Mohammed bin Salman is a bad guy (see here, here and here), but you wouldn’t know it from media reporting.
Two factors are at work. One is the frequent bias of the upper echelon of our society’s leaders to accept one of their own. The rich and famous often accept each other in public, even if they could care less or even hate each other’s guts. They often want the publicity and the connections. They want the influence. To maintain their position, it helps to be seen with others who are currently ascendant. This tendency is reversed when they can elevate their position by shunning and criticizing another celebrity. It’s popular at present to hate Trump in public, for example. Both public acceptance and ostracism are being influenced by self-interest in the case of these celebrities, and not just by “true” feelings and opinions.
The other factor is media bias, and it too makes truth a casualty. Our media are based on catchy stories, and one type of such has clear good guys and bad guys. The media create celebrities, in pseudo-Hollywood fashion, and not always just for 15 minutes. At the moment, Mohammed bin Salman is cast as the good guy in our media. This is selling and it reflects the current script of the rich and famous. In time, he could be cast as a bad guy. Bush and Obama have been cast and recast similarly, like a Hollywood actor who plays both kinds of roles. It all depends on what the script calls for, which depends on what sells to the public.
Media are driven by profit and catchy stories sell. Media do not exist for the sake of truth but for entertainment. Bias of one sort or another and bias that may radically flip are in their nature. They sell by creating characters and plot lines. The media are very much like Hollywood’s movie production line.
8:30 am on April 1, 2018
