Blog Post #11 - The Progressive Era

My Theories on Anti-War Censorship

During a time of constant war and unrest in places in the world, such as Russia and Ukraine or Israel and Iran, many people agree with the U.S. going to war but many are against it. However, although many speak out against our military involvement abroad, we rarely ever hear antiwar opinions. I almost always see news or social media reports praising our government for our involvement or support of an ongoing situation. I find it so surprising because we send our money off to fight wars while our country is in severe debt and we send our troops off to risk their lives for the wrong reasons.

If you look at our most popular news outlets, almost all of them support our actions during wartime, and we rarely see reports disagreeing with the government. Unfortunately, many reporters and journalists risk losing their jobs if they write an antiwar-themed article or report. For example, Ashleigh Banfield, Phil Donahue, and Jesse Ventura are all examples of job loss or demotion due to speaking out against war.

While journalists and reporters are being suppressed for their speech, many sources are suppressed as well, such as Antiwar.com and The American Conservative. What I found is many of these sources are all conservative or right-leaning institutions.

As someone registered as an independent and likes to hear both sides, I find this bias frustrating. According to Newhouse School of Public Communications' study, only a small percentage of our press affiliates as conservative. Although some studies suggest that the media does not have bias, I believe this information holds significant weight. 

Through most of the last century, we have seen the liberals be the voices for antiwar movements; however, I believe we are starting to see the roles switch. Due to the Ukraine/Russia conflict, conservatives are less in favor of fighting a war than liberals. In fact, 31% of Republicans are in favor of U.S. involvement in comparison to 69% of Democrats.

I believe that the suppression of antiwar opinions today not only stems from government encouragement, but more so, I believe that this suppression comes from a political bias within our news networks and publications. Furthermore, as trends suggest, this lack of free speech and press will only continue to get worse with our current actions. Regardless of your political leanings, you must ask yourself if you want to be a part of this political echo chamber or change how our news structure is operated to allow free speech without consequence.