Just days ago, the BBC’s Director-General and News CEO resigned following
public uproar over a Panorama documentary on Donald Trump. The controversy
centred on an edited version of Trump’s January 6 speech, in which the phrase
“peacefully and patriotically” was removed, leaving only “fight like hell.”
Stripped of context, the edit created the impression that Trump had directly
incited violence. More revealing, however, was how readily many viewers
accepted this distorted version simply because it fit an existing narrative
about him. When media selectively frames content, it doesn’t just report the
story, it constructs it, subtly guiding public perception toward a preferred
conclusion.
This is hardly a new phenomenon. It echoes the
central warning of Wag the Dog, a film
that remains disturbingly relevant. In the movie, political strategists
manufacture an entirely fictional war to bury a presidential scandal, exposing
how fragile truth becomes when political power and media manipulation
intersect. What appears satirical is, in reality, a clear-eyed critique of a
world where image-making supersedes fact. The film illustrates how easily
public opinion can be steered when narratives are crafted with precision and
delivered through trusted channels. It serves as a mirror to our present
moment, reminding us that when entertainment and news converge, truth becomes a
negotiable commodity.
A similar dynamic recently emerged in
Malaysia, where an academic from an international university claimed, without
credible evidence, that an ancient regional civilization had taught the Romans
shipbuilding and imparted several other advanced technologies. Despite the lack
of empirical support, the claims spread rapidly across public discourse. The
reaction split into two camps, one firmly rejecting the assertions, and another
embracing them out of cultural pride. The latter went as far as selectively
citing historical anecdotes to reinforce a preferred narrative, even though
these anecdotes collapsed under scholarly scrutiny. This episode reveals how
identity and emotion can override critical inquiry, allowing speculative claims
to be elevated to “truth” through sheer sentiment.
These three incidents expose a deeper
condition of the modern information landscape. Narratives no longer succeed on
the strength of evidence, they thrive when they cater to identity, confirm
biases, or provide psychological comfort. In a society increasingly driven by
consumerist logic, truth competes not with falsehood, but with convenience.
People gravitate toward truths that affirm their conditioning, convenient
truths, popular truths, socio-politically advantageous truths. As a result,
objective reality becomes negotiable, shaped less by facts and more by the
emotional needs of its audience.
This creates fertile ground for manipulation.
Media institutions can amplify selective frames, political actors can weaponize
narratives, and even academics can advance claims that resonate more with
cultural sentiment than with scholarship. When such narratives are repeated
widely and confidently, they gain the weight of legitimacy, regardless of their
factual foundation. The erosion of objective truth then becomes not an
aberration, but an inevitable outcome of an ecosystem where perception is more
valuable than accuracy.
The consequences extend far beyond individual
controversies. When societies begin to accept narratives not because they are
true but because they feel true, the foundations of informed discourse weaken.
Democracy depends on a shared baseline of reality, when that dissolves, public
debate becomes a contest of illusions rather than ideas. The BBC edit scandal,
the manufactured war in Wag the Dog, and
the Malaysian historical controversy all illustrate the same unsettling
trajectory, control of the story increasingly eclipses the truth itself.
We
now live in a world where perception functions as currency, traded and
manipulated by those who understand its power.
The pressing question, then, is not merely who shapes our narratives, but
who safeguards the truth, and whether we still care enough to demand it.
Cheers.
ravivarmmankkanniappan@1203141120253.0567° N, 101.5851° E
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