plan to paint left-wing
doctrine as perfectly normal and mainstream.

So what can you do? Be careful about what you consume -- not only is the
mainstream media pushing an agenda, but you'll also find plenty of agenda-
driven content from both the left and the right.

One of the best things you can do is get your news from sources you can
trust, like here at PJ Media. If you're a regular PJ Media reader, you know
that we tell the truth, and we often do so with a sense of humor or a smirk.
Read and share our articles.

You can also support truth-tellers like all of the talented writers here at
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--
Let's go Brandon!