By skyforbes 
Thomas Jefferson mused that the only honest part of a newspaper were the advertisements. He had an adversarial relationship with the free press, setting a precedent maintained by his successors. The third president of the United States said, “The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them.”
Jefferson blurred the lines between politics and press by owning a newspaper and using it as a platform to promote his policies. He pined for “true facts and sound principles,” but recognized that newspapers wouldn’t sell without sensational reporting and outrageous falsehoods. People have never truly wanted news, they crave entertainment.
Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky examined the systemic biases in mass media and how people are manipulated. They concluded that advertising and the concentration of media ownership are anti-democratic and the equivalent of mounting psychological warfare on one’s own populace.
This was turbocharged in the 1950’s when public relation firms were hired to boost a politician’s image or worked to damage opponents. Strategies tapped into public concerns, often distorting or amplifying issues, or creating ones that never existed. Soon advertising agencies jumped into politics by devising sweeping promotional campaigns for candidates and parties or by undermining sitting governments.
The playbook remains diabolically simple. It starts by creating or vilifying a minority as a threat to the fabric of society. This is a feint or misdirection allowing forces who disdain democratic principles to advance an agenda that ensures they profit. Now so familiar, this strategy should surprise no one with a lick of common sense.
The difference today is now everyone is media. Holders of accounts on Facebook and X are broadcasters, or more accurately, regurgitators. The white noise created by real and fake people on social media adds jet fuel to the playbook. Fascinatingly, people are duped, know they are duped but continue with the duping, thinking they can gain an upper hand in a game rigged before their great-great-grandparents were born.
Eric Hoffer, the conservative social critic, won the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his social and political commentary, “Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves.”
That speaks to our blinding self-interests. Thomas Sowell, the economist and political commentator, believed everyone needs to do their homework, “If people in the media cannot decide whether they are in the business of reporting news or manufacturing propaganda, it is all the more important that the public understand that difference, and choose their news sources accordingly.”
The last word goes to one of the most influential political theorists of the twentieth century. Hannah Arendt was talking about the playbook, “Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself. The masses have to be won by propaganda.”