Media Manipulation — Creating Stories Out Of Thin Air
The Media Reports On Artificially Created Events That You Accept As Truth
Usually, when you see a story on the news, it’s something that has happened organically.
An event happened in the world, and then news organisations decided to report on it.
That’s 99% of the news stories you see. Sometimes facts are purposefully left out. Sometimes clever wording is used to manipulate the story. But the event itself is something that organically happened in the world.
But from time to time, somebody artificially creates the story themselves.
They go out into the world and do something specifically designed to end up in the news.
Confused? Here are 5 examples of media manipulation in action:
Nigel Farage’s Racist Fake Canvasser
Yesterday (27th June), Channel 4 released supposedly “undercover footage” of a racist canvasser working for the Reform UK party.
The footage appeared to show this canvasser (pictured above) suggesting that illegal immigrants to the UK should be “shot on the F******g beach” and used various other bits of racist language.
This is just what the public expected to see from a Reform UK canvasser (the party have a reputation for being racist) and so assumed that the video was genuine.
However, it turns out that the racist man in the video might actually be a paid actor.
The man in question usually has a normal southern English accent. But in the video he uses a rough London accent, meaning that he purposfully changed his accent. He’s on various casting websites and is clearly an actor that has performed in various roles before.
Conveniently, Channel 4 just happened to have their cameras out and filming as he made his racist remarks. Suspiciously convenient timing.
Currently, it’s not clear whether he’s a genuine Reform UK Canvasser or a paid actor. But that’s not the point.
The point is: If you want to damage the reputation of a political party, all you need to do is send in actor to pretend to be a member of said political party and then say racist or sexist things in front of a camera.
The media can then film the actor, dressed in the colours of the political party, and put it on mainstream news for the country to see.
If you want to attack a group for being racist, but they’re (inconveniently) not actually racist, you can simply create racism out of thin air.
(As of yet, it’s not clear whether this Reform UK canvasser is a paid actor or not)
Ryan Holiday’s Fake Ad Campaign
Ryan Holiday, now a world famous author, created a fake marketing campaign for a fake movie called “I Hope They Sell Beer In Hell”.
First, he bought advertising space on a billboard. The billboard itself was purposefully provocative and sexist. But Ryan’s plan wasn’t done yet.
Next, Ryan Holiday personally got in his car and drove over to the billboard in by the middle of the night, got out the car, and defaced his own billboard. He took photos of the defaced billboard (that he himself had vandalised) and sent them to blogs all over the internet.
He pretended that the billboard was defaced by feminists in protest of the movie’s sexism. Blogs all over the internet reported on the apparent “feminist protest” of the movie. These blogs then received millions of views generating far more exposure for the movie than would have been possible using normal methods of advertising.
Real feminists even started chiming in, supporting whoever had defaced the sexist billboard.
It’s easy to manipulate the media if you know how to push the right buttons.
Jessie Smollett's fake hate crime
In 2019, American actor Jessie Smollett approached the Chicago Police Department claiming he has been the victim of a hate crime.
The police checked the CCTV cameras and found that Jessie had indeed been attacked by 2 masked men.
Jessie claimed that the 2 men had shouted “This is MAGA country” as they assaulted him. The internet poured out their sympathies, enraged at the “typical racist Trump supporters” who attacked him.
Rather inconveniently, the Chicago Police Department actually managed to track down the 2 attackers, who were actually two Nigerian-American brothers: Abimbola and Olabinjo Osundairo. Strangely, these 2 brothers had worked as extras on the TV series Empire alongside Jessie.
It turned out that Jessie Smollett had purposefully staged the entire thing.
He asked the two brothers to attack him in front of a CCTV camera on purpose so that the media could report the attack. This would have then, if all had gone according to plan, boosted Jessie’s acting career as he was showered with public sympathy and put in the media limelight.
They had even conducted rehearsals of the attack to make sure it looked just right for the cameras.
Jessie Smollett had attempted to manipulate the media for his own gain. In this case he, embarrassingly, failed miserably.
What better way of increasing your public reputation than being the victim of a hate crime?
Julian Assange’s Sexual Assault Allegations
In 2010, Julian Assange faced sexual assault allegations as it was claimed he tried to remove a condom on purpose while having sex with a Swedish woman. A second Swedish woman claimed he had raped her without wearing a condom.
The news media reported on the “allegations” over and over again over the next decade, staining Assange’s reputation amongst the public and sewing distrust towards the journalist (who had exposed American war crimes).
The thing is: There was no evidence for any of this.
No DNA tests. No camera footage. No evidence of any kind. Just two Swedish women who had met and spent time with Assange, claiming to be victims of sexual assault.
Julian Assange was never convicted for sexual assault because no evidence was ever found. Yet his reputation was still damaged in the eyes of the public (which is strangely convenient for the US government who were trying to extradite him to the United States without any public pushback).
That’s the great thing about sexual assault allegations: no evidence is needed to make them. Anybody can make sexual assault allegations against anyone.
If you want to ruin the reputation of somebody else, all you have to do is pay a woman to spend the night with the target, and then accuse him of sexual assault. Then, get the news media to report on these “serious allegations of sexual assault”.
No evidence is necessary. But the very fact that an individual is facing sexual assault allegations destroys their reputation. Whether they’re found guilty or innocent, the reputational damage is already done.
It’s like this. If powerful people don’t like somebody, they can find a way to damage their reputation. If the person in question hasn’t done anything bad, they can find a way to make it look like they have.
(We do not know whether Julian Assange really committed sexual assault or not).
6. Agent Provocateurs
If the public organise themselves into large groups and start protesting, they can become incredibly powerful.
If the government feels threatened by these protests, they can use agent provocateurs to turn a peaceful protest into a violent one, thereby turning public opinion against the protests.
It’s the oldest trick in the book. But the public still fall for it.
Many violent protests that you see on the news were actually peaceful protests that were turned violent on purpose.
A few well-trained agents will mix themselves amongst the protestors and start encouraging them to turn violent. They will start smashing windows, vandalizing things and encouraging other protestors to do the same.
It only takes a small group of people to do a lot of damage.
The media can then report on these “violent protests”, discrediting the social issue that the protest was about in the first place. The general public generally don’t respect violent protests. The public will see the whole protest in a negative light.
This allows the government to effectively squash protest movements before they become too powerful.
To sum up.
One of the most effective media manipulation techniques is creating stories out of thin air by going out into the world and purposefully making things happen, then getting the news media to report it.
When watch news stories from now on, think: Is this a genuine event I’m watching, or has it all been orchestrated? Is it possible that somebody created this entire story out of thin air?
If you want to understand the news media, it’s vital that you understand that sometimes events are artificially created to push an agenda. Not all events you see on news media arose organically.