Q&A Friday #12: Jews, The Media, & The Money

Question: “Hey John. First time I’ve posted a question. My grandmother from conneticut was visiting out here in California (one of the redder areas) and said with absolute belief and a straight face that the Jews control the media and “all” (I’ll accept that as meaning a significant quantity and not literally all) the money. Do you know good resources that state the opposite?” — Chris_RC

Answer: I’ve written about this subject before in a column called, “Take My Word For It, Jews Don’t Rule The World.” Here’s what I wrote about the fantastical idea that Jews control the media:

“Some people will tell you that it’s because “Jews control the media in the United States” and give the American people a misleading picture of Israel. But, that’s not true in the least. While there are certainly many powerful Jews in the media & entertainment industry, percentage wise their numbers are quite small. Furthermore, just because there are a few Jews who’re editors of important newspapers & magazines or because there are Jews somewhere in the chain of command of the mega-corporations that own most of the media in the US, doesn’t mean that you should conclude that they’re actually controlling how Israel is portrayed. You have to keep in mind that the average American has access to not only ABC, NBC, & CBS, but to the cable news networks, talk radio, and the internet. In today’s political climate where complaints about media “Bias” of all types are practically an everyday thing, it’s impossible to slant the news one way or the other without a lot of people calling you on it and getting out the opposite point of view. So even if you have the cockeyed belief that Michael Eisner forces ABC News to only give favorable coverage to Israel, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference. That’s because Fox, Rush Limbaugh, CBS and many, many other sources would cover the same ground and wouldn’t put the same spin on it. In a country like America that has a free press, what Barnum said is quite applicable; “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.”

Moreover, even if you bought into the idea that Jews could control the news, the idea that all Jews would slant stories in identical ways because they’re on the “same team” is simply ridiculous. There are tremendous differences of opinion in the American Jewish community, not only about Israel and the war on the terrorism, but about any number of things. So while there are plenty of Jewish hawks who were for removing Saddam Hussein, there were also influential Jews who were against the war in Iraq and there are even Jews who want to “dismantle” Israel itself. Gee, wouldn’t you think that if Jews were going to “rule the world by proxy,” that they would at least all get on the same page?”

As to the idea to the “all the money,” I don’t know exactly what she means by that, you don’t know, and heck, she probably doesn’t know herself. In any case, while there are certainly plenty of rich and influential Jews, there just is no evidence that there is a cabal of Jews out there somehow controlling the world’s economies for their own sinister purposes.

Now, can you convince your grandmother of this? Honestly, I doubt it. It’s like trying to tell someone who believes that breaking a mirror is seven years bad luck that it’s not true. That’s not a belief that they came by rationally and I’ve found that it’s very difficult to reason someone out of a position that they didn’t come to by using reason in the first place. But, good luck anyway…

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