Media Lens
Excellent UK-based media analysis
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Media Lens wins the Gandhi Foundation Peace Award And An Appeal For Support
The Gandhi Foundation Peace Award And An Appeal For Support MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media November 13, 2007 We are happy to report that we will be accepting the Gandhi Foundation International Peace Award on December 2. See here: http://www.gandhifoundation.org/peaceaward.html Continue reading
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Media Lens: Advertising Climate Disaster – The Guardian’s Readers’ Editor Responds
MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media November 1, 2007 The Guardian this week published an article by the readers’ editor, Siobhain Butterworth, discussing “the contradiction between what the Guardian has to say about environmental issues and what it advertises”. (Butterworth, ‘Open door – The readers’ editor on… the contradiction between Continue reading
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Media Lens: Oil Laws – Colonising Iraq’s Economic Prize
We are led to believe that Western societies are free and open. In many respects this is true: freedom of speech and the right to protest still exist, albeit within ever-tighter constraints. At root, however, much of what we see and hear in the corporate media has been shaped by money, power and greed. What… Continue reading
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Media Lens: ‘Red Herring’ – Al Gore, The Climate Sceptics And The BBC
On October 10, the BBC’s Ten O-Clock News led with the story that a High Court Judge had found nine ‘errors’ in Al Gore’s climate film, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, which the UK government has been sending to schools around the country. As a result, by way of ‘balance’, the government will now be required to… Continue reading
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Media Lens: Iraq Body Count: “A Very Misleading Exercise”
MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media October 3, 2007 MEDIA ALERT: IRAQ BODY COUNT: “A VERY MISLEADING EXERCISE” Introduction The mainstream media are continuing to use figures provided by the website Iraq Body Count (IBC) to sell the public a number for total post-invasion deaths of Iraqis that is perhaps Continue reading
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Media Lens: I, (Fascist) Robot – The BBC’s Gavin Esler Lets Rip
MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media September 26, 2007 MEDIA ALERT: I, (FASCIST) ROBOT – THE BBC’S GAVIN ESLER LETS RIP In response to our September 18 alert, ‘The Media Ignore Credible Poll Revealing 1.2 Million Violent Deaths In Iraq,’ BBC Newsnight presenter Gavin Esler sent one Media Lens reader Continue reading
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Media Lens: The Media Ignore Credible Poll Revealing 1.2 Million Violent Deaths In Iraq
The media are not, as is commonly supposed, windows on the world; they are more like paintings or sketches of windows on the world — both the ‘window’ and the ‘reality’ beyond are manufactured corporate products. Continue reading
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Media Lens: Loaded Words: ‘Surge’, ‘Reconstruction’ And ‘Withdrawal’
News media this week are devoting huge swathes of coverage to the report by General David Petraeus, the top US military commander in Iraq, on the impact of the so-called ‘surge’ of US troops. The surge boosted the number of US troops in Iraq earlier this year by 30,000 to 168,000. Continue reading
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Media Lens: Giving The Climate Camp A Good Telling Off!
MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media August 23, 2007 Guardian Environment Editor Lambasts the Heathrow Climate Camp’s ‘Media Mismanagement’ Last week’s peaceful protests at the Heathrow Camp for Climate Action (http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/) were a heartening sign of sanity in response to the huge climate threat facing us. Activists drew attention to Continue reading
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Media Lens: Facts are not sacred: Royal Tantrums And The Cold War Billions
August 9, 2007 — MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media When Royals Attack The big media story of the last month has been the BBC apology to the Queen for showing footage that implied she had stormed out of a portrait session during a documentary. This followed the revelation that Continue reading
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Media Lens: Bush-Brown Summit – The Media Deception Continues
In our July 23 alert, ‘From Blair to Brown – The Killing Will Continue,’ we described how the media were working hard to defend the status quo by attempting to distance new prime minister Gordon Brown from Tony Blair and his war crimes. Continue reading
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Media Lens: Chavez and RCTV – Tilting the Balance Against the ‘Bad Guy’
As we have previously reported* Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has long been demonised by the Western media as a “leftist firebrand” (The Independent), “Venezuela’s demagogue” (Washington Post), and as a “militaristic strongman” (Financial Times). No surprise, then, that Chavez’s decision not to renew the licence of Radio Caracas Television (RCTV) has elicited outrage across Britain… Continue reading
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Media Lens: Illegal, Immoral, Unwinnable – A British Army Oofficer Replies to Mark Urban
1 June 2007 — Media Lens Yesterday, in response to our latest Media Alert, ‘Newsnight Diplomatic Editor Mark Urban Responds,’ we received a further reply from Mark Urban. Urban argued that our analysis “is put together by you sitting at home, sifting current events through a dense filter of ideology”. In particular, he lampooned our Continue reading
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Media Lens: Newsnight Diplomatic Editor Mark Urban Responds
31 May 2007 — Media Lens On May 22, we published a Media Alert, ‘The Surge – Here To Help,’ analysing a May 14 BBC report from Iraq by Newsnight’s diplomatic editor Mark Urban. (See: www.medialens.org/alerts/07/070522_the_surge_here.php) We had previously written to Urban on May 15: Continue reading
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Media Lens: The Surge – Here to Help
On the May 14 edition of Newsnight, the BBC’s Mark Urban reported from Iraq that the US troop “surge” was an attempt to “turn the tide of violence” in Baghdad. Urban did not mean it was an attempt to turn the tide of violence in America’s favour and against its enemies – the media essentially… Continue reading
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Media Lens: The Shining City On A Hill – Part 2
11 May 2007 — Media Lens The BBC’s Justin Webb On ‘Anti-Americanism’ The Lexicon Of Totalitarianism In Part 1 of this alert (www.medialens.org/alerts/07/070508_the_shining_city.php), we analysed Justin Webb’s recent BBC Radio 4 series on “anti-Americanism”, ‘Death to America’. It is worth considering Webb’s premise that “anti-Americanism” is a meaningful concept that merits ‘balanced’ analysis. Continue reading
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Media Lens: The Shining City On A Hill – Part 1
8 May 2007 — Media Lens The BBC’s Justin Webb On ‘Anti-Americanism’ “The shining city upon a hill” was how John Winthrop, one of the early Pilgrims, described America, his new homeland. Winthrop was making reference to the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus had addressed a large crowd: Continue reading
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Media Lens: Newsnight Editor Responds On The Nicholas Burns Interview
26 April 2007 — Media Lens On April 17, we published our Media Alert, ‘The BBC’s Gavin Esler Interviews US Undersecretary Of State Nicholas Burns’ (www.medialens.org/alerts/07/070417_the_bbcs_gavin.php) We noted how Esler had completely failed to challenge Burns on the catastrophe afflicting Iraq, despite damning reports just published by the Red Cross and the United Nations High Continue reading
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Media Lens: The BBC’s Gavin Esler Interviews Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns
Who would guess from media reporting that Iraq is being convulsed by a human cataclysm? And who would guess that this catastrophe is the result of American and British criminality? Continue reading
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Media Lens: Eating the Planet – Swallowing The Context Of “Earth’s Ecological Debt Crisis”
24 October 2006 — Media Lens The Bland Leading The Bland October 9 saw one of the Independent’s explosive front-page stories on the global environment: “Earth’s ecological debt crisis.” According to a new study, humanity is “putting an intolerable strain on nature”. Martin Hickman, the Independent’s consumer affairs correspondent, explained: Continue reading
The New Dark Age 