Freedom of Speech

     I remember high school speech class distinctly, just as I do all near death experiences.  The teacher was a loud, large man covered with black hair almost to his fingernails.  I was as terrified of him as I was of giving a speech in front of my classmates. We were required to give four speeches:  to introduce, inform, persuade and entertain. Consumers of mass media need to be able to tell the difference between the speech to inform and to persuade.  In one sense there is no way to impartially inform because information is always filtered through the biases of the presenter.  The viewpoint of the observer is why witnesses give different accounts of the same event. This also explains the similarities and differences in the Gospel accounts in the Bible. In order to make writing cohere, even the most scrupulously unbiased writers still have some point they are trying to make; otherwise the facts would be jumbled together like puzzle pieces in a box.  Viewpoint gives us a framework on which to organize facts.
     Documentaries, history programs, even the news, are not speeches to inform, they are speeches to persuade.  They are trying to sell you something.  Even channels like PBS, too elitist for common advertising, are trying to persuade you to watch and support their channel.  They are still selling something, they are selling themselves. As wonderful as it would be if strangers on television were really trying to protect your health, finances or food supply, if helping people was their motivation it would be more logical for them to market their products as widely and cheaply as possible so they could help the greatest number of people.  Genuinely altruistic people are usually too busy doing good to appear regularly on national television and, frankly, are seldom considered interesting/controversial enough to be asked.  The same people gallantly informing the public of the nefarious motives of other individuals or groups have their own agenda to promote--including me.  This concludes my speech for persuade.