Humor: "The Media is the Mess-Age" a CFR Story

 

Title: "The Medium is the Mess-age"

In the sprawling offices of the Council on Foreign Relations, nestled high above Manhattan, Major Medium McLuhan wrestled with an existential dilemma. Every report, every media release, every roundtable was, as he’d articulated countless times, not about content but the conveyor belt itself. And therein lay the rub. If the medium was the message, why did they keep drafting memos?

"You can’t publish without content," declared Colonel Context, waving a sheaf of papers filled with jargon about globalization, soft power, and economic interdependence. "But the content doesn’t matter," countered Major Medium, "because by the time it reaches anyone, the medium itself has already defined the meaning."

The CFR Loop

Captain Catchup (a junior analyst) tried to resolve the paradox. "If the media defines the message, shouldn’t we focus on controlling the platforms instead of worrying about policy?"

"Ah, but that’s the beauty of it!" exclaimed General Consensus, chomping on his cigar. "We already are the platform. Every op-ed quoting us, every news anchor echoing our talking points, every academic citing our white papers—they’re all broadcasting our medium. Even if the content is nonsense, we win!"

"But sir," Catchup ventured, "what if the nonsense becomes the message?"

"Then," Consensus chuckled, "we just call it a pivot to transparency and issue a new white paper. Spin solves everything!"

The McLuhanite Conundrum

Major Medium began to spiral. "But what if McLuhan was right? What if the real medium is the audience themselves? What if they’re shaping the message just by interacting with our media?"

This caused quite a stir. Colonel Context began drafting an internal report on the implications, while General Consensus formed a task force to investigate. Both knew, of course, that the report and task force were part of the medium that would inevitably shape the message. It was a beautiful circle, spinning endlessly, producing infinite meaning and no meaning at all.

The Catch-22

Catchup tried one last time to make sense of it. "If the CFR creates the medium that shapes the message, and the message itself is meaningless, then what are we actually doing here?"

"That’s simple," said Major Medium. "We’re creating a message so powerful, no one will ever dare to ask that question again."

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