Ray Davis, for 6 Sense Media

Over the past year, the phrase fake news has been hurled like a weapon in popular culture. It began as a backlash by the mainstream media in an attempt to mitigate their diminishing credibility and audiences. They lambasted the alternative media with the label.

Reflexively, the alternative media fired back with the same charge against the mainstream media. All of this has been clouded by the ongoing war between President Trump and the media. For many, this battle pits good versus evil. In the minds of some, this has buoyed the credibility of the mainstream media as a firewall against Trumpism.

However, that recent development obscures the fact that the mainstream media has earned that lack of credibility over many years. Fake news is not really a proper monicker for the MSM. It reports real news, for most the most part. It’s sins are the following.

1. Massive contribution to the heated right-left paradigm schism spreading through our society.
2. Handing their megaphone to the most extreme elements on all sides creating a false reality of constant fear and chaos.
3. Undying support for perpetual war for profit.
4. Corporate-sponsored analysis, conclusions, and censoring.
5. An unwillingness to truly question power beyond the context of a right-left mentality.
6. A failure to challenge establishment talking points on a wide array of issues.
7. A failure to investigate whole areas information invaluable to human beings understanding who we are and what we’re doing on this planet.
8. It’s based on a top-down, center-out flow of information.

The trust has been broken because of these failures. It’s not a right-left and it’s not particularly related to the current president. It’s a fact. In a reflective moment, we all know it.

That top-down, center-out paradigm is dead. We are in the era of participatory journalism and learning. It has its own challenges and is experiencing its growing pains. Yet, it’s an inevitable evolution of the way information is shared in society. Knowledge is power and it has too long been in the hands of the TOO FEW. The mainstream media has traditionally been the filter through which that TOO FEW crafts the paradigms they want to the many to be subservient to. No more. That day is done. For better or worse, media and information is now in the hands of the many. The question is, what will we do with it?

Ray Davis is a social commentator, author of Anunnaki Awakening, and the co-founder of 6 Sense Media. He founded The Affirmation Spot in 2007 and shares information, motivation, and ideas with hundreds of thousands on social media each week.