It's through checking about 30 investigative journalists and geopolitical analysts I trust about one ongoing global issue that I've come to realize how the mainstream media, at least in the West, has become the main propaganda tool to promote the only narrative by a seemingly small group of individuals and censor and tarnish everyone who dares to challege this narrative. Some call such mainnstream media "*ensorship-industrial complex" (please replace * with c) or "*resstitute" (please replace * with p).
In retrospect I can say that the same propaganda in different garbs was promoted this way to the exclusion of all the dissenting views for the *andemic (please replace * with p) and *accination (please replace * with v). I can also say that I was totally brainwashed about these two global issues as I only used to check the mainstream media, in which I have absolutely no trust now.
Unfortunately, the majority of people I know seem to consume only the mainstream media without realizing that they are brainwashed by its propaganda. In extreme cases some people become propagandists themselves by relying themselves exclusively on these media outlets.
They also categorically reject all the media outlets and independent journalits that question the narrative they are promoting voluntarily, believing blindly that they are doing a great favor to other, "less informed", people without having any specialist knowledge on the issue they are talking about in public.
This time, that is, concerning the above mentioned ongoing global issue, I won't be brainwashed. But I have a new problem. Every time someone hears my opinion on this issue, which totally contradicts the only narrative they are exposed to and brainwashed to believe blindly, they look at me in such disbelief.
Having tried to explain to them and failed miserably in convincing them, I've come to stop talking about this specific issue if I see that the person I'm talking to is totally brainwashed. I've also found a very efficient way to measure how much someone is brainwashed by the mainstream media.