The mass media, even though they are supposed to inform the general public in a just and truthful way, are being used as tools for concealing the truth and manipulating the masses.  This has been going on since their emergence. 

One of the main reasons the mass media are used in a manipulative way is to prepare the public for things that ultimately go against their interest such as wars for example. The public is actually convinced that this is for its own good and that they should completely support the government in this. The mass media fuel nationalism and hate so much that the general public does indeed fully support the starting of the war for example. Sometime in the past yes, some wars were actually for the interest of the people, but nowadays, pretty much all wars are for the good of the big corporations. Taking the example of the new "democracies' that are arising from the “Arabic spring” we can see that only the big oil corporations (that also control the mass media through their lobby groups) are the only ones that are profiting from the wars for regime change. The only thing the people are going to get is a fake sense of freedom and democracy, and I’m saying “are going to get” because for now they are in complete chaos (not Anarchy since the word has a different meaning even though the mass media have twisted its meaning) and will continue to be so until the corporations take complete control of all their oil reservoirs.

The mass media are also used (or to be more precise, abused) by the government to hide their mistakes and their corruption. The mass media, in a way, are censured by the government. They are not allowed to convey the truth to the audience, the public, the people. In this case, the bad guys are the guys from the government, but this is not always the case when it comes to the hiding of the government corruption and incapability to deal with the problems of the people. There are cases where the owners of television networks are members of parties including the ruling one. They will of course not let their television to air information that would considerably hurt the ratings of the ruling party even though that party is corrupt and full of incapable officials. This is compensated in a way with the television networks that are against the ruling party (pro-opposition), but even they lie and manipulate the public in favor of the opposition parties. The pro-government and pro-opposition media, both inform the public in such a way as to manipulate them for the benefit of their “side”, and in this way they do not present the truth to the public but just information that are often twisted and sometimes they don’t even inform the public at all on certain things. Just to make things clear, the media do not “favor” the government just in the cases when the owner is politically active in the ruling party, but also when the owner is not working according to the law and therefore falls to the trap of the corrupt government officials who threatening him or her with legal repercussion force him to use his media for their benefit. Also, sometimes there is no politics or illegal activities involved. Sometimes it’s just that the media financially benefits a lot from the government campaigns so they in return support the ruling party so their revenue would continue to be as high or even rise.