22 October 2013 — Media Lens
Modern thought control is dependent on subliminal communication. Messages influencing key perceptions are delivered unseen, unnoticed, with minimal public awareness of what is happening or why.
22 October 2013 — Media Lens
Modern thought control is dependent on subliminal communication. Messages influencing key perceptions are delivered unseen, unnoticed, with minimal public awareness of what is happening or why.
27 August 2013 — Media Lens
The ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P), formulated at the 2005 UN World Summit, is based on the idea that state sovereignty is not a right but a responsibility. Where offending states fail to live up to this responsibility by inflicting genocide, ethnic cleansing and other crimes against humanity on their own people, the international community has a responsibility to act. Economic sanctions and the use of military force can thus be employed as ‘humanitarian intervention’.
15 August 2013 — Media Lens
Writing for the Washington Post in June, Paul Farhi wondered if, in breaking the story of the US National Security Agency’s spying programme, the Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald had ‘become something other than a journalist in the activist role he has taken’.
28 June 2013 — Media Lens
Reports of Washington’s anger directed at surveillance whistleblower Edward Snowden indicate a basic truth about power. Noam Chomsky has expressed it as the underlying problem for genuine democracy, even in so-called ‘free’ societies: Continue reading
18 June 2013 — Media Lens
Last week, we reviewed the questions and doubts surrounding claims that the chemical weapon sarin has been used in Syria.
22 May 2013 — Media Lens
Introduction
I caught up with an old friend, after many years, on a muggy afternoon in Camden. Outwardly, he seemed the same wonderfully ebullient character he had always been – I got the usual bear hug and bristly smacker on the cheek. But as we talked, it became clear something had changed.
8 May 2013 — Media Lens
Last August, Barack Obama told reporters at the White House:
‘We have been very clear to the Assad regime… that a red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilised.
‘That would change my calculus; that would change my equation.’
23 April 2013 — Media Lens
In a media alert earlier this year, we described our under-resourced challenges of the corporate media as ‘jousting with toothpicks’. Although the analogy was light-hearted, the work of Media Lens is serious and would not be possible without your support.
18 April 2013 — Media Lens
The late American historian Howard Zinn wrote:
‘The truth is so often the reverse of what has been told us by our culture that we cannot turn our heads far enough around to see it.’ (The Zinn Reader – Writings on Disobedience and Democracy, Seven Stories Press, 1997, p.400)
7 February 2013 — Media Lens
A critic responding to a recent alert, objected to our use of the term ‘corporate journalist’:
‘The problem is it has no clear meaning. Chomsky regularly writes for “corporate media”, as does Pilger, Klein, and Michael Moore. Pilger has had his documentaries aired by “corporate media”. Klein promotes her books through the “corporate media”. I could go on…’
4 December 2012 — Media Lens
It is said that God plays a joke on every new-born, whispering:
‘You are the special one!’
4 December, 2012 — Media Lens
By: David Edwards
It is said that God plays a joke on every new-born, whispering:
‘You are the special one!’
6 November, 2012 — Media Lens
Hi George
It’s good to know that your email is intended in a ‘friendly and constructive spirit’, and not as a follow-up to something you wrote of us three weeks earlier: ‘I could spend my life unpicking their falsehoods. Perhaps I should, cos no one else is.’
25 September, 2012 — Media Lens
On September 11, four Americans, including the US ambassador, were killed in an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Libya. The following day, the BBC‘s Lunchtime News reported that the killings were part of ‘disturbances’ which were ‘linked to an anti-Islamic video’ (BBC News, September 12, 2012). The BBC‘s News at Six explained that the US ambassador was killed ‘in a protest’. This was mild language indeed given that the consulate had been attacked with assault rifles, hand grenades, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. (According to the New York Times, two US security guards were killed by mortar fire).
18 July, 2012 — Media Lens
In January 2005, we described how the British media were united in celebrating Iraq’s ‘first free election in decades’. (Leader, ‘Vote against violence,’ The Guardian, January 7, 2005)
5 July, 2012 — Media Lens
27 June, 2012 — Media Lens
On June 19, in a final bid to avoid extradition to Sweden, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange requested asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
1 March 2012 — Coldtype
In this month’s 88-page COLDTYPE MAGAZINE
The cover story of this month’s biggest-ever issue returns to the Middle East where the world is being prepared for a replay of the just-ended war in Iraq. Our seven essays by writers in North America and Europe point out, among other things, that there seems to be a media blackout of the fact that Israel also acquired its nuclear arsenal by devious means, won’t let anyone examine its nuclear plants, and is far more aggressive than Iran. Never let the truth get in the way of a good war is the message, it would seem.
18 November 2011 — Media Lens
The aim of Richard Capes’ More Thought blog is ‘to provide detailed audio/video/written interviews with authors of non-fiction social, political, philosophical and environmental books that I consider essential reading’. Here is Richard’s November 10 interview with Media Lens co-editor David Edwards about his book Free to be Human. The interview is quite long, we urge readers to ensure a steady supply of tea/coffee and biscuits.
1 November, 2011 — Media Lens
April Fool’s Day, 1999, and the heart specialist says to me, with the usual twinkle in his eye: ‘It’s not Mickey Mouse territory, but you’ll be okay.’