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Jacques Ellul, Propaganda

Sep 16, 2021
 
Pronoun changes are indicated by brackets. e.g. [ new word ] to gender neutral: 
[?] examine accuracy

What happens to a [person] who wishes to be informed and 
receives a great deal of news each day? First, straight news re- 
porting never gives [a person] anything but factual [?] details of 
the events of the day is always only a part, for news can never 
deal with the whole. Theoretically, the reporter could relate these 
details to other details, put them into context and even provide certain 
interpretations— but that would no longer be pure information.
Besides, this could be done only for the most important event*, 
whereas most news items deal with less important matters. But 
if you shower the public with the thousands of items that occur 
in the course of a day or week, the average person, even if [a person] 
tries hard, will simply retain thousands of items which mean 
nothing [and] would need a remarkable memory to tie some 
event to another that happened three weeks or three months ago
Moreover, the array of categories is bewildering — economics, 
politics, geography, and so on — and topics and categories change 
every day.