Dear Z Community,

Everyone who is a regular reader of Z has experienced the feeling of disbelief and exasperation when trying to explain a contentious issue to a friend who only consumes mainstream media. 

It is well understood that media not only informs but actually creates social reality. After all, we only know about that which we haven’t personally witnessed through the media, or through what our friends have learned via the media. Our political consciousness is therefore, in large part, formed through the media. 

Through the selection of topics the media chooses to cover or not to cover, the framing of those topics, the “experts” who are selected to explain things to us, and by inbuilt assumptions that go into the stories which inform our worldview, they define the limits of the acceptable and the limits of possible futures. 

With such power invested in the media, it is only reasonable that the dominant forces in any society would use it to try to exert and expand their power. And that is indeed what happens. The mainstream media is owned by the holders of political power in our society and operates in a way that benefits them. It is also funded by hundreds of billions of dollars of advertising, that is, other businesses paying it to spread messages conducive to business and/or state interests. 

It is no accident that when describing the Israeli army massacring over a 100, and wounding several hundred more, starving Palestinian civilians waiting for food aid, the mainstream media comes up with tortured language headlines like “Gaza food aid deaths amid Israeli gunfire” (CNN), “More than 100 reported killed in crowd near Gaza aid convoy, Hamas run health ministry says” (BBC), “Biden says Gaza food aid-related deaths complicate peace talks” (Guardian). 

There is another type of media. The countervailing media, spreading messages from the perspective of the people. It is also funded by and accountable to its readers. 

Z is part of such media. Since we do not rely on businesses to pay us (nor would they) or billionaire donors, we are a shoestring budget operation volunteering our work. We make sure that topics and perspectives that serve the empowerment of the people are presented and disseminated. 

But just as billionaires prop up and maintain their media system, the people need to maintain their own media system. If you can support us, please do, and let’s build and grow a media that will be able to effectively counter the mainstream propaganda system.

In solidarity,

The ZStaff: Alexandria, Arash, Bridget, Cooper, Fintan, Greg, & Matic

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