Nicholas Eaton

1 November 2014
Ms. Gardner
English 10H 0 Period
Media Corruption and Fear Mongering
My friends, peers, and intellectual comrades, today I stand before you to
inform you of a very real tyranny that has affected us, and will continue to affect us
if we do not stop it right in its tracks. This tyranny is media corruption and fear
mongering.
Perhaps those who have not seen the corruption to write it off as nonexistent.
But once you have seen the manipulation of the truth; once you have held witness
to the despicable lengths media will go to for views; once you begin to look and
continuously find lies in the system; once you know you have to research any article
that seems even a little off-putting; once you have seen lies told to the masses
become facts; once you learn of all the misconceptions and misinformation; once
you know how controversial mass media outlets will make themselves just for a bit
more cash and once you feel that you cant trust anyone to inform you except
yourselfthen you will know the depth of corruption that lurks in the media.
On July 10th, 2014, Fox News published an article entitled ISIS seizes uranium
from lab; experts downplay dirty bomb threat. Under it was the article in small text
and one quote in a huge font: There is theoretically a potentially for a dirty bomb.
However, what was not highlighted nor pointed out besides a footnote was that the
uranium that ISIS stole was actually unrefined uranium compounds- useless to be
put in a bomb. According to the World Nuclear Association, reactor level uranium is
about 4-5% enrichment and even being generous research level uranium is typically
around 20% enrichment. However, real, fissionable, weapons grade uranium needs
to be at least 90% enrichment-thats 5-20 times more enriched than any possible
uranium that Isis could have captured. Not only that, but even if Isis was able to
detonate a bomb to throw the uranium everywhere, the risks of the radiation from
uranium are not as great as you would think. In fact, you can stop the radiation
emitted by uranium with a piece of paper. As we can see, Fox News blew a story out
of proportion to scare people and to get more views and money.
Another example of corruption in the media, just to make a quick buck was
the cover of the May 21, 2014 edition of Rolling Stone. The cover featured as its
main story- the accused Boston bomber, giving idol treatment to the psychopath.
Natural this caused an uproar, yet it still functioned to make the edition popular,
even if it was for a bad reason. Another example was Times November 3 cover
story, Rotten Apples, which made it seem as if the extremely popular magazine
was siding against teachers.
This corruption truly shows how diabolical these people are- they are more
than willing to stretch the truth, to hide the facts, and to publicize terrorists to make
their means to their nefarious ends. For the sake of justice and for the sake of the
common people, we cannot allow major media outlets such as Fox News and Time

magazine continue to press out all these controversial covers and manipulate reality
in order to scare uniformed people. We need truth- not interesting stories.
Unfortunately my comrades, the duty to make these corporations responsible
for delivering the truth falls to us- all the people. If we allow ourselves to keep being
misinformed and manipulated, if we allow ourselves to be terrified by the lies they
keep spewing, this corruption may never end. So, in order to promote truth-telling
and disown lies made up by the media to get a quick buck, I implore every single
one of you to take the time to research the things you see which you question, not
to sanction any media outlet from criticism, and to spread the word, that not
everything you see is true.