And The Secret Word Is…

By Deacon Mike Manno

(The Wanderer) – There was a game show on television during the 1950s, actually it started in late 1947, called You Bet Your Life, and was hosted by the cigar-chomping Groucho Marx from the movies’ Marx Brothers fame. The show centered on Groucho and his wise-cracking, but the gist of the game was for the contestants, who played, two at a time, to win points by answering correctly the questions asked by Groucho.

At the beginning of the program, before the guest contestants were introduced on stage, a silly-looking duck would drop from the ceiling with the secret word for the day. If one of the contestants said the word during the broadcast the pair would win an extra prize. “Say the secret word and win a hundred dollars,” Groucho would tell each pair of contestants. If they did, the duck would drop, along with confetti and the lucky contestants would walk away with the money.

Secret words abound all over the place, I am sure, and Groucho was not the only person to capitalize on one. I realized that the other day when talking with, of all folks, my barber. We were both fretting over the state of the news media — I often fret over the state of my former profession — and I used the word, inadvertently, but I soon realized it was appropriate for the state of the news media today.

We were talking about stories, and I opined that today’s journalists were not interested in stories, but in the narrative. In my mind the duck and confetti dropped and I won the prize. “Narrative” is the secret word with the current crop of journalists today.

Now I didn’t make this up, so I can’t take any credit for thinking of it. So I went through my current stack of books on the media, none of which I can still read (stroke, remember?) and found where the term was set out very succinctly. It was in a book by a true journalist, Sharyl Attkisson: Slander: How the News Media Taught Us to Love Censorship and Hate Journalism.

In her introduction, she opines, “The Narrative refers to a story line that influential people want told in order to define and narrow your views. The goal of The Narrative is to imbed chosen ideas so deeply within society that they are no longer questioned — scratch that — so questions are no longer permitted.”

In short, she suggests, this means the reporter’s own opinions become “more valuable than facts” and the reporters themselves are often driven by propaganda themselves. These Narratives, she argues, are linked to the “death of the news as we once knew it.” And it determines what facts you get, and those that run counter to it are dismissed as partisan spin.

“When furthering a narrative is the goal, truth, accuracy, and reliability take a back seat,” she writes. This is done through the use of George Orwell’s 1984 doublethink which allows one to hold two conflicting facts without recognizing the internal conflict they present.

As examples of today’s doublethink she points to: “Fact-checkers codify slanted opinions; myth busters dispel truth; online knowledge is shaped by agenda editors; free speech is controlled by censorship.”

Of course all this fits nicely with the current concept that free speech requires censorship, and all “misinformation” must be corrected. And who is better to correct that misinformation than current government officials? However, you’d better not refer to this as a Ministry of Truth, no, sir. That in itself would be disinformation.

And, necessarily all those who do not comply, be they corporations, publications, networks, politicos, academics, and even judges, automatically become disfavored because they do not adhere to the official narrative, which, as we all know, is pure truth.

Now we know this takes some silly turns, and at the risk of committing disinformation and falling into the disfavored class, let me give you a few current examples of what disinformation and doublethink have wrought:

Of course the most obvious and stupid was two years ago when CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez, while covering the civil unrest and riots occurring in the wake of George Floyd’s death, stood in front of a burning building and assured his listeners that the event he was covering was a mostly peaceful demonstration. Now honestly, you can’t make this stuff up.

And there is the oldie but goodie that abortion is healthcare. Sure it is.

Currently, the recent Supreme Court decision on abortion is a great place to start. First, remember what the court said. It did not say that abortion was illegal, but simply that it was the legal province of the states, most of whom already had state legislation permitting abortion, although with differing restrictions as one would move from state to state.

Of course what the decision was and how it should have been reported did not fit the narrative. Instead the truth tellers in our national media told us that the court had taken away a woman’s right to “reproductive healthcare.” Remember, abortion must be considered healthcare, thus women will now die.

We were also told that the court had overruled a settled precedent which should not be touched. This, the narrative tells us, is unprecedented and never happens because, as we all know, settled precedents cannot be changed.

And judges who once recognized the fact that it was a precedent should be impeached for lying to Congress because they must have indicated that they would not change it. Overturning a precedent almost never happens, especially when it involves a specific right for “birthing persons” that come right from the Constitution itself.

The Constitution never mentions or even refers to abortion, but shhhhh, we can’t deviate from the narrative or we become liars, too.

Left unanswered by liberal doublethink is why Plessy v. Ferguson — “separate but equal” — is not still good law. It was once a settled precedent for 60 years. Or why is the case of Dred Scott v. Sandford — a slave is always a slave — not still good law? Or Korematsu v. United States — Japanese internment? The answer to it all is: It violates the narrative.

The same holds true for the Coach Joe Kennedy case, where he was fired for saying a brief prayer after games. The court said he had a constitutional right to do so, but the chattering class from the left, in holding to the narrative and the principle of doublethink have classified that decision as akin to declaring the United States a theocracy.

But the current hypocrisy of the progressives is on full display when they critiqued the Trump-era stay in Mexico policy as inhumane while winking at the death of 53 migrants in a semi-trailer; after all the border is closed.

So as you follow the news, remember: It’s all about the narrative, doublethink and all. And if you don’t believe it, you’re an insurrectionist and a danger to the nation. You’ve been warned. And now I’ll sit and wait for the Ministry of Truth to come and take me away.

(You can reach Mike at: DeaconMike@q.com, and listen to him every Thursday morning at 9:30 CT on Faith On Trial on IowaCatholicRadio.com.)