The Fourth Estate is dead. Suffocated by an avalanche of lies and propaganda, it is obvious that corporate mainstream media no longer serves its lofty ideals but is, rather, the tool of its masters. Does anybody truly believe what the corporate media says? Sadly, I think most people do, and therein lies the problem – propaganda works.

What is the Fourth Estate?

The term Fourth Estate usually refers to the function of the free press to investigate the truthfulness of the other three Estates, and goes back to at least the first quarter of the 19th century. In Britain the three Estates were the Lords Spiritual, Lords Temporal and the Commoners. Even in France, without a House of Lords, the tripartite division still made political sense and constituted the clergy, nobility and commoners. Thomas Carlyle quotes British politician Edmund Burke as exclaiming that up in the Commons Press Gallery “sat the Fourth Estate more important by far than they all.”

The press has been keen to propagate its own self-importance. In a democracy it is indeed vital that issues be discussed openly and arguments dissenting from accepted wisdom be at least aired without fear of any physical reprisals. But this is all highly idealistic. The word 'free' must be the most abused word in the English language. The free press is supposed to imply that it is free from outside interference but in reality the press is merely free to disseminate its own agenda.

The so-called mainstream media is owned by private individuals through corporate vehicles and is there purely as a propaganda machine to disseminate news that serves the interests of its owners. This can be blatant, as in backing a particular political candidate, or more covert, as in burying news that is seen as damaging to their own corporate interests. As corporate media is really no better than corporate advertising, why do people still believe it? And most people do still believe what they read.

The Fourth Estate is Dead

I was recently involved in bringing to light a story that Fox News had broadcast but then buried. The problem with having live guests is that they do not always tow the corporate line. This happens regularly in small ways. The financial press will often bury comments from analysts that do not agree with their pumping up of stocks. This attempt to ignore a valid analysis is a good pointer to its true value. But using the media's obvious bias to somehow extract the real story can be tiring.

The case of the Texas Senator being buried by the whole corporate media was eye-opening in how thoroughly the cartel operates. Although this is now 'old news' the lessons are important. A small number of online bloggers had seen the live TV interview and commented on it, only to then realize that the news had disappeared. There really were zero references to the interview in any corporate media outlet – that piece of news just did not exist! It never happened!

Most people think of themselves as being smart, street-wise, able to discern what is true and what isn't. But in this case, most people came across as children in need of parental guidance from the same mainstream corporate media sources they like to blame of bias. Now, you cannot simultaneously believe and disbelieve the corporate media. Either you understand what is being fed to you, or you don't. Either you believe what individuals are saying, or you don't. The sad fact from this case is that the propaganda works. The alternative media sources are actually powerless. However many non-mainstream sources there are on the internet their readerships are pitifully small compared to the corporate behemoths.

It is good to be critical about what one reads on the net, but this must surely apply to all news sources. If the corporate media has buried a story it is the height of folly to expect the same media to verify a story that it does not want you to know about! And yet this is what many people tried to do. They charged the bloggers with fabricating the story. Why would anybody fabricate a story citing a live interview that perhaps millions (probably just thousands) of people would have watched? Eventually, two copies of the Texas interview came to light, both proving that the original story was true in essence, if somewhat exaggerated on specifics. By this time the covert political machinations had resolved to play down the whole issue, as it became obvious it was not going to remain buried for long. The bloggers were vindicated but this was no Watergate and, unless I'm mistaken, there was no lasting follow-through. However, the lessons are stark – the Fourth Estate is dead, long live the Fifth Estate.

A Fifth Estate Needed

The Fourth Estate, in the shape of self-interested corporate mainstream media, is no longer there to serve the interests of its readers, assuming it ever was. Yes, I'm sure their sports results are accurate, but that's about as much reality as one can expect from news that is spun so much as to be largely fictional. If people really want to know what is going on in the world there really must arise a new Fifth Estate – a citizen journalism.

As with any new term, the Fifth Estate has already been used but in a multitude of ways, from a term to represent the poor, trade unions, organized crime as well as for bloggers. The book Watching the Watchdog: Bloggers as the Fifth Estate by Stephen D. Cooper, published in 2006, explicitly connects internet journalism with the much needed Fifth Estate. There is nobody guarding the guardians now, apart from individuals who are in the right place at the right time, with a story worth telling and, most importantly, a media outlet on the internet.

The internet is at the same time global and local. Every web page is there on your screen. Wherever the server, the editors and the writers might be doesn't matter – to the user everything is just a click away. There is therefore no excuse to keep begging at the altar of corporate media for 'faux news'. There is no excuse for swallowing lie after lie when there are far more honest sources of information. Being aware of the propaganda and the newspeak is useful in knowing what one is expected to believe, but there is no excuse in actually believing it. There are alternatives, and they are as accessible as the corporate media sites – just a different click away!

There is no excuse for slavishly following the corporate media propaganda, unless, of course, you've swallowed so much of it that your discernment has all but vanished.

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