Are you sitting comfortably?

I was standing at the train station today, with my DS playing pokemon and trying to train the damn things up, when a random thought crossed my mind.

Looking back on it, I can't remember what triggered this line of thought. But I was thinking about the media and the effect is has on us. I think it was the fact I was at a train station and trains are crap and the media never stops moaning about train delays.

Anyway, Media. Me. Me. Media.
I was wondering, how can we tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys with the media? Like I said, the trains and general British public transport is shit, and the media never stops moaning about it. Its like a whining old woman.

At times like the, the government is all but at fault. They can't do anything right. It always seems that the media is looking out for the little guy. If its not the government, they're moaning at some other corporation for picking on us normal/ordinary folks.

For instance, back at the trains again - a few weeks ago Birmingham New Street stopped calling out train times above the platforms as it was deemed obtrusive. But now blind and partially blind members of our society are complaining that they can;t find their trains because they can't read the times for obvious reasons. The media was there like superman.

And yet, there are other times when the media can't do anything but stick up for the big guys. Like when people protest against the building of a new runway at an airport and all of a sudden they are health hazards, what they are doing is wrong.

And as I stood at the train station with my DS and my pokemonz I looked around at all the busy bustling people around me; businessmen & women, kids, teenagers, students, pensioners - how do any of us know what we really want or think? Without the media to spoon feed us who the bad and good guy is depending on how the editor feels, who would we see as the bad guy?

Would we see Obama as such a hope if the media hadn't told us to feel like that?
Would we hate Gordon Brown if the media told us all of the good things he is doing, not just the bad things?

We only ever listen to what we are told. And that is scary.
The media is unstable and takes whatever side it wishes - the little guy or the bully.
Whatever we do could be deemed as wrong if the media wishes and everyone else would agree.

scary.