The media lies.
Of course, we all know this.
Popular media is directed towards the general public, with the combined purpose of, first, delivering advertising to them, and second, misinforming them.
There is one segment of the media, however, where you can generally find accurate information, because its target audience actually participates in policy-making. I am talking about the business press.
Of course, a good deal of the articles you find in the business section of most newspapers are often unedited, copied and pasted press releases from companies, with only a reporter’s name attached to them. But even these can be informative insofar as they will tell you what the company is doing, planning, and how it views the business environment. That can tell you a lot.
People frequently ask me how they can educate themselves about economic issues and the power of multinational corporations. Well, begin with reading the business press.
Understand, though, that you are reading the language the elites use with each other. They use different words than the rest of us.
Where we might say, “unemployment” they will say “competitive job market”. Where we might talk about “wage cuts” they will talk about “internal devaluation” or “cost reduction”.
But once you decode the euphemisms and jargon, they basically tell the truth.
Just remember who is being addressed here, and you will be able to understand what they mean by what they are saying.
When they talk about growth or prosperity or improving economic conditions, they mean improvements for them, not you. Improving economic conditions means, more often than not, greater opportunity for exploitative profiteering at your expense.