[HEBDO#23]Snow, pumps… Look at what the media shows you, or move on!

The media of power make reality, dictate your daily life. Those following them should have expected 25 cm of snow this morning, and a deluge everywhere. They conjure up what isn’t there, and obscure what is: snow everywhere, but nowhere thousands of German tractors in the capital. Beer pumps at Davos, but no journalists backstage⁽¹⁾. As sociologist Alain Accardo put it in Journalistes précaires, journalistes au quotidien: « It can be said that the media’s representation of the world, as it is produced daily by journalists, shows not what reality actually is, but what the ruling and possessing classes believe it to be, wish it to be or fear it will become. In other words, the media and their staff are nothing more than the more or less willing and zealous instruments the ruling class needs to ensure its hegemony.

Meanwhile, in cafés, on doorsteps, in the street, at work… the media are talking about the snow. We’ve long been accustomed to media stupidity, and the really important subjects, those that the press should be making important, are evacuated when we try to share them in a discussion, having created this intellectual laziness of « ah no, you’re not going to start with politics ».

And the powers that be distribute your money to those who, above all, don’t denounce this deception. Today we learned that the Parliament of the Wallonia-Brussels Federation had just unanimously approved on Tuesday a draft decree reorganizing the financial support granted to the non-commercial periodical press. Media Minister Bénédicte Linard was responsible for the text designed to defend independent magazines such as Wilfried, Médor and Imagine. It was this same Minister who changed the rules at the time so that Médor, a cooperative, could claim press subsidies, since previously only non-profit organizations, such as Kairos, were entitled to them, and it was the same Minister Linard who, some time later, introduced a new condition: membership of AADJ.⁽²⁾This means that we are no longer eligible for press subsidies. AADJ members? Belga, BETv, Imagine, LN24, Médor, Nostalgie, NRJ, RTBF, RTL, Wilfried… who themselves finance half of AADJ’s budget, with the other half coming from AJP, also made up of power media. So it’s a body made up of representatives of the mass media who decide not to give your money to free media like Kairos. Would the money distributed be the same, would you make the same choices if, on your tax form, you chose which media you wanted to help?⁽³⁾

Your money is generously given by the powers that be to those who keep quiet and don’t make too many waves. Meanwhile, the truly free media are dying, crushed under the weight of censorship, lawsuits and politically-organized financial drain.

Soon, only the industrial media will be left to tell you what to think. That day, it’s best to flee to avoid the storm… of snow.

It remains for those who haven’t understood the importance of our presence to realize that without their help, without massive help, this is what will happen.