Post Class Blog 12/2

 “Only other bureaucracies can satisfy the input needs of a news bureaucracy”

A bureaucracy is a government system which is controlled by state officials rather than elected representatives. This quote is saying that our news is not controlled by the general population, but rather controlled by a bureaucracy. It is filtered to be what the government wants us to see. This idea is played out in many blockbuster films today. A great example of this notion that comes to mind is the government that is portrayed in the Hunger Games trilogy series. There are twelve districts in the society with one capital. The capital and the president control the districts. It is key to mention that the president and capital officials were not elected by the people. One thing in particular they controlled was the news outlet. The people only saw what the government wanted them to see. The people thought that there was no world outside of the districts because that is what the government showed them. They also thought that none of the other districts were suffering because the news outlet only showed people happy and content with their lives. The president controlled the people because he controlled what they believed. He made them think that the way he was ruling their society was the best possible way. This is what Herman and Chomsky were getting at when they made this point about the news being bureaucracy and controlled by bureaucracies. While we do not live in the Hunger Games community, we do have news that is filtered. When the government wants us to turn our attention away from a topic, it races to discredit a source and make it seem fake when in actuality it is not fake. We need to recognize this is happening in our world, so we can pay attention to the news that does not get as much attention because that news could be real. I am not saying to believe everything we hear, but am saying we should be more cautious of what we believe to be true because the main sources of our media are controlled by the government and what they want us to see.