“When a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?”
I’m sure you’ve heard this expression before, but have you ever considered how it applies to the news?
After all, if an event happens somewhere in the world and the news doesn’t cover it, did it really happen? When an event occurs, and you never hear about it through the news, then to you it never actually happened.
That’s what a media blackout is.
A media blackout is the intentional restriction or suppression of news coverage.
Sometimes important things happen in the world and you never find out about them. Why? Because somebody conducted a media blackout.
Think about it: during WW2 from 1939–1945, Hitler was massacring millions upon millions of Jews in the Holocaust and the world had very little idea it was happening.
While allied leaders had some intel on the atrocity, most people weren’t aware of the horrific scale of the holocaust until they stumbled upon the death camps after defeating Germany.
How was this possible? Because Hitler instituted a media blackout. No news sources within Germany were allowed to report on it, and foreign news organisations had no access to what was happening inside Germany at the time.
Some even claim that most Germans had no idea the holocaust was going on.
Out of sight. Out of mind.
Media blackouts are not something unique to particular countries. They’re a tactic used by powerful organisations across every single country in the world; whether it be governments or giant corporations.
Media blackouts are incredibly subtle and sneaky, after all, it’s very difficult to notice the absence of something that you don’t know exists. You don’t know what you don’t know.
So it takes a media literate individual who’s really paying attention to actually notice when a media blackout is taking place.
In this article, I want to explain how media blackouts work and why they’re used.
I’ll also explain why media blackouts are still effective, even today, in a world filled with social media platforms like Twitter.
I believe this is vital information that anybody who wants to be an educated, informed citizen should know.
How Does A Media Blackout Work?
So how could a government (or a giant corporation) make sure that news organisations don’t cover a particular story? Don’t we live in a free society where journalists are free to report on whatever they want?
Each country has its own group of mainstream news networks. The USA has CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. The UK has the BBC, Sky News and ITV news. In France, you have TF1, France 2 and France 3.
There are a number of ways in which a media blackout can be enforced across these mainstream news networks:
- Financial Pressure — Giant corporations who help fund mainstream news organisations can request a media blackout, and threaten to withdraw funding if this news organisation does not comply (this is extremely common with US media).
- Losing “access” — The government has the ability to control which media companies get access to official sources of information from within the government and which do not. Refusing to conduct a media blackout when the government requests one could lead to them losing this special “access”.
- Legal repercussions — The government can use the force of the law to attack any media organisation that does not do as they wish.
- Self-Censorship — Sometimes, media organisations do not report particular stories out of fear of legal repercussions, loss of access to official sources, or in some countries, a fear of violence.
- Voluntary Agreement — In many cases, news organisations may voluntarily agree to a media blackout on a story.
- Violence — In a lot of countries around the world, journalists are simply thrown in jail, physically attacked or murdered by the military if they don’t do what they government tells them. Think North Korea, Russia or any other country controlled by a dictator. (Worldwide, violence against news organisations is more common than you might think).
Why Are Media Blackouts Enforced?
Media blackouts aren’t always evil affairs. There are a lot of reasonable situations to issue a media blackout:
- National Security — At times, it’s genuinely in the interest of national security to stop certain information from being published. Particularly in times of war, if sensitive information is published in the media, enemy countries can use this to their advantage.
- Criminal Investigations — Law enforcement agencies may request a media blackout of the details of an ongoing case.
- Privacy Concerns — A blackout may be enforced to protect the privacy of individuals in a high-profile case, such as a celebrity or a public figure. A blackout may also be enforced during a mass shooting in order to hide the shooters name and face; this helps to reduce the chance of copycat shooters who want fame and notoriety.
Having said that, there are also a lot of less than reasonable reasons why media blackouts may be enforced:
- Corporate Interests — If a possible story emerges that may hurt the reputation or profits of a giant corporation, they may use their influence to encourage a media blackout of this story. Yes, corporations often have enough power and money to influence our news media.
- Ideological Reasons — If a government has been infected by a particular kind of ideology, this may cause them to enforce media blackouts on stories that oppose their ideology. For example, in Hitler’s Germany, if a Jew gave away a large amount of money to help build a school, for instance, the Nazi regime would have enforced a media blackout on this story.
- Threats to power— If any events occur that threaten the current holders of power inside a country (EG. an anti-government protest), those in power will enforce a media blackout to make sure this event does not grow any further.
A media blackout is the first line of attack that any powerful organisation can use against a story that they don’t approve of. If the story becomes too big to ignore, they will be forced to end the media blackout and move onto stage 2: The Smear Campaign (which you can read about here).
(It’s important to note that the absence of coverage does not always indicate a media blackout, as other factors, such as news priorities or resource constraints, can also play a role in determining what news is covered.)
Recent Examples Of Media Blackouts
Media blackouts are not reserved only for countries run by dictators. There are plenty of examples of media blackouts being enforced in democracies too.
When truckers in Canada started their Freedom Convoy Protest in 2022 against COVID19 vaccine mandates, the first line of attack by the Canadian government was a media blackout. It was only after the protests got too big to ignore that the media had no choice but to acknowledge them.
In other words, despite the enormous numbers of people at the protest, the mainstream news media refused to cover it. You can watch The Hill describe this media blackout in detail here:
In the United States, feminists have often yearned for a strong, competent female president.
What if I told you that in the 2020 elections, there was a strong female candidate from Hawaii, who was a former Iraq war veteran, who was running for president. Her name is Tulsi Gabbard.
Yet most feminists have either never heard her name, or rarely ever mention her. Why? Because the mainstream media conducted a media blackout over her presidential candidacy.
Tulsi Gabbard was hugely popular across the internet and gathered a large loyal fanbase. But there was a problem. She was anti-war.
The establishment in the US didn’t like this. So they enforced a media blackout on her campaign. For months, mainstream news networks completely ignored her presidential campaign at every turn.
She was the perfect candidate. She was anti-war, an army veteran and supported medicare for all, yet most Americans have no idea who she is. That’s the power of a media blackout.
(Did you know that the US is currently involved in a war in Yemen, as well as in Somalia? When was the last time you heard or thought about these stories? Why aren’t they mentioned more in mainstream media?)
Do Media Blackouts Really Still Work?
Q: But we live in a world with social media sites like Twitter and Facebook. How could a media blackout possibly still work today?
Now there’s no doubt that social media has made it more difficult for powerful organisations to conduct a media blackout on certain stories. Before social media, media blackouts were far more effective than they are now.
But media blackouts are still highly effective.
You see, mainstream news organisations like CNN or MSNBC still have a solid hold over which stories we see as “legitimate” and which we see as “alternative” stories.
Once something is covered in mainstream media, it brings with it a sense of credibility, because we still have the sense that mainstream media is a credible source of information (even though it often isn’t).
In the minds of much the public (especially the older generation who are less tech-literate), news stories that aren’t covered on TV news aren’t legitimate stories.
In other words, if an enormous protest happens inside a country, but the mainstream news refuses to cover it, this story is seen as “illegitamate” by most of the public.
They could even see the protests with their own eyes on the way home from work one day, and they still wouldn’t regard it as important unless the mainstream news covers it.
It doesn’t matter that we have access to thousands of independent news sources through social media if the majority of the public don’t regard them as legitimate. To many, any news that comes from outside of mainstream sources is immediately put in the “crazy internet conspiracy theories” category.
Despite the endless amount of information available through social media, much of it isn’t seen as trustworthy by much of the public. Therefore, media blackouts are still highly effective.
Powerful organisations control where the general public’s attention goes and where it doesn’t.
And until the public understands what media blackouts are and how they work, they will continue to have their minds manipulated and controlled by them.
