george monbiot
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Criticising Monbiot isn’t ‘demonisation’. It’s a first step on the path to reclaiming our minds
The other day I wrote a piece criticising Guardian columnist George Monbiot for his failure to speak out loudly in support of Julian Assange during last month’s hearings in which the United States has been seeking to extradite the Wikileaks founder so that he can be locked away for the rest of his life on… Continue reading
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Media Lens: Limits Of Dissent – Glenn Greenwald And The Guardian
When we think of prisons, we tend to think of Alcatraz, Bang Kwang and Belmarsh with their guard towers, iron bars and concrete. But in his forthcoming book, ’33 Myths of the System’, Darren Allen invites us to imagine a prison with walls made entirely of vacuous guff: ‘Censorship is unnecessary in a system in… Continue reading
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Media Lens: ‘An Impeachable Offence’ – Professor Postol and Syria
It is hard to believe that just three weeks ago the entire corporate media was in uproar over Syria; specifically, about the need to ‘do something’ in response to an alleged chemical weapons attack in Khan Shaykhun, Idlib, Syria, on April 4. Guardian commentator George Monbiot summed up the corporate media zeitgeist: Continue reading
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Media Lens: Rehabilitating Bush – The Deadly Illusion Of Corporate Dissent
3 March 2017 — Media Lens The title of the editorial said it all: ‘The Guardian view on George W Bush: a welcome return’ In a tongue-in-cheek, almost jovial, piece the Guardian unsubtly rehabilitated a man responsible for crimes that are among the most egregious in all history. Continue reading
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Media Lens: ‘Sworn Enemies’? A Response To George Monbiot
Above all, we’re trying to stimulate debate and participation. Engaging with journalists is certainly part of that, but we have few illusions about influencing media employees who often have little room for manoeuvre and who are deeply dependent on the corporate system. Continue reading
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Media Lens: Game Over For The Climate?
Last week, the Independent marked the half-century with a well-meaning but frankly insipid ‘landmark series’ titled ‘The Green Movement at 50’. But there’s a glaring hole in such coverage; and, indeed, in the ‘green movement’ itself: the insidious role of the corporate media, a key component of corporate globalisation, in driving humanity and ecosystems towards… Continue reading
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Media Lens: Snow, White And The Two Daves – The Guardian Responds
Our most recent media alert, Silence Of The Lambs, created a small ripple in the Guardian universe. We had asked why even the paper’s most radical journalists, Seumas Milne and George Monbiot, are silent on the propaganda role of the liberal media, particularly the Guardian, in propping up power. Continue reading
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Media Lens: Silence Of The Lambs
One of the original aims of Media Lens, when we began in 2001, was to engage in honest, open and rational debate with journalists working for major news organisations. It wasn’t about ‘bashing’ them or trying to make them look bad. We wanted to examine media assumptions, challenge journalists’ arguments and find out more about… Continue reading
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ColdType, December 2011
1 December 2011 — ColdType In this month’s 64-page COLDTYPE MAGAZINE (By the way it’s free) Cover story is Felicity Arbuthnot’s impassioned indictment of the hypocrisy of the Western world’s celebration of Remembrance Day at the same time as political leaders are sending their armed forces on missions of slaughter against some of the poorest Continue reading
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Media Lens: A ‘Malign Intellectual Subculture’ – George Monbiot Smears Chomsky, Herman, Peterson, Pilger And Media Lens
In a piece that recalled the iconic scene from The Usual Suspects, Monbiot lined up Noam Chomsky, Edward Herman, David Peterson, John Pilger, and Media Lens, as political commentators who ‘take the unwarranted step of belittling the acts of genocide committed by opponents of the western powers’. Continue reading
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MEDIA LENS ALERT: “VEILED THREATS” OF “INDUSTRIAL CHAOS”
On 19 September, the Sunday Times ran a major interview with Brendan Barber, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (Andrew Davidson, ‘King of compromise alone on a tightrope’, Sunday Times, business section, 19 September, 2010; online article is hidden behind a pay wall). The bias was clear even from the text immediately following the… Continue reading
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Why do we allow the US to act like a failed state on climate change? By George Monbiot
Thanks to the lobbying work of the coal and oil companies, and the vast army of thinktanks, PR consultants and astroturfers they have sponsored, thanks too to the domination of the airwaves by loony right shock jocks, the debate over issues like this has become so mad that any progress at all is little short… Continue reading
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Media Lens: The Guardian, Climate And Advertising – An Open Email To George Monbiot
Why do you, George Monbiot (and others at the Guardian) not simply challenge the false picture of the world generated by the advertisers in your newspaper? This avoids the problem, which you deem “inescapable”, of running a newspaper without advertising. Why do you not write articles exposing named campaigns by named advertisers that appear in… Continue reading
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MEDIA LENS: CAN THIS BE TRUE? GEORGE MONBIOT CHALLENGES MEDIA LENS ON HYPOCRISY
How casually Monbiot has chosen to confront us with this damning public criticism. This, of course, is how internet-based media with essentially no resources are often treated by corporate journalism. If Monbiot had been targeting a powerful think tank or political party, he would perhaps have checked if the posting was “correct” Continue reading
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Media Lens: ‘Living Our Values’: Guardian News & Media And The Climate – Part 1
MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media November 25, 2008 PART 1 – IN THEORY Last week, Guardian News & Media (GNM) published ‘Living Our Values’, an independently audited account of the company’s annual performance on sustainability issues. GNM, which encompasses the Guardian, the Observer and guardian.co.uk, claims to have strong Continue reading
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MEDIA LENS ALERT: MANUFACTURING THREATS – SUDAN, IRAN, AND THE WAR FOR CIVILISATION
MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media December 18, 2007 News that British schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons had been jailed in Sudan after allowing her pupils to call a teddy bear Mohammed fed straight into the UK media’s hate factory and its “war for civilisation”. The Gibbons story was mentioned in a 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: 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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Book Review: Consenting Adults? By William Bowles
Capital which is global in scope, is able to move across national borders without let or hindrance, but that ‘democracy’ (where it exists) stops at national borders. And in an age of global capital, the nation state is incapable of dealing with issues that affect the entire planet. And nation states, driven by parochial interests,… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 