Wednesday, 23 November 2022 — Media Lens
On November 15, as 90 Russian cruise missiles struck at Ukraine’s energy network, a companion US-UK propaganda blitz blamed the Russian missiles for the deaths of two workers on a farm in Poland.
Category: Media Lens
Excellent UK-based media analysis
‘On The Highway To Climate Hell’ – The Climate Crisis, Activism And Broken Politics
Monday, 14 November 2022 — Media Lens
Last month, the United Nations environment agency issued arguably its starkest warning yet about the climate crisis. The failure by governments around the world to cut carbon emissions means there is ‘no credible pathway to 1.5C in place’. Limiting the rise of global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels was the international agreement at COP21, the UN Climate Summit in Paris in 2015.
Wicked Leaks – Part 2: How The Media Quarantined Evidence On BP And Cancer In Iraq
Friday, 28 October 2022 — Media Lens
In Part 1, we described how state-corporate media non-reporting of evidence relating to the sabotage of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines on September 26 was an example of how the truth on key issues is increasingly being quarantined from public awareness by ‘mainstream’ media.
Wicked Leaks – Part 1: How The Media Quarantined Evidence On Nord Stream Sabotage
Wednesday, 26 October 2022 — Media Lens
Last week, Alex Nunns, author of ‘The Candidate – Jeremy Corbyn’s Improbable Path To Power’ and former Corbyn speechwriter, described the current assault on democracy within the Labour Party:
‘What’s happening in the Labour Party is new. The Labour right, having had the shock of their lives in 2015, are now intent on eradicating the left entirely. This isn’t how their predecessors thought. It’s a new departure in Labour history that’ll have long term consequences.’
So why the change?
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Mass Media Omertà: Burying Al Jazeera’s ‘The Labour Files
Wednesday, 5 October 2022 — Media Lens
The damaging revelations about the Labour Party in the recent four-part Al Jazeera series, ‘The Labour Files’, and the almost totalitarian silence in response by British news media, should ram home the illusory nature of ‘democracy’ in the UK.
Over The Rainbow – Disneyfied News and The ‘Unprovoked’ Invasion of Ukraine
Friday, 30 September 2022 —Media Lens
Last February, Emily Maitlis left her role as presenter of the BBC’s Newsnight programme to join rival media group Global. In a recent speech, Maitlis made a surprising reference to Theresa May’s former communications director Sir Robbie Gibb:
‘Put this in the context of the BBC board, where another active agent of the Conservative Party – former Downing Street spin doctor and former adviser to BBC rival GB News – now sits, acting as the arbiter of BBC impartiality.’
Imposed Insanity – Royalty, Propaganda And The Coming Catastrophe
Wednesday, 14 September 2022 — Media Lens
If every single high-profile journalist, politician and priest is currently expressing heartfelt devotion to Britain’s deceased, 96-year-old monarch, it is not because she ‘served’ her country diligently in doing her ‘duty’ for 70 years. The powerful interests that determine Britain’s political and media agenda are not sentimentalists; they do not impose ‘managed democracy’ as a kind of game. Propaganda blitzes are always pragmatic.
Why There Is No Public Sense Of A Climate Crisis
Wednesday, 6 July 2022 — Media Lens
Rousseau wrote:
‘We have physicists, geometricians, chemists, astronomers, poets, musicians and painters in plenty; but no longer have a citizen among us.’
Increasingly, now, we do have citizens among us: scientists – particularly, climate scientists – who are awakening from their ‘mainstream’ slumber to the reality that they are citizens of a decaying society on a dying planet.
‘Damned Fun’ – ‘Top Gun: Maverick’ And The Military-Entertainment Complex
Tuesday, 7 June 2022 — Media Lens
In 1990, Tom Cruise, star of the 1986 blockbuster, ‘Top Gun’, said:
‘Some people felt that “Top Gun” was a right-wing film to promote the Navy. And a lot of kids loved it. But I want the kids to know that’s not the way war is – that “Top Gun” was just an amusement park ride, a fun film with a PG-13 rating that was not supposed to be reality. That’s why I didn’t go on and make “Top Gun II” and “III” and “IV” and “V.” That would have been irresponsible.’
It would indeed, and one can only admire Cruise’s honesty and selfless determination… in 1990… not to mislead young people.
Why, then, 32 years later, would Cruise decide to appear in ‘Top Gun: Maverick’? The Daily Mail provides a clue:
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‘There Is No Way To Fool Physics’: Climate Breakdown And State-Corporate Madness
Friday, 20 May 2022 — Media Lens
In the terrifying opening to his 2020 novel, ‘The Ministry for the Future’, Kim Stanley Robinson depicts an intense heatwave in India. In an ‘ordinary town’ in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, people are struggling to cope with unbearable heat and humidity. It is the combination of the two, measured by the so-called ‘wet-bulb temperature’, that is potentially fatal. When it approaches the core body temperature of 36C, sweat cannot evaporate and humans can no longer cool themselves down. Dehydration rises to dangerous levels. Vital organs become seriously stressed, especially the heart. Unless the body temperature is reduced, death follows in a matter of hours.
The Price Of ‘Selective Inattention’ – Iraq, Ukraine, Libya, And The Climate Apocalypse
Thursday, 5 May 2022 — Media Lens
Humanity’s great Achilles’ heel, the flaw that may well determine our fate, was summed up in a couple of lines in the classic Simon & Garfunkel song, ‘The Boxer’:
‘Still a man hears what he wants to hear
‘And disregards the rest.’
Save The BBC? In Whose Interests?
Wednesday, 19 January 2022 — Media Lens
There has been much gnashing of ‘liberal’ teeth and pulling out of ‘centrist’ hair following the Tory government’s announcement that the BBC licence fee will be abolished in 2027.
‘A Crime Against Humanity’: The ‘Greenwash Festival’ Of COP26
8 November 2021 — Media Lens
One of the most damning assessments of COP26, the UN climate conference being held in Glasgow, came from Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist:
‘#COP26 has been named the must excluding COP ever.
This is no longer a climate conference.
This is a Global North greenwash festival.
A two week celebration of business as usual and blah blah blah.’
Manufacturing Ignorance: Keeping The Public Away From Power
22 October 2021 — Media Lens
In their classic book on the news media, ‘Manufacturing Consent’, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky presented a ‘propaganda model’ of how the major broadcasters and newspapers operate. Whereas the ‘mainstream’ media declare that their aim is to educate, inform and entertain the public, their actual societal purpose ‘on matters that are of significance for established power’ is to avert any ‘danger’ that the public can ‘assert meaningful control over the political process’ (Herman and Chomsky, ‘Manufacturing Consent’, Vintage, 1988/1994, p. 303).
Gaslighting The Public: Serial Deceptions By The State-Corporate Media
22 September 2021 — Origin: Media Lens
During last week’s Tory Cabinet reshuffle, ITV political editor Robert Peston inadvertently summed up the primary function of political journalists:
‘I simply pass on’
A Remarkable Silence: Media Blackout After Key Witness Against Assange Admits Lying
1 July 2021 — — Origin: Media Lens
As we have pointed out since Media Lens began in 2001, a fundamental feature of corporate media is propaganda by omission. Over the past week, a stunning example has highlighted this core property once again.
‘That Is Actually Bollocks’: 20 Propaganda Horrors From 20 Years of Media Lens – Part 2
18 June 2021 — Origin: Media Lens
11. The BBC On The Saintly Motives For Waging War On Iraq And Libya
In focusing on the grim future in April, US vice president, Kamala Harris, surely revealed far more than she intended about the grim past:
‘For years and generations, wars have been fought over oil. In a short matter of time, they will be fought over water.’
‘That Is Actually Bollocks’: 20 Propaganda Horrors From 20 Years of Media Lens – Part 1
16 June 2021 — Origin: Media Lens
After 20 years of Media Lens, it seems only natural that we should look back in gratitude at the support we’ve received. In response to one of our early pieces, a kindly columnist at the Observer commented:
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Two Centuries Of ‘The Imperialist, Warmongering, Hate-Filled Guardian’
2 June 2021 — Media Lens
In contrast to Media Lens modestly marking a mere two decades in July, the Guardian has been deluging itself with praise on reaching two centuries this year. Not that we would expect otherwise. As editor Katherine Viner proclaimed in a long, celebratory essay:
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‘The Savage Punishment Of Gaza’: Israel’s Latest Assault On Palestine’s Open Prison
25 May 2021 — Origin: Media Lens
Recent media coverage of Israel and Palestine, not least by BBC News, has been full of the usual deceptive propaganda tropes: Israel is ‘responding’ or ‘reacting’ to Palestinian ‘provocation’ and ‘escalation’; Palestinian rockets ‘killed’ Israelis, but Palestinians ‘have died’ from unnamed causes; Israel has ‘armed forces’ and ‘security forces’, but Hamas has ‘militants’. And, as ever, Palestinians were killed in far greater numbers than Israelis. At least 248 Palestinians were killed by Israeli bombardment in Gaza, including 66 children. Palestinian rocket fire killed 12 in Israel, including one child.
The New Dark Age 