CNN: The Left’s Mainstream Propaganda Machine

For as long as I have been browsing the web (going on 14 years). CNN has been my homepage. Even though I’ve never cared for their reporting, I always found their website to be somewhat balanced and extremely well-designed and easy to navigate. However, over the last year I have noticed a marked shift on the page in the direction of becoming a left-wing propaganda machine. Today, it became too much to bear.

Just take a look at today’s headlines. The lead story: “iReporters Call Debate for Obama”. The fact that Obama’s performance tops their version of today’s news doesn’t surprise me (despite the very real economic meltdown taking place). The fact that iReporting is considered mainstream news, does. But it gets worse. Listed under their top stories are no less than 4 articles negative of McCain (down to 3 by the time I copied the picture). Negative articles about Obama? Zero.

When an opinion is repeated often enough as news, people start to believe it as fact. This is proven psychology and has been tested again and again by left wing dictatorships throughout history. In CNN’s case, it’s their spin that is the most frightening. They can’t come right out and lie about a candidate, or report their own opinions as news. So they contract that job to their liberal iReporters, and punt risky headlines under their “ticker” banner. The net result is a list of top news stories that portray republican candidates negatively.

What CNN is doing is nothing less than propagandizing. They’re just a little less “in your face” than their fast-becoming contemporaries like the Daily Kos.

CNN has employed underhanded techniques like this for over a decade. Years ago, I wrote them a letter blasting them for shameless bias in their reporting of political scandals. I catalogued a series of stories in which democrats in trouble were simply referred to as “A Congressman from Illinois,” or “A lawmaker on the Hill...” When a republican found himself in similar hot water, the story was always, “The republican Congressman from Illinois,” or “A republican lawmaker on the Hill…” You see? Blatant.

Things like this may seem small, but they leave a lasting psychological impression: Republicans are bad and democrats are, well, not really. Over time, and repeated often enough, you have a generation of people who have effectively been brainwashed. Is it any wonder why Obama supporters can’t really articulate why they like him so much (despite not having achieved anything of importance), and why people who hate Bush repeat the same things they heard on the news, over and over without adding any original thought of their own?

So as of today, I’m removing CNN from my browser. I suppose it’s about time, too. After all, I stopped watching the ratings-starved channel years ago.