Our world is defined by its rhetoric. What we hear andread often defines what we believe or disbelieve,particularly if the same message permeates the media thatwe are most exposed to.

And those who control the mostwealth can control the rhetoric through their ownership ofthe major media outlets.

We live in a world defined by thewealthy in a manner that best serves their interest, not thepublic interest, though in their minds the two may be thesame. One is reminded of that old American adage, what is good forGeneral Motors is good for the country.

A good example of how rhetoric is used to mould ouropinion occurred just recently with the CanWest GlobalCommunications Corporation — a company whose publicationsinclude 11 major daily newspapers in Canada such asthe National Post and Vancouver Sun, a number of smallerpapers, the Global television network, and also mediaholdings in Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

CanWest drew fire from Reuters, the world’s oldest news agency, foraltering words and phrases in Reuters stories that they use.What they did was insert the word “terrorist” into storiesthat deal with issues in the Middle East, thus defining theway they want us to think about certain groups.

Other than the fact of altering the substance of Reutersreports rather than using the information to constructtheir own, this kind of slanting of news is not remarkable.It happens everywhere. Where the danger lies in oursociety is that the concentration of mass media control inonly a few hands often deprives average persons fromgetting more than one side of any story, and turns theminto the children of Hamelin, following the pied piper ofthe media giants. The fate of Hamelin’s children was tofollow the piper into oblivion; the fate of modern societycould be worse with the major media concentrated in sofew hands.

The use or misuse of the word terrorist is a good example.By definition all decent people should despise a realterrorist. But, a valid question is: who are the realterrorists? In Iraq, the U.S. paints the insurgents asterrorists and CanWest and others join in the chant. Butare all Iraqis who fight against the U.S. conquest andoccupation of their country terrorists? Are people whostruggle to free their country from foreign rule reallyterrorists? Consider that the U.S. and its allies have lost over 1000 troops in this war and have severalthousand wounded. The Iraqis have lost — by some reports — close to 40,000 civilians alone. Who is being terrorizedhere?

In Fallujah last May, the Iraqis killed three U.S. mercenaries.In retaliation U.S. forces attacked the city, killing about 600Iraqis — men, women and children. It was an admitted act ofrevenge. In June of 1944, soldiers of the SS entered Oradour-sur-Glane in France and killed over 600 civiliansin retribution for the capture of a German officer by theresistance. Is there much difference between the twoevents other than the methods used to do the killing? Doesthis kind of killing qualify as terrorism? One should askwhy is it that we hear and read of Arab terrorists, but notAmerican ones.

The same holds true in Israel. We all know aboutPalestinian terrorists, but what about Israeli terrorists?Hundreds of Palestinians are killed each year by theIsraelis, many of the victims being children. Is it acceptable to killsome children but not others?

Just as important as the news that we hear is how we hearit and why it is presented to us the way that it is. Wordsmake the story and which words are chosen are often asimportant as the story itself. More diversity in newscoverage provides a better understanding of reality —something difficult to get with only a few sourcescontrolling the major output.