Far, far too many.
So you listen to me. Listen to me. Television is not the truth. Television is a goddamn amusement park. Television is a circus, a carnival, a traveling troupe of acrobats, storytellers, dancers, singers, jugglers, sideshow freaks, lion tamers, and football players. We're in the boredom killing business.
So if you want the truth go to God. Go to your gurus. Go to yourselves! Because that's the only place you're ever going to find any real truth.
But man, you're never going to get any truth from us. We'll tell you anything you want to hear. We lie like hell. We'll tell you that, uh, Kojak always gets the killer, and that nobody ever gets cancer in Archie Bunker's house, and no matter how much trouble the hero is in, don't worry, just look at your watch. At the end of the hour, he's going to win.
But you people sit there; day after day, night after night, all ages, colors, creeds. We're all you know. You're beginning to believe the illusions we're spinning here. You're beginning to think that the tube is reality and that your own lives are unreal. You do whatever the tube tells you! You're dressed like the tube. You eat like the tube. You raise your children like the tube. You even think like the tube! This is mass madness, you maniacs! In God's name you people are the real thing! We are the illusion!
- Howard Beale "Network" 1976
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c5Gf0VKXk5Q
On reflection, all media CAN BE used for good also.
Think back o stories of Aesops Fables, proverbs, etc.
We didn’t do our job in telling stories in the past, but there is still work to be done............