Take back control! Puppet master Rupert Murdoch is having a whale of a time with his mass hypnotism.
Murdoch’s stable of red top top sellers and their imitators are the medium’s medium. It’s simple. You plant the seed of fear, and sit back and watch people panic.
Recent successes include Brexit, the migrant crisis and of course coronavirus. Why bother with the tiresome business of reporting the news when you can have much more fun manipulating the masses?
So, the rumour goes, Murdoch calls regular meetings of his senior management to determine how best to lead public opinion. Or mislead it. Either way, Murdoch’s personal crusade involves misdirection, so that the great mass of public fail to grasp what is happening before their own eyes.
The technique is simple. You decide upon the desired objective. Focus attention on one small aspect. Throw a very few emotive words out. Words like sovereignty, swarm, epidemic. Repeat in large shouty capitals day after day. Amplify with social media bots. Sit back and watch. It works every time.
While the scrutiny is directed elsewhere, you and your cronies are free to do as you please in plain sight.
What, then, is the next engineered distraction? Well, there is a Labour leadership battle to obsess over. Same technique as ever. Find one tiny flaw in the frontrunner. Make a complete mountain range out of this molehill. Discredit this leader before their tenure begins. Repeat this one flaw incessantly to fix public opinion. Ensure they have to talk about this instead of government policy. Job done.
It could be a campaign to save the NHS. While public outrage is directed towards a lack of ambulance drivers, say, the whole service is privatised, with drivers on zero hours contracts and with minimal first aid training. A great success is announced. And so it goes on.
It’s anyone’s guess. But never mind. Just look the other way.