Bizarrely, the status of journalists in the past twenty years has degenerated to an almost comical level. The internet is largely responsible for this, but not entirely. Consider what the net has done to offer choice of information to viewers, and you begin to understand how big media is careering down a slippery spiral, with no real idea how to reboot the dynamics once again in their favour. The Independent newspaper in the UK recently announced that it can no longer produce a print edition is a good example of how disciplined journalism is finding it harder and harder to remain at the rudder of a sinking vessel, when competing with a barrage of unsubstantiated, amateur 'content' which makes up what masquerades as 'news.' This galaxy of unregulated content has deluded an entire generation. In the 90s, people would often say at dinner parties "it must be true because I read it in a magazine somewhere." Nowadays, the same is said but modified to "I read it on Facebook." People are not only getting dumber, but also increasingly naïve and seduced by the kaleidoscope of news so cultivated to their ideas and perspectives that they have forgotten to look at where the information is originating from. Perceived truth has conquered actual truth, hands down. And there just isn't time anyway, as no-one has valuable seconds to lose when there is so much more perceived truth to consume. It's a consumption society and addiction is the goal. Industry wants you to overconsume on everything from processed foods (which are bad for you) to healthcare products which are usually fake. We are living in an age of toothpaste which claims to make your teeth whiter, creams which make your wrinkles disappear and glossy magazines filled with articles by doctors telling us we need to drink 2 liters of water a day.And media plays a crucial role in that wholesale rape of 'freedom of thought.' If enough people in movies are seen drinking gallons of mineral water every day, then enough people will believe that we're all going to die young if we don't drink enough of the stuff.But consider news as a fake consumer product. News giants, to survive, have long known that surreptitious sponsored content can easily pay their bills. More recently, many of them have replicated the style of the unregulated league of anonymous web news providers – from bloggers, to armchair experts right through to wannabee journalists and activists alike – by delivering news in a matter of seconds, unsubstantiated, biased and in some cases completely fabricated. In most cases this is less devious or maligned, more simply as a way of staying ahead of the competition. So a large London newspaper produces a shocking story about a Lebanese news presenter being groped – with the video clip for viewers to see – when in actual fact, she wasn't groped at all, but rescued by men around her from being sprayed by water. By the time enough people in Lebanon have tweeted outrage about how unprofessional the Big Media outlet is, it's too late; people have forgotten and move onto the next morsel of entertainment, oh sorry, news. And this 'clickbait' approach to journalism, usually by those in new media who failed as journalists, is then copied by media in poorer countries. Last year, when the German Wings jet crashed, a Lebanese journal published a Youtube audio clip of people on the plane screaming seconds before their death – knowing full well that the video clip was fake. Click.MAY I PRESENT TO YOU, BRITISH MEDIA KITThat is deception by old and new media alike, in its simplest form. It's almost forgivable. But then the next level – of allowing yourself to be manipulated by Big Business or by Big State for some kind of payoff –is harder to forgive. Industries have long seen how desperate newspapers and TV outlets have become to save on costs, and prove time and time again only too willing to help with the costs of travelling to a certain location or arranging interviews with high level people who normally who shy away from interviews, etc. Glancing at the EU debate in Britain over the last week, and I'm struck at how the British media – even the BBC - has been bought wholesale by European Commission money. It's a little reported fact that in the Belgian capital, millions of euros are shelled out each month on subsidizing European TV networks so they can retain a correspondent in Brussels; studio, edit facilities and cameramen are all provided free of charge. Even print journalists are ensnared into an entrapment zone of taking leaked documents before they become public – and writing them up in the EU's favour, wallpapering over the unsubstantiated areas of the report so as to make the allegations concrete, the perceived truth the absolute truth.Of course this environment only entices more and more stupid people to enter the profession. It's the price of freedom. Cranks, lunatics or just the plain stupid call themselves journalists these days, as the profession has become a mecca of wordsmiths who wouldn't know a news story if it bit them. And sometimes they even are journalists. The case of Stephen Hull, UK Huffington Post editor, is a curious one though. Hull recently argued for not paying journalists for their work, claiming that it was more objective if they were unpaid. Incredulously, we are living in a period where this notion can at least be digested for a few moments, as many 'journalists' on the net are unpaid; but his argument is a flawed one, as he fails to see that a real journalist who is unpaid for his work sooner or later needs an income to sustain him/herself and so becomes susceptible to lobbyists who will pass 'scoops' his way and even pay the journalist directly. It invites checkbook journalism and smacks of irresponsibility on the part of the outlet. It also encourages the lobbyists themselves to pose as journalists and provide content directly to the website, disguised as real 'news.' If the journalist is real in the first place, he needs an income. If he doesn't need an income, he probably has a hidden agenda. It beggars belief that Mr Hull doesn't understand that. But by contrast, media paying journalists also doesn't guarantee objectivity, but merely reduces the bias to that of the proprietor – rather than political or industrial ideologies waiting to permeate the editorial prism.HOW MANY SYRIANS CAN FIT INTO AN OP-ED? I recently surprised Russia Today (RT) TV by demanding a fee for appearing on a chat show. And then suggested to them that I write the occasional Op-ed (paid of course). But I also explained that I hold a very objective, if not harsh, view of Putin. Why would they pay me to write objective analysis pieces about their foreign policy? No brainer, right?You can't blame the Russians for manipulating the reporting in Syria, when there is no-one there to even question their objectivity.Western media is so terrified of costly litigation and the bad press of losing journalists to jihadist savagery that very few journalists report from the warzone itself. Russian journalists however are there in great numbers, but of course embedded with their own military. And so while western journalists rely on Skype with activists on the ground for information – or activists' video clips - Russian hacks produce their own manufactured consent of the war each day. Hospital bombed by Russian jets? Prove it. A million Syrians deliberately held in besieged cities starving? Where's the video?Weak and cash-strapped incumbent media giants, the social media boom and a new age of 'embedding' – thus preventing a journalist crossing lines – have all contributed to an unprecedented grand scale deceit of reporting on the Syrian war. And we have all contributed to it. But it's interesting how conventional media doesn't try to redeem itself in the face of such an abyss. On the contrary. In fact not only does it contribute to the lies and half-truths, but is then left to reporting on its adversaries' lies as well. Recently the BBC ran an article proclaiming that Russian media had entirely fabricated a story about Christians being slaughtered at the hands of Turkish-backed troops. Russian TV told viewers about a massacre of "hundreds of Christians," which it said had been carried out by Turkish-backed Islamists in the spring of 2014 in the northern Syrian town of Kasab. But the story, claims the BBC, was entirely fake as the Christians slaughtered were not Christians at all. And the dates and location were also wrong. The cusp of the report was to warn Turkey that Christians would be slaughtered if they entered the war.Full marks to BBC for unearthing a shocking piece of media manipulation?Not really. One might argue that it was a hollow victory when in the same week, reports spread on various websites about how the BBC mocked up a live interview with a so-called 'moderate' opposition military leader. A journalist in Beirut, of some reputation, carried out an interview with an extremist commander who was provided with a crisp, out-of-its-wrapper FSA uniform, just for the cameras. It seems regardless of how scarce moderates are in Syria, that even the BBC can resort to conjuring them up, when the need arises.* Correspondent for both a number of British newspapers in Beirut and for the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle @MartinRJay