Would it surprise you to learn that most of Britain's newspapers are owned by one man? A Mr Rupert Murdoch. I would be so bold as to guess your answer is 'no'. After the phone hacking scandal of earlier years it has become somewhat engrained and accepted into the public domain that Mr Murdoch does in fact own, what I would say, is an unfair share of the UK's (and America's) media outlets.
Rupert Murdoch is a man who built a majority of his media empire by aligning himself with key politicians like Tony Blair, who he endorsed in the run up to the 1997 Priminsterial election. In 2009, The Sun famously got behind the Conservative Party in a dramatic shift away from their 12 year reign of support for New Labour declaring it as front page news; 'After 12 long years in power, this Government has lost its way. Now it's lost the Sun's support too.' This is one small example of ways in which media is used to sway and persuade the public; and this persuasion isn't just used in political propagandising but has become regular practice in the media that we all know and read on a daily basis. But Rupert Murdoch isn't the only villain.
It is my opinion that media should exist to ask and investigate life's important questions and to represent the views of real people, instead of promoting the opinions and agendas of a selective elite. Even "National treasures" such as the BBC who are self-proclaimed as an impartial body have many flaws in their equal representation of public matters. In 2012 an investigation by the BBC trust found that on 'The reporting of all topics, Conservative politicians were featured 50% more often than labour ones across the BBC news at six.'(Sic) This single example shows the BBC leaning more towards providing space for Conservative voices; which doesn't seem to be as impartial as one might expect does it? I stress again that I'm being frugal with my examples...Friends, let me be very open with you, I'm not expert in this field, but I am a frustrated affected bystander on the receiving end of the media machine that is fed by corporate elite. For a much more informed and comprehensive indication of the type of shady goings on that take place in our beloved media outlets "The Establishment" by Owen Jones offers a more detailed and telling explanation of the media and the political elite's love affair.
I am however, Editor-in-chief of Fashion & Culture publication Kolum Magazine (which happened very much by accident, but that's a different story for a different day) and with every day that passes my tolerance for biased media is diminishing and with it, a little of my sanity. Even on receiving contributions for my own publication, I'm shocked by the lack of real journalism floating around. It seems that everyone and their cat fancy's themselves a journo after re-jigging a few press releases and googling a few complimentary images and we're saddened to admit that we've caught ourselves playing along; But the Kolum crew have seen the error of our ways, we don't want to bedroom journalists anymore. We want to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
A few months ago (shortly after launching in fact) we came to realise that not only are we doing an injustice to ourselves, but we're doing an injustice to you. You deserve better. So here I am at 21 years old with opportunity to highlight these issues and make a change that I can be proud of.
So this is where I am today; we've just launched a Kickstarter campaign to give Kolum magazine the purpose that media is meant to have, but we need your help.
With your help we want Kolum to become a real player in the world of free media. Using our unique network columnists we want to create a publication that exists simply to inform. That promises to show you all sides of a story. A place for real public opinion and not just regurgitated press releases and items and souls for sale.
We also believe that information can be beautiful, provocative and easy to understand. So that is what we will give you. No more asking google to endlessly 'Define:xxx' just to get to the bottom of the latest political goings on. We want transparent, reliable and interesting media that gives you an opportunity to make up your own mind. From fashion to politics, art to food we're all different and that should be represented.
If you would like to find out more about the benefits of backing/supporting our campaign you can do so here on our Kickstarter page: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/620164096/kolum-magazine Help us, help you to be the change that we all so desperately need.
thekolum.com
Image Credit: Tumblr with additions by Kolum Magazine