6 November, 2009 — MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media

In an interview last week, Jeremy Paxman – leading interviewer on BBC 2’s flagship Newsnight programme – claimed that he had been “hoodwinked” by US government propaganda prior to the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Paxman commented:

“As far as I personally was concerned, there came a point with the presentation of the so-called evidence, with the moment when Colin Powell sat down at the UN General Assembly and unveiled what he said was cast-iron evidence of things like mobile, biological weapon facilities and the like…

“When I saw all of that, I thought, well, ‘We know that Colin Powell is an intelligent, thoughtful man, and a sceptical man. If he believes all this to be the case, then, you know, he’s seen the evidence; I haven’t.’

“Now that evidence turned out to be absolutely meaningless, but we only discover that after the event. So, you know, I’m perfectly open to the accusation that we were hoodwinked. Yes, clearly we were.” (Paxman, ‘Is World Journalism in Crisis?‘, Coventry University online interview, October 28, 2009. The entire interview is available here: coventryuniversity.podbean.com/2009/10/29/is-there-a-crisis-in-world-journalism-jeremy-paxman/)

Consider the admission that Newsnight’s leading interviewer could respond to government claims clearly intended to supply a pretext for war on what was, even more obviously, the very brink of war: “If he believes this to be the case; he’s seen the evidence, I haven’t.”

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