Can We Win the 'War of Information?'

There is a war of information going on. I remember in the 1960s we learned about this thing called "propaganda" that Communist countries used to manipulate their people. But here in America, we did not have propaganda. We had news. Fast forward 50 years: I was watching CNN in the teacher's lounge at the high school where I was working as a tutor for a girl from Mexico. My sister was still alive, and I remember she and her husband were already into not listening to the news because it was so "negative." I had liked the news since my father bought me a TV in 1990, the year I moved to Oklahoma to work on my Master's degree. Whereas before I had no particular interest in watching the news or following current events, my father thought I needed to know "what was going on in the world." In 1990 there was no such term as "Mainstream Media" aka MSM, a term that was foreign to me until the last decade or so. I have now read that the term has been in use since the late 20th and early 21st century, evolving alongside the proliferation of social media. I recently learned about what is called the "big five" media outlets. You can see the detailed table on Wikipedia's article about "Mainstream Media," but here is a very brief summary. Comcast- NBC, CNBC, Telemundo, etc. The Walt Disney Company- ABC, ESPN, Disney Channel, etc. News Corps/Fox Corporation- Fox News, Fox Sports, Fox Business, etc. (book publisher Harper-Collins) Warner Brothers Discovery- CNN, HBO, Cinemax, etc. Paramount Global- CBS, VH1, BET, etc. (book publisher Simon & Schuster) This is just a glance at the vast network of information sources, and just looking at that makes me think of the term "prince of the power of the air" and "principalities, powers, rulers of the darkness of this age, spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." After all, the radio, television, news, and Internet programming are all "on the air," are they not? This is another topic about which I am no expert, but about which I am endlessly fascinated, as, I dare to suggest, we all are, probably more so than we can even imagine. Hardly a day passes that we don't hear someone refer to some technology as "addictive." And this brings us to the topic of addiction. Just a quick rundown here. Addiction can be either of substances or behaviors. Substance addictions include alcohol, tobacco/nicotine, opioids, stimulants, cannabis/marijuana, prescription medication and inhalants. Behavior addictions include gambling, Internet/gaming/social media, food, shopping, sex/pornography and exercise. Is your head spinning yet? Mine is. The "powers of the air" are addressed in the chapter on spiritual warfare in the New Testament book that expounds on "the Whole Armor of God." You may know which chapter this is, and if you don't, you may search it online. I wanted this to be an essay emphasizing the war of information, but I see that it has morphed into what I believe is the antidote to addiction to any of these substance or behavior addictions, but it also is the way to discover what information we should train ourselves to recognize as true and what to recognize as false. I was actually thinking about this earlier this evening as I was walking from my car to my apartment, returning from the store where I went to buy shredded wheat, English muffins, a peach and a tomato. As we are constantly bombarded by news and information day by day, around the clock, except perhaps when we are sleeping, how are we to know what is true? The war of information is very real, and, if nothing else, we should be aware of it and alert to it. And to bring this to a close, I just want to say this most famous quote from Jesus Christ: "You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free." And that is how I believe we will win the war of information.