4 November 2014 — Media Lens
Sometimes a piece of propaganda is so glaring you almost have to splash cold water on your face to make sure your eyes are not deceiving you. Take a bow John Simpson, the grandly titled ‘World Affairs Editor’ of BBC News. You don’t earn a moniker like that by offending the global power elite. But is it really necessary to genuflect before US President Barack Obama as Simpson did in a recent article masquerading as informed commentary?
2 April 2013 — New Left Project
The tenth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq was marked in Baghdad with a wave of deadly bombings that killed at least sixty people and injured over two hundred. In Britain the anniversary brought on a wave of retrospectives and handwringing recollections by the likes of the BBC’s John Simpson. Simpson and other media pundits who gave credence to the government’s claims on WMD a decade ago have yet to apologise for their role in building the case for invasion. Continue reading
1 April 2013 — William Bowles
Under the title ‘Fallujah’s childrens’ ‘genetic damage‘ that old war horse ‘literally’ of the BBC’s foreign propaganda service, John Simpson, manages not to mention the phrase ‘depleted uranium’ when allegedly reporting on the alarming rise in birth defects that include cancer, leukaemia and a horrific rise in child mortality since the US demolished the city of Fallujah in 2004. And it’s not until right at the end of the piece that the US attack on Fallujah is even mentioned, let alone depleted uranium!
9 June, 2011 — Media Lens
Working on Media Lens has given us ten years of first-hand experience of just how tightly discussion can be controlled in an ostensibly democratic society. No matter how carefully we have formulated our questions, no matter how politely we have delivered them, we have been branded angry, irrational, unworthy of attention.
14 June 2006 — Media Lens
On June 9, we published a Media Alert: ‘An Exchange With BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson.’ (www.medialens.org/alerts/06/060609_an_exchange_with.php)
This alert generated some of the most interesting and insightful letters we’ve ever received from readers. On June 13, we received the following response from John Simpson: Continue reading
9 June 2006 — Media Lens
On June 6, we sent the following email to the BBC’s Baghdad Correspondent Andrew North, World Affairs Editor John Simpson and Director of News Helen Boaden:
Who would guess from your reports and commentary tonight (BBC1, Ten O’Clock News) that the US-UK ‘coalition’ had anything to do with the catastrophic loss of life in Iraq? Continue reading
25 June 2003
The idea that there is some kind of ‘objective’ ground from which to view events, particularly of the political variety, is a long-held fantasy, especially of British journalism. It’s still taught in British universities would you believe, that out there, somewhere, there’s a space that the journalist can occupy, which sits perfectly in the middle, between one view and another (pre-supposing of course, that there are only two sides to an issue).
The New Dark Age 