Stories Told, Stories Untold
On most days the news feels like weather in times of constant climate change. A bit too much sun, a bit of poison rain, a few loud headlines drifting by like dark thunder clouds. Nothing really suspicious. Nothing that would stop you from sipping your matcha latte. Just the daily drift that everyone takes for granted, without asking where the current comes from.
Public opinion is not decided on Mount Olympus. It grows out of something far more profane and familiar. I think it is a soft architecture of habits, incentives, and routines that sits between media, government, and institutions. No one builds it. It builds itself.
You see it best in what gets discussed and, more importantly, in what does not. Eric Weinstein calls this anti-interesting. I am a social worker and know nothing about him or his theory, but the idea rings true to me. Information is not hidden. It simply never becomes part of the conversation. It stays in plain sight but out of reach, like a book placed on the highest shelf where nobody looks.
While I was playing with my cat this morning I thought about it and later wrote this essay with a beginner’s mind. Be aware: I know nothing about the media industry. This is simply how the news ecosystem looks to me. I am also not talking about how algorithms push stories, because I am not a software engineer. That part you have to imagine for yourself, McLuhan style.
How Stories Get Chosen
Newsrooms have limited space, so they follow the lines of least resistance. Press releases, briefings, safe experts, predictable angles. Maybe not because they lack integrity, more because they rely on official pipelines to stay afloat.
If institutions talk about Topic A, the news talks about Topic A. At this level it is not manipulation. It is momentum.
The Things We Don’t Talk About
Some stories are true but inconvenient. They complicate debates. They raise questions nobody wants to answer. They do not get censored. They get shoved under the carpet or postponed until the critical moment passes and the public has moved on.
I do not know if it is an unspoken pact or something else. But it looks to me from the outside as if keeping the system stable becomes a reflex. If you do this too often, it wraps society into a straightjacket.
The Quiet Mechanics of Public Opinion
Even when facts make it into print, the language softens them.
Rising crime becomes complex social dynamics.
Policy failure becomes ongoing challenges.
The same fact in a padded coat with hot milk and crackers.
Journalists do this instinctively because bluntness carries a price. Too much honesty about how the world works can cost access, invitations, trust. Without access, a journalist becomes someone with opinions, like the writer of this blog, and no one significant to back them up (except Lido, my cat).
So trained journalists soften their sentences. The rules never need to be written down. Everyone learns them early.
Everyday Experts
Every country has a circle of experts who appear everywhere. They are not chosen for brilliance. They are chosen for predictability. They stay inside the accepted range. They do not embarrass the institutions that rely on them.
Once you are the safe expert, you remain the safe expert, until you say something real enough to derail the narrative.
How to Serve Hot Potatoes
When a topic becomes sensitive and gets caged, everything slows down. A sentence that is correct becomes risky. A statistic becomes impolite. People watch every word because the social cost of misstepping is high.
Self-censorship takes over. Fear of embarrassment and public humiliation silences more voices in a democracy than any law ever could.
United Stories of News Media
In crises the soft architecture gets rigid. Governments centralize communication. Media becomes cautious. Experts close ranks. No one wants to be blamed for panic.
The result is one single voice speaking through many mouths. Accuracy gets replaced by unity because unity looks like order. Unfortunately, most people do not even notice the difference.
Corridors of Calm
One could argue that none of this is driven by malice. It is driven by incentives. I can make a case for it: Governments want calm, that is the obvious one. Media wants access, that is their lifeline. Experts want legitimacy, because without it they perish. Institutions want to avoid scandals, that is also a no brainer. Citizens want reassurance, because their every day life already feels unstable enough.
So the danger is not lies, but interlocked smoothness. The danger is the system becoming allergic to anything surprising or inconvenient, or anything that would make citizens question the system itself.
The Dopamine Buffet
Everyone knows this part, I am saying it anyway. When real news gets too heavy, the feed fills up with comfort food. Sports drama, celebrity breakups, a royal has a hard time picking the right dress, a feel-good cat clip. It is the processed sugar of public life. Easy to digest. Quick to forget. A small dopamine hit so the reader does not wander off or think too much about their life. And it works because people are tired and want something that does not ask anything of them.
Kind of an Epilogue
If you want to understand how a society functions, do not study what it shouts. Study what it whispers. Study what it avoids. Study the stories that never make it above the fold, even though they are true.
On most days the silence is louder than the news.
The blanks are bigger than the ink.