It was in 2002 that I understood the importance of media literacy for the first time. Back then I realized how I had been brainwashed by the mainstream media about one controversial issue between two countries. Until then I naively believed one narrative repeated by one of these states and even supported uncritically by the mainstream media of the other country. I happened to check the other narrative by the minority of people in this second country. To my surprise, the more I read about this issue, the more utter lies and distortions I found in the first narrative. Now more and more people, not only in the second country but even in the first, support the second narrative.
When another controversial issue arose in 2020 that interested me no less, I checked two opposing narratives of both parties involved within one country. Here again I found what the mainstream media repeated less trustworthy.
Since about two months ago I've been experiencing what amounts to the third controversial issue for me, which affects us much more than the above mentioned two issues. I was stupid enough to blindly believe the narrative by many mainstream media outlets, which have been repeating what one of the two parties involved in the issue has been claiming. But after a while I also started checking the narrative of the other party involved, and this time I also started checking analyses by several third-party investigative journalists.
Little by little I've come to realize, to my amazement, what these journalists analyze matches the narrative of the second party. All the supporters of the first narrative I've met and spoken to categorically laugh off the second narrative as the propaganda of the second party without knowing anything about this second narrative except what they heard through the extremely colored lens of the first party. So this very categorization of theirs seems to me to be nothing but the propaganda of the first party they believe uncritically.
I must still belong to the minority over this ongoing issue. I'm especially struck with the sincerity and integrity of one of the investigators I've been following. This is the second time that he has decided to speak up for truth while the whole world may be against him. I've just discovered that when he did this for the first time in 2007, he was literally the lonely voice and many influencial people seem to have discredit him in an unfair matter. But later investigations have proven that he was right. I've never read or heard more thorough and convincing analysis and argument than his.
Compared to him, many so-called journalists in mainstream media outlets and many self-proclaimed experts look like ignoramuses as none of them seems to have studied one crucial aspect of this issue, which he not only studied but even experienced first-hand. His prediction about how this issue will come to an end is clearcut. Time will tell, hopefully soon, whether he is right again or not.
In the meanwhile I see that a number of individuals and organizations who support the first narrative have been trying to discredit him again, which for me is an eloquent proof that these people are desperate in trying to hide from the public what is not convenient to their narrative.