May 2025

My uncle sent me a letter about media reporting. I don’t agree with all he says, but he certainly has a point worth considering. He says the Western media has become too keen to tell its audience what to think.

To those who wrote asking about where most of my Uncle’s letters on thinking have gone – they will be back soon. They are also going to be published in a book later this year.

Details to follow.

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Letter from my uncle, on the role of the media

I write in some fury and irritation, which is not a good time to put pen to paper, as you know. Still, I am inspired, compelled to write by a comment made on a BBC radio programme about the media. The host was interviewing the BBC’s Eastern European correspondent about the political situation in Hungary. It was a typical one-sided diatribe, of the sort we have come to expect, a catalogue of ranting, fuelled by fake indignation, all about how Prime Minister Viktor Orban is not doing things the ‘right way’, the way the West says they should be done.

That was not what got my blood up, however.

It was the question that came after his report. The host asked the journalist what he thought the role of the media should be, and he answered instantly, with all the self-importance his small mind could muster. “It is to hold the powerful to account”, he said assuredly, and with great pomposity.

And I thought, what utter rubbish. Who appointed you to that role? Who said it is your job is to hold those in power to account?

The answer, of course, is that he appointed himself to that role, he and all his media colleagues, those who decide themselves what message they want people to hear, those who strive so hard to uphold the boxed-in thinking that has become Western thought. No one in the audience has asked him and his colleagues to tell us what they think, to tell us if those in power are good or bad according to criteria they choose. These journalists decide to do all this themselves, to gain power and influence over the way people think.

Who holds them to account?

And then I thought, is that what the media is really for? And my answer is quite clear. No.

I want the media to tell me the facts, not just what their journalists think, what they think I want to hear, what they want me to think. I want them to tell me who has done what, and perhaps provide some context, as objectively as possible, so I can form my own opinion.

I don’t want to be told their personal or collective opinion, as if it were fact, which is what they do. If Russia attacks Ukraine, tell me what happened and tell me what the Ukrainian army has done in response. Tell me what the local media on both sides are saying, and other international media. Tell me what the politicians on all sides have said, in an unbiased way. Tell me how they all report it, how they interpret it. Don’t just tell me that Russia attacked Ukraine, and show me lots of pictures of people suffering and bombed out buildings. Don’t just show me one side of the story. Don’t just tell me President Putin is a mad monster, and Russia’s behaviour is down to irrational warmongering. The Russians clearly don’t think that. Obviously. They must think differently.

Don’t pretend that the Ukrainians did not fire back, or ignore the fact that their weapons were made in the UK and US. Don’t ignore the fact that this war is greatly about access to raw materials, that it has vast geopolitical undertones that matter to all sides, and that the Russians feel that they had no choice but to fight (do most people even know why?)

Don’t tell me that the Russians are going to attack Europe next when there is not the slightest evidence to support this idea, when the Russians themselves have said such a step would be madness, and have explained why. Don’t just try to wind your audience up, or make it fearful, to take power for yourselves.

Don’t tell me that North Korea is building countless weapons and strengthening its army but fail to tell me that this small isolated country is surrounded by foreign soldiers who do nothing but practice how to annihilate its government, day and night. Don’t ignore the news that the North Koreans have been subject to endless sanctions and threats by the West for decades for failing to open up and play the game by rules decided in Washington.

Tell me the facts, not one-sided opinions designed to stop me thinking.

It’s so infuriating!

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Image: jensenartofficial