Ferguson is a prescient example of a fish not recognizing it swims in water. While everyone is questioning the premise of police militarization, trial by a jury of peers, and white people being allowed to defend themselves and their property from looting thugs, no one is questioning the fundamental role of the media. It cannot be emphasized enough that Ferguson is the product of omnipresent media coverage and narrative. If one could, in some possible world, subtract the imposition of narrative by media on the event of Michael Brown’s shooting by Darren Wilson, would Asian minorities be forced to suffer the disgrace of their livelihoods being destroyed in an orgiastic riot?

This week on Social Matter, we intend to question the unquestioned assumptions of the freedom of the press. After all, an institution which so clearly realizes its own imperviousness to the basic sense of civility that you don’t sic howling mobs of beasts on a man and his pregnant wife stands in need of a heavy, medicinal dose of criticism. Journalists are under the strange sense that they are somehow above their own indefatigable disruptions of other people’s lives, and weirdly don’t like people giving them the same treatment as they give their perceived enemies. Journalists operate with an undeserved complex of diplomatic immunity, as though their word is law. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind, they tell us, so we shouldn’t gouge out their eyes for plucking out the eyes of those they dislike.

The suburbs are, among other things, a response by whites to escape the intolerable incivility of the inner city. White flight, we are told, occurred not because of any problem with blacks, but only because whites had a problem. That problem is their racism, and this is undoubtedly true if by “racism” you mean a lack of tolerance for thuggishness. We are not allowed to declare any black a thug, and to prove blacks will not tolerate being called thugs they will engage in anti-social protests where they generally act like thugs. The media stirs up blacks to loot and pillage and destroy, other people notice this, which is the proof the media needs that racism remains a rampant problem in our society. That such a reaction is consequent, rather than antecedent, the behavior of black mobs is immaterial to these people. Populations with a proclivity for destruction might, to some people, be a kind of “Not in My Backyard” problem.

Why is Ferguson even in the news? The town was on no one’s radar until the media picked up the story of Brown’s shooting, and now it is at the front of everyone’s mind. More importantly, where did all these inner city types come from? In fact, Ferguson has been subject to a kind of “white unflight.”  The want to escape this, an indelibly racist sentiment of course, is a privilege reserved for our moral superiors. It is the duty and obligation of other whites to suffer the decivilization of white unflight as the inner city problem is dumped on the outer city to make way for the gentrifying yuppies. From another perspective, it suddenly becomes clear that it was less white flight and more white displacement, as the community developed and maintained by one group must be suddenly forfeited to those unable to maintain the same level of civic cooperation. Burning down buildings and destroying people’s livelihoods is just the cherry on top.

One really wishes journalists would suffer the burden of the morality they impose on others. From their vaunted positions of prestige and power, inciting riots and destruction like the eye of Sauron egging on orcs, the New York Times clearly understands itself to be beyond criticism. Daring to level criticism of the press must be motivated by an ulterior motive; it cannot possibly be out of a concern for good, hardworking people just trying to make a living. No, that is a monopoly of the New York Times, which has appointed itself the Mouth of Sauron, I mean, the Voice of the oppressed and un-oppressed.

Who reports on the reporters? Who doxes the doxers? The mainstream media assumes a sovereignty to decide and form the opinion of the nation, but what gives it that right? Is the power of the media legitimate, is it exercised responsibly and with care? Then again, there’s nothing like a good fire to drive ratings. Incite a riot, claim neutrality and then profit from the coverage. What could go wrong?

Freedom of the press, we are told, is to provide a check on the power of the government. But what of when the press effectively takes over the government? Is there a secondary press to provide a check on the primary press? With #GamerGate we witnessed a collusion of interests to tar and feather enemies of the press. With Rotherham we witnessed a collusion of interests to prevent the reality of the press-created atrocities from getting out. With Ferguson, we witness the naked might of media. The interests of the press are ensconced in a virtually unassailable moral framework that gives the upper hand to the media incumbents in almost every case. Suggesting that there might be a conflict of interest between an orderly society and the status profit of journalists is taboo. Yet a peaceful and orderly society does not drive news ratings. If there is no penalty for lying in order to create chaos, should we be surprised to see a media egging on violence?