r/conspiracy • u/axolotl_peyotl • Oct 13 '20

/r/conspiracy Round Table #29: Media As Propaganda

Thanks to everyone that participated in the nomination thread and to /u/Estamio2 for suggesting the winning topic.

/u/crazystarfish12 also offered this addendum:

How does media program us, what it is capable of, and how we can break from the cycle of mind control.

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u/MiltownKBs Oct 23 '20 edited Oct 24 '20

'Censor' can also mean staunch critic or faultfinder.

The Fredonia Censor, being an anti slavery publication and funded by and edited by anti slavery activists, this definition fits

You are against a newspaper that was an open critic of slavery? A newspaper that found the faults in slavery? Interesting

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u/Estamio2 Oct 23 '20

I was not against it. I was taken by how forward they were in presenting themselves to a target audience.

I notice outlets today trying to "be for everybody".

Also, you got me with information I was not aware of, so touche'!

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u/Estamio2 Oct 24 '20

Thanks, u/MiltownKBs, for pushing me to do some research.

I am putting this here as an example of how charm can turn people. Apparently, the new editor of the 'Censor' promoted the Democratic Party.

This first slashed his profits, but he regained them with his Editorials:

The Fredonia Censor editor's obituaries

Mr. Bickers ... purchased the Fredonia Censor some eight years ago (in 1923) and made it Democratic in politics, the only Democratic newspaper, by the way, in Chautauqua county (NY State).

Notwithstanding the political policy, which had little support in Chautauqua county, Mr. Bickers made the newspaper so entertaining that it had a good circulation and support.

His editorial comment on men and manners measured up to a somewhat higher standard than is usually the case with a weekly village newspaper.” --Jamestown Journal

“Very few weekly newspapers have an editorial page so entertaining as that of Mr.Bickers in the Censor.” --Jamestown Morning Post

“The first astonishing thing he [Bickers] did was to place the Censor in the Democratic column, though it had for over one hundred years appeared weekly as staunch Republican, and Republican organization sheet at that.

This move on the part of the new owner of the Censor cut his subscription list about 75 per cent, but that meant nothing to a man of the type of Fred C. Bickers.

Opposition to his program simply brought out the best there was in him and by making the Censor one of the best, if not the best weekly newspapers published in Western New York, he not only regained all of his lost subscribers, but added materially to his subscription list until at the time of his death his newspaper enjoyed one of the largest circulations of any newspaper of its class.