the guardian
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MEDIA LENS ALERT: WAR AS PR – OPERATION MOSHTARAK, MEANING “TOGETHER”
Idiocy is one thing, but the BBC’s idiocy all went one way – no journalist swooned with comparable helplessness at the feet of experts excoriating US-UK propaganda. As news of Sambrook’s move arrived, his former colleagues at the BBC were once again deferring to the “intelligent”, “thoughtful”, “sceptical” American and British politicians hawking the public… Continue reading
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Media Lens Alert: Chilcot Inquiry – the establishment goes to work – part 2
The Iraqi “threat” was a fantasy invented by the immensely powerful, nuclear-armed bullies of the West. This is why former British ambassador to Washington, Christopher Meyer, was able to observe last month that prior to the attacks on September 11, 2001, Iraq was merely “a grumbling appendix”. Continue reading
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MEDIA LENS ALERT: CHILCOT INQUIRY – THE ESTABLISHMENT GOES TO WORK – PART 1
The use of military and economic force to control and exploit the world is non-negotiable for these interests. We are free to vote for the Labour party to attack ‘threatening’, but in fact defenceless, Third World countries, or we can vote for the Conservative party to do the same. We can buy the Guardian that… Continue reading
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GUEST MEDIA LENS ALERT: A COMPARATIVE REVIEW OF FLAT EARTH NEWS AND NEWSPEAK – PART 2 By Jonathan Cook
The professional journalist, they suggest, is trained to seek out facts from which he or she constructs an “objective” news report. On this view, journalists select facts in the same way that, adopting an analogy used by Edwards and Cromwell, a geologist collects rocks for research. “Geologists have no emotional attachment to their rocks –… Continue reading
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Channel 4 Dispatches investigates The pro-Israel lobby in Britain
Dispatches investigates the pro-Israel lobby in Britain which is working in support of the interests of the State of Israel. We have obtained a full copy of this by Peter Oborne and James Jones. Continue reading
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MEDIA LENS ALERT: IRAN – THE WAR DANCE
The IAEA, which met in Vienna on September 18, adopted a resolution expressing concern about “Israeli nuclear capabilities” and called on agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei to work on the issue. The motion was adopted by 49 votes to 45, with 16 abstentions. Russia and China, both permanent members of the UN security council, voted in… Continue reading
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Media Lens: The Cockroach Test
News that philosopher Alain de Botton had been hired as Heathrow’s “writer in residence” generated minor ripples across the media pond, including occasional murmurs of disapproval. Journalists momentarily failed to repress their awareness that truth into corporate profit-maximising does not go, although without perceiving the implications for themselves. Continue reading
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Media Lens: “An Existential Threat”: The US, Israel and Iran
The sanctions threat is to ensure that Iran does “not compromise on uranium enrichment by the end of next month.” The Guardian told its readers that not only are sanctions supposed to pre-empt any Israeli military action against Iran, “they are also a bargaining chip offered in part exchange for a substantial freeze on Jewish… Continue reading
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MEDIA LENS ALERT: SIDING WITH THE GENERALS – THE INDEPENDENT ON HONDURAS
The BBC Q&A noted: “The role of the US is key, as it is Honduras’s biggest trading partner.” Curiously, the article failed to mention that the US has its only Central American military base in Honduras. In fact the Honduran military is armed, trained and advised by Washington in a relationship that is deep and… Continue reading
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MEDIA LENS ALERT: AFGHANISTAN — “BIG BEASTS” BIG BLOODBATH
At the heart of the uncertainty lies the internet and how to make it pay. For 100 years the corporate mass media has flourished thanks to its monopoly of the means of mass communication. Reviewing the history of the British media, James Curran and Jean Seaton write that the industrialisation of the press in the… Continue reading
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WIKILEAKS: The News of The World didn’t go far enough
The right to freedom of speech is not short hand for the right to pontificate. We defend speech freedoms for their connection to a deeper underlying concept-the right to know. Without understanding the world around us we can not function. Without an informed public, democracy has no meaning and civilization is adrift. Through understanding the… Continue reading
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Media Lens: Hired Hands – Part 1: Iran, Obama, Gaza, And MPs’ Expenses
Inevitably, then, corporations do not restrict themselves merely to the arena of economics. Rather, as John Dewey observed, “politics is the shadow cast on society by big business”. Over decades, corporations have worked together to ensure that the choices offered by ‘representative democracy’ all represent their greed for maximised profits. 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: Selective Vision: Iran, Israel And Nuclear Arms
When a demonstrably mendacious leader claims he “passionately believed” in a lie, the media has to take him at his word. This is the same brand of journalistic gullibility that has had such tragic consequences for the people of Iraq. This is the endless, uncritical obedience to power that boosted the warmongering agenda of London… Continue reading
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Media Lens: The BBC, Impartiality, And The Hidden Logic Of Massacre — Part 2
Despite the input of hundreds of journalists working for numerous large, well-resourced corporations, we were unable to find a mainstream account that made sense of what was happening in Gaza. 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 2
Earlier this month, the Observer smeared climate activists by highlighting police warnings of a “growing threat of eco-terrorism”. The alleged threat is presented by a group called Earth First!, which the paper claimed “has supporters who believe that reducing the Earth’s population by four-fifths will help to protect the planet”. 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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Hidden histories confirmed: So much for the ‘Mother of Parliaments’
24 November 2008 — williambowles.info “This we do by rigging the parliament through official majorities, a restricted franchise and so forth” — From the minutes of the British Colonial Office, 14 December, 1959 Back in June of 2006 I wrote a piece, based on a story in the New African magazine on how the British Continue reading
The New Dark Age 