What They're Feeding Me

This blistering critique of the state of journalism is brought to you by a renowned publisher of media analysis who chooses to remain anonymous. Shawn Gray-Fleek is a BA of Propaganda from Antioch College, ’05. His work first appeared in Heartattack #32 and he has since been published in dozens of print and online publications. His last book, Declarations of Independences, was made out of stapled together pieces of paper, and at 200 pages long is pretty much everything an anti-racist non-violent secessionist needs to know for under 5 dollars. If and when you ever see someone who looks just like me and who has my name, running for public office: I’m not that person, that person is not me.

What They’re Feeding Me is the first online edition of a punk rock ‘zine first published in 2000. Its primary focus is the Author, contextually with Current Events. It is a journal of ideas that the media inspire. What They’re Feeding Me is my response to what the media has deemed relevant, which often takes a sincere bias against the economic interests of the disenfranchised. I intend to highlight when and where the media helps perpetuate a non-egalitarian democracy through willful or accidental omission of relevant context and commentary.

In the never-ending game of telephone that is American Media, less than a quarter of people read any of their news whatsoever. We stare at TVs and listen to corporate-owned radio networks to get just enough of what keeps us feeling informed. In reality, we are starving for hard, sincere journalism while we gorge ourselves on self-affirming punditry, right and left. Pundits are ruining our mental environment by dominating TV and radio news with analysis about how things make them feel, which is always propaganda, while real journalists stick to the basics in the background and reveal more fundamental facts for the pundits to continue chewing away. While we should be marinating in the facts ourselves, TV and radio are doing the marinating in-house, then bottling up the tasteless sauce and shipping it to us at a fee. We have lost the ability to cook, and it’s not entirely our own fault.

This blog is about my personal punditry, which I hope might improve not just the debate, but the way in which we receive that debate. My critique is on the quality of the debate, as well as the positions of the debaters. I’ve got Beef with Swine.