Blog #6 Anti-war

Anti-war in the Media

If someone were to ask you what your “go to” news source is, what would you say? Most people would say CNN, FoxNews, or a local news station. These news stations all have the tendency to produce bias information, but hey- thats just how it is. There is no controlling how bias journalists and reporters, even if they are suppose to be independent from opinions when reporting to the public. 

Most people haven’t even heard of anti-war publications, news sites, or even just seen this perspective on any mainstream media site. You may find yourself wondering, “why haven’t I heard of these or even seen them?” Well, normally you wouldn’t find these publications unless you are looking for them. Websites like ANTIWAR.com and The American Conservative have writers with extreme point of views of anti-war. But, you don’t hear about them very often. In my opinion, this is most likely because they're voicing opinions that are not favored by our government in the United States. 

It is no secret that we do have freedom of speech but sometimes things get lost in the algorithm on social media. I think that is exactly what happens with these types of opinions, they just do not gain enough popularity because they're pushed down from the start. Although this anti-war doesn’t go directly against the government, it does express and extreme point of view that could cause an uproar. Views like this insight the idea of change, and that is something that the government has never been on board with. According to Micheal Kazin at the Dissent Magazine,

“a nationally advertised Spring Rising Anti-War Intervention drew only a few hundred demonstrators to the capital city and no coverage at all in either the mainstream media or the leftist press”. This further proves the idea that there is no coverage of the movements, online or in person. In order to find even just this information, I had to input a very specific google search and then continue to scroll until I found something that worked for me. It wasn't even a magazine I would normally find myself looking to either. I was looking for this information, and still struggled to find something that matched what I was looking for. This information is not just out there for the public to see, and that has become more obvious to me through my research. I challenge you to go to Google and try to find a mainstream media site talking about an anti-war point of view. Was it easy? Does it even exist?

There is no distinct reason that this media is not put out there, only speculation as to why. I could simply be that the websites don’t have enough traction and people do not put in the time to read them. Or maybe their viewpoints are so niche that people can not relate.

There, are a million possibilities- so what do you think the reason is?