Hi guys, I just started a blog where I will share my thoughts on various things going on in my life personally and going on in the world. I'm from Enugu but I live in Europe. Below is the first post, which can also be found at /p6IJmY-o. Have a read and if you like it, maybe you could share it and subscribe to my blog? I have a lot of content that I'll be releasing weekly, and this ranges from opinion pieces to short stories, so check it out . Blog address: blog.kenechi.org

The Amoral Beast We All Subscribe To

People are complex. It’s hard to understand what makes someone tick, what they want, what they’re afraid of. It’s even harder to understand yourself. I often find myself struggling to figure out my own behaviour, in particular my negative reactions to things. This struggle can be extremely rewarding if successful and it often gives me insight as to how I can become a better, or more rounded person. That being said, I had one such negative reaction recently, and I’m still struggling to understand the reasons why.

At the beginning of last month, a shocking picture circulated media outlets around the world. It was of a drowned child washed ashore a beach in Turkey. The child was one of the many ‘migrants’ the media had been telling us about trying to gain access into Europe. The picture distressed me, but it’s not the negative feeling that spurred me to write this. What can be said about this child that hasn’t been said already? There’s nothing insightful about the fact that the death of a child is a tragedy. No, what bothers me is the media. I looked in the newspaper then, at the end of September and all articles covering the crisis were pointing the finger at European governments and their apparent dodging of responsibility in the face of such a huge humanitarian crisis. But this wasn’t always the case. Before the start of this month, before that picture went around the world, months ago when mainstream outlets had just started reporting on this crisis, I remember the nuance of the story. I remember questioning why these people were being referred to as migrants, when even within the same story, it was made apparent that they were fleeing war in Syria and other conflict zones. I questioned why, but I didn’t have to question because I already knew the answer. Call a person a migrant and it implies they are migrating; moving from one place to another of their own volition. This implies that they have the freedom to stay in their place of origin, when clearly with conflict zones, this isn’t the case.

I saw through the media’s propaganda — the underlying, unspoken implication that these people weren’t welcome in Europe and the stories back then focused on their brazen attempts to illegally gain access. The media didn’t need to speak the unspoken, the connotations were clear — migration is bad because foreigners are bad, and they come only to leach off the system, that is, to freely reap the hard earned benefits of domestic labour. This is a storyline that is told so often that all we need to hear is the word migration or some form of it and the narrative is triggered within our minds. The xenophobic among us need no more cue to sharpen their pitchforks and join the mob to patriotically chase these free riders out of our beloved nation. I saw through this facade then, and I’ve been privileged enough to see through such things for a long time. Still, that isn’t the issue here. The issue is that even when the media turned around and started reporting the truth; that indeed these people desperately need the help of European governments, rather than applauding the media for doing the right thing, my disdain for the media grew further. Why?

Was it because the insincerity in such a one hundred and eighty degree turn? I wish I could say that I was that sentimental. On the contrary, in most cases, I’m the person who argues that the end justifies the means. The real reason for my disdain was that there was no turn; that what the media was doing by painting the refugees in a positive light was no different from what it was doing when it called them migrants and portrayed them as unwelcome; making money. The mainstream media as an entity is an amoral beast and it cares not who it brings up or tears down, as long as it continues to feed itself and its audience. The sudden change of tone caused by the picture of the drowned child was, for me, a harsh reminder of this.

News outlets exist, in theory, to inform us of things going on the world, things that are of interest to us and that have the potential to affect us. They’re supposed to be informative, but the older I get, the more I see its bias and almost calculated way it wields its power. Bias is inevitable but one can at least aim for impartiality. The way in which the mainstream outlets move in waves, only covering that which is currently popular, makes me feel like news coverage is a solely a commercial business venture and nothing more. Its purpose is not to inform, but to entertain, because entertainment is inherently more lucrative. And what else is a business’s objective than to make money? Do you have any thoughts on this? Comment and add your two cents.