Writers: Are You Telling the Truth — Or Writing Propaganda?

Free Video Tutorial for Screenwriting

Propaganda isn’t just lying.

Some of the most persuasive propaganda in history has been factually accurate. The difference lies in framing — in beginning with a verdict and arranging reality to serve it.

In this episode of The Storyteller’s Mission, we explore the critical difference between witnessing reality and advocating a conclusion. For writers, novelists, and storytellers, this distinction is not political — it’s craft.

You’ll learn:

• The difference between a witness and an advocate
• How propaganda forms through preloaded moral certainty
• The craft warning signs your story may be manipulating instead of revealing
• Why flattening characters weakens moral credibility
• The responsibility of storytellers in a culture where trust is collapsing

Story doesn’t just entertain. It forms moral imagination.

The question is not whether you have convictions.

The question is whether your story trusts reality — or tries to control the outcome.

📚 About The Storyteller’s Mission
The Storyteller’s Mission helps writers craft stories grounded in truth, meaning, and moral clarity — stories that shape culture rather than merely reflect it.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] When people think of propaganda, what most people think is that it means lying. It doesn't.

[00:00:06] Today we're gonna talk about something that should make every storyteller stop and take a breath, because when institutions that once tested truth begin to fail, storytellers don't just participate in culture, they inherit power.

[00:00:24] Hello and welcome to the Storytellers Mission.

[00:00:27] Here's an uncomfortable truth for storytellers. You don't have to be dishonest. You don't have to be malicious. You don't even have to know you're doing it for your story to become propaganda. And if we're not careful, what we create won't illuminate reality. It will manufacture consent 

[00:00:47] In other words, it will become propaganda 

[00:00:51] Propaganda. Is not about lying. Let's clear that up right away. Some of the most effective propaganda in history was actually [00:01:00] factually accurate.

[00:01:01] The problem wasn't what was said. The problem was what was selected, emphasized, framed, and then aimed toward a conclusion that the audience was never allowed to question.

[00:01:14] Propaganda is defined by preloaded meaning, if you will. It is storytelling that begins with a moral conclusion, and then.

[00:01:26] Arranges reality to serve that conclusion. And that's why propaganda is so persuasive, because it often includes real events and genuine suffering and real injustice and genuine victims. But those realities are not actually explored. They're exploited. They're used. Propaganda doesn't ask what happened, what really objectively happened.

[00:01:54] It asks, what do I want the audience to believe and how do I [00:02:00] use what happened to effectively get them there? And the moment that becomes your primary question, you've actually crossed a line. Even if everything you say is technically true.

[00:02:13] Now, here's the thing.

[00:02:14] Story has always been how humans learn truth. Before data, before peer review, before institutions, there was story. Story is what taught human beings cause and effect. Moral consequence, the danger of power, the cost of lies, the meaning of sacrifice.

[00:02:38] That means that stories don't just entertain. They form conscience. 

[00:02:43] Now, why is story more powerful than say straight data? Well, because data appeals to reason, but story bypasses reason and goes straight to meaning. It's the interpretation. The interpretation of the data. [00:03:00] So story engages, emotion story allows for identification. Story develops moral intuition 

[00:03:10] Which means story can bypass discernment if the story wants it to. And that's dangerous.

[00:03:17] Which leads me to an important question because what we need to know now is what is the difference between say a witness and an advocate? This is gonna help us put some things into perspective, and everything hinges on this distinction. Okay? So what does a witness do? Well, a witness submits to reality.

[00:03:38] A witness says, well, this is what I saw. This is what I know. This is also what I don't know, right? A witness allows for ambiguity. They don't try to fill in the gaps or interpret. They just state what they actually saw, what they actually witnessed firsthand.

[00:03:59] [00:04:00] An advocate, on the other hand, doesn't do that. An advocate. Begins with a verdict. that's why attorneys are our advocates. They're actually trying to present a scenario, a meaning, an interpretation of the events to the jury. So an advocate says, here's what this all means.

[00:04:22] Here's who's really guilty. Here's how you should feel about this. Advocacy selects evidence. Witnesses reveal it. Propaganda then happens the moment that the storyteller stops being a witness and starts acting like a prosecutor.

[00:04:43] Now, let me give you an example of this We're just looking at a made up example of what that would look like. so I'm not arguing politics, I'm showing process. 

[00:04:54] Let's say that you want to tell a story about a police shooting that was caught on camera, and [00:05:00] you are passionate about it. You care about justice. You want to explore abuse, power, accountability, and truth. So you're using the same footage, the same events, and the same facts.

[00:05:15] now watch what changes Version A is truthful storytelling in a truthful version of this story. The audience is brought into the uncertainty. They see the footage, but we also see what the footage doesn't show. We follow multiple perspectives.

[00:05:34] We follow the officer, the victim's family, the partner on the scene, the investigators. The story allows time. It allows process. We don't know who's guilty right away. We don't know what justice looks like or what it will require in this particular story. And so the story's moral weight does not come from [00:06:00] outrage.

[00:06:00] the weight of it comes from watching how the truth is slowly and imperfectly, often pursued how it unfolds over time the story trusts reality to speak for itself. 

[00:06:16] But now let's look at version B.

[00:06:18] Propaganda in the propagandist version of this same story, the verdict comes in immediately. The video is presented as complete. This is all you need to see. You see it with your own eyes. Context is dismissed, 

[00:06:34] So characters in this scenario exist only to support the conclusion. So process then is framed. As obstruction or moral failure, doubt is immorality. That story may feel righteous, but it isn't witnessing reality,

[00:06:55] It is propaganda.

[00:06:58] Alright, so now [00:07:00] let's talk about. What signals propaganda? Like how do we know if we're writing it? Let's talk about craft. Okay? Because again, propaganda has fingerprints and once you see them, you can't unsee them. So here are some warning signs inside the story itself.

[00:07:19] Number one. You are writing propaganda if your characters exist only to represent ideas. All right? These are not fully fleshed out characters. They're simply mouthpieces 

[00:07:32] uttering some sort of moral statement that you want them to make.

[00:07:38] Number two, it is propaganda when the opposition is flattened. Okay? where the other side is stupid, evil or cartoonish.

[00:07:50] Motives are assigned.

[00:07:52] They're not discovered.

[00:07:54] That's a warning sign.

[00:07:55] Okay, number three, When your moral certainty arrives early. [00:08:00] See, here's the truth of it. Yes, we have a worldview, but we should actually be wrestling with The conclusion that we're coming up with, because the arguments on both sides are compelling. 

[00:08:13] When we arrive at the conclusions too early, there's no real investigation. There's only reaction. The verdict is already known before the story unfolds. Number four, it's another warning sign when your emotional payoff. Replaces discovery. What do I mean by that? I mean that the story, rewards agreement instead of insight. 

[00:08:39] So somehow you're able to come up with something that rewards the fact that they are seeing what it is that you're presenting, but you're not giving any rewards for a freshs insight, Something that makes them go, oh, huh. And challenges their preconceived [00:09:00] ideas.

[00:09:01] another warning sign, the consequences are rigged. good characters are simply vindicated regardless of the choices. And bad characters are punished regardless of the evidence. 

[00:09:15] so you're actually ignoring the nuance of story itself. But sometimes bad guys do good things, and sometimes good guys do bad things. And so all of it should be consistent with a worldview instead of just broken down into these divisions of who's good and who's bad, and rewarding them accordingly.

[00:09:38] 

[00:09:38] this leads me to another thing that I wanna talk about, So I'm just gonna touch on this here.

[00:09:44] And then there's another episode that goes into this much more deeply, but essentially it comes back to wounds, right?

[00:09:53] Wounds or trauma, Those are real, those are powerful. But propaganda forms, [00:10:00] when we have unexamined interpretations of those wounds. That becomes narrative fuel for lies. I go into that more in another episode.

[00:10:11] What I wanna talk about right now is why storytellers are especially vulnerable, and this is the uncomfortable truth that we don't like to admit.

[00:10:22] Storytellers are dangerous precisely because we are skilled, we know how to manipulate emotion. We know how to frame events. We know how to OMI strategically. In fact, that's part of the craft of storytelling. We also know how to build sympathy and outrage and how to make lies feel true. That means the temptation to correct the narrative is enormous, especially in a moment when truth feels fragmented, audiences [00:11:00] become polarized, institutions are distrusted.

[00:11:03] This is where storytellers must stop and ask themselves, am I revealing reality really? Or am I recruiting for a cause? 

[00:11:12] So what is the moral responsibility of storytellers in this post trusts world? Because listen, intent is not enough. Feeling morally righteous is not enough because emotional authority is still authority. 

[00:11:33] as I've said. Through all seasons of the Storyteller's Mission Podcast, the number one responsibility of the storyteller is to tell the truth about reality as it actually is. But now I'm going to divide that overarching principle into five different subcategories.

[00:11:57] All right, so number one, [00:12:00] you tell the truth. Even when it costs you allies, if your story never challenges your own side, it isn't honest, it's branded content.

[00:12:14] Number two, you refuse to flatten people into avatars. Villains believe they're right and they have good reasons for it. Heroes have blind spots and they also have good reasons for it. Victims still make choices. Number three, preserve cause and effect morality. What do I mean by that? I simply mean that actions have costs, right? Lies, corrode relationships. Power temps corruption. 

[00:12:51] Truth outs, lies. This is cause and effect, Number four, don't bypass discernment with [00:13:00] emotion. If your story induces rage without context or sympathy, without evidence, then you are hijacking an audience's nervous system, 

[00:13:11] Number five, honor the audience's. Moral intelligence, truthful storytellers. Trust the audience to wrestle, discern, and hold tension.

[00:13:22] Propagandists don't Propaganda can't risk that you're going to come to a different conclusion. Again, it goes back to that statement. Truth trusts that reality is enough.

[00:13:39] Now, how does all of this connect to the current epistemological crisis? When journalism stops testing power, when universities stop testing ideas, when experts stop allowing themselves to be scrutinized, [00:14:00] story becomes one of the last remaining truth laboratories.

[00:14:06] People learn how truth works, not from institutions, but from story, which means that storytellers are now shaping how people recognize lies, how they perceive authority, how they interpret suffering, how they define heroism. That's not entertainment, that's formation. We are the most powerful people in the world.

[00:14:32] So in a world where trust has collapsed. The storytellers task is not to replace institutions. It's to remind us what truth feels like. Not certainty, not slogans, not propaganda, but coherence, consequence, humanity. We don't save society by shouting louder. We save it by refusing to [00:15:00] lie beautifully.

[00:15:01] So before you tell the story, before you sharpen the message, before you decide what the audience should think or feel, ask yourself, am I witnessing reality or am I trying to control the outcome?

[00:15:15] Because how you tell a story doesn't just shape your audience. It shapes the culture. They carry it into.

[00:15:22] I hope all of this makes sense. I know it's a lot. If you have questions about anything here, would you please write a comment in the notes below? Ask it. Ask it. I wanna know what you're thinking, and if you have benefited from this episode at all, would you please like, comment, and subscribe 

[00:15:40] That helps us out a lot, and we don't want you to miss a single episode.

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