Shut Down The Lying Crying Mass Media

There are so many fascist, socialist, and communist ideas floating around, with rich man’s capitalism having taken over the world, perhaps it’s not such a bad idea to use the worst case scenario and march into the mass media’s offices and shut them all down.

Many have been expressing deep frustration with the media, institutional power, and how information — especially regarding public health and policy — is handled. These concerns are shared by many across the political spectrum, particularly around transparency, accountability, and trust.

Mass Media Criticism

Many people feel the media:

• Misrepresents facts or omits critical context.

• Serves corporate or political interests.

• Lacks journalistic integrity or ideological diversity.

Valid criticism of the press is essential in any democracy — freedom of speech and the press includes the right to call out misinformation or bias. However, calling for a total shutdown of the media crosses into authoritarian territory, which contradicts democratic principles and free expression, says my AI. However, is there any such thing as a real democracy? Freedom to lie, to misinform, to control millions of minds should not be allowed in a decent society, which the United States is not. No decent society would spend a trillion dollars on the military and spend its way into bankruptcy.

If we disagree with the media, my AI thinks the better path is to:

• Support independent or alternative outlets.

• Promote media literacy and critical thinking.

• Hold media accountable through public scrutiny and fact-checking, not suppression.

In today’s world, none of this is enough; it’s wishful thinking. So yes, I would vote for a complete shutdown and reboot of the news media, especially when it comes to medicine and health, which I think Kennedy is trying to do by cutting the media from pharmaceutical advertisements.

The owners of the press, basically seven large companies, are lucky their owners are not dragged into court and found guilty of mass murder, so just closing them down would be light, but the right action. Yet history shows it is a dangerous action. What do we replace the media with, and who is good enough to warrant public trust?

Suppressing the media, even with good intentions, often leads to authoritarianism. Examples like the Soviet Union’s control of Pravda or China’s censorship of dissent show how state-led media shutdowns can silence legitimate voices alongside the corrupt.

But I challenge whether democracy even exists in a system where the media manipulates minds. It is not wrong to question the state of democracy—polls like Gallup’s (2024) show trust in U.S. media at historic lows (31% confidence in news accuracy). Yet, eliminating the media risks creating a vacuum where only the loudest or most powerful voices fill the void.

Who is good enough to warrant public trust?” Replacing the media with a new system assumes we can find or create trustworthy arbiters.