Media is the battlefield
- Governments and media figures are weaponizing AI, disinformation, and broadcast power to shape war narratives, from fake Netanyahu videos to censorship threats against journalists.
- Psychic fraud on TV set the template for today’s disinformation: unverified stories packaged as truth, amplified by platforms that reward spectacle over fact.
- From Trump to Israel’s allies, wartime propaganda now targets domestic speech, using fear to expand censorship under the guise of patriotism or protection.
Media isn’t just covering war - it’s the war.
On Joe Rogan’s podcast, Mark Normand and Rogan dissect an official Israeli video of Netanyahu sipping coffee in a war zone - cup tilted, no spill, text on signs gibberish. They don’t dismiss it as clumsy editing. They call it AI-generated propaganda. The implication: the Prime Minister may be dead, and the state is faking his presence to project control.
That same week, Tucker Carlson aired Glenn Greenwald warning that Israel’s allies are using wartime panic to criminalize dissent abroad - from Australians arrested for t-shirts to U.S. universities forced to adopt speech codes shielding Israeli policy from criticism. The censorship isn’t just top-down. It’s outsourced.
This isn’t new. Behind the Bastards traces the roots of media-enabled fraud to Sylvia Browne, the TV psychic who told Amanda Berry’s mother her daughter was dead - a lie that stopped a search. The show’s host, Robert Evans, notes Browne’s act worked because TV rewarded emotional performance over verification. Producers didn’t fact-check; they aired the drama.
Today’s war coverage operates on the same principle. Trump, on a flight to Tel Aviv, calls verified footage of Iranian attacks “AI fakery” and threatens media with treason charges and FCC license revocation. His rhetoric mirrors the psychic’s playbook: assert certainty, dismiss evidence, and position yourself as the only truth-teller in a world of illusion.
The pattern is clear: when reality is contested, power goes to those who control the screen.
Joe Rogan, The Joe Rogan Experience:
- They think he might be dead.
- There's a bunch of AI videos that Israel is released that are like clearly AI.