The Times
-
Media Lens: The Left-Wing Media Fallacy Jeremy Bowen, The BBC, And Other National Treasures
There are several good reasons why the media are keen to accept that they are biased to the left. First, the overwhelming preponderance of right-wing flak machines – ‘centre-left’ parties and governments, business front groups and powerful ‘religious’ organisations – persuades media executives that they really are too left-leaning. There is just far less flak… Continue reading
-
Media Lens: Children Of Darkness – Killing ‘Them’ – Part 2
The idea that Israel’s massacre of 1,400 Palestinians was intended to stop rocket attacks is hard to reconcile with the fact that Israel deliberately provoked those attacks when it broke the ceasefire with its November 4, 2008 attack killing six people in Gaza Continue reading
-
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
-
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
-
Media Lens Alert: “Not Very Interesting” – Haiti, New Orleans And Media Hypocrisy
MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media September 16, 2008 On September 1, the press began warning that “the storm of the century” was about to hit New Orleans as Hurricane Gustav “bore down nearly three years to the day after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city”. (‘It’s the storm of the Continue reading
-
MEDIA LENS ALERT: WHEN NEWS IS NOISE – GEORGIA, SOUTH OSSETIA AND THE POLITICAL PIPELINE
The bias is clear, but the deeper point is far more interesting – the entrenched propaganda function of the mainstream media renders it incapable of making sense of events in Georgia and South Ossetia. References to Russian self-interest are allowed, and to Western concerns about energy security. But on the real reasons why people were… Continue reading
-
Media Lens Alert: Some Matter More – When 47 Victims Are Worth 43 Words
One would hardly guess from media reporting that Britain and America are responsible for killing anyone in Iraq and Afghanistan, where violence is typically blamed on “insurgents” and “sectarian conflict”. International “coalition” forces are depicted as peacekeepers using minimum violence as a last resort. Continue reading
-
MEDIA LENS ALERT: NEWS INTERNATIONAL THREATENS MEDIA LENS WITH LEGAL AND POLICE ACTION
MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media July 10, 2008 On June 28 and July 3, Media Lens received repeated threats of both legal and police action from Alastair Brett, legal manager of News International’s Times Newspapers. Noam Chomsky described the threat, pithily, as “pretty sick.” (Email, June 28, 2008) David Continue reading
-
MEDIA LENS ALERT: SELLING THE FIREBALL – GEORGE BUSH AND IRAN June 25, 2008
MEDIA ALERT: SELLING THE FIREBALL – GEORGE BUSH AND IRAN June 25, 2008 MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media When George Bush arrived in Britain last week as part of his “farewell tour”, the real reasons for the visit were buried well out of sight. The tour was not, as Continue reading
-
Media Lens: ‘Complicit Enablers’ – UK Media Ignore US Whistleblowers
11 June, 2008 — MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media In April 2006, George Bush bade farewell to his outgoing White House press secretary, Scott McClellan: “One day he and I are going to be rocking on chairs in Texas talking about the good old days and his time as Continue reading
-
Media Lens: Somalia – Hidden Catastrophe Hidden Agenda
MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media May 13, 2008 On May 1, the BBC website reported an attack on Somalia with the words: “Air raid kills Somali militants.†One might think the BBC’s headline would identify the agency responsible for the bombing, but the first few sentences also shed no Continue reading
Africa, Burma, Daily Telegraph, Ethiopia, EU, food, Government, ICU, militants, Oil, security, Somalia, The Times, UN, war on terror -
MEDIA LENS ALERT: FLEXIBLE FRIENDS – THE OBSERVER, THE INDEPENDENT, AND THE MYTH OF A MEDIA SPECTRUM
On reflection, it seems incredibly naïve to imagine that free speech will flourish under corporate capitalism. It is true that we do not face the kind of physical threats offered by a totalitarian system – but so what? For most people, the threat of serious damage to a lucrative, high status career is enough to… Continue reading
-
Media Lens: David Aaronovitch – A Different Kind of Compassion
MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media January 10, 2008 — Media Lens If “The wages of sin is death”, the returns must seem altogether less bleak to Tony Blair. In November, Blair was reported to have received £237,000 for a 20-minute speech before an audience of Chinese entrepreneurs. While his Continue reading
-
Media Lens: INVASION – A COMPARISON OF SOVIET AND WESTERN MEDIA PERFORMANCE – PART 1 By Nikolai Lanine and Media Lens
MEDIA LENS: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media November 20, 2007 Introduction The writer Simon Louvish once told the story of a group of Soviets touring the United States before the age of glasnost. After reading the newspapers and watching TV, they were amazed to find that, on the big issues, all Continue reading
-
Media Lens: Oil Laws – Colonising Iraq’s Economic Prize
We are led to believe that Western societies are free and open. In many respects this is true: freedom of speech and the right to protest still exist, albeit within ever-tighter constraints. At root, however, much of what we see and hear in the corporate media has been shaped by money, power and greed. What… Continue reading
-
Media Lens: Harold Pinter, John Le Carré And The Media
It is a brutal fact of modern media and politics that honesty and sincerity are not rewarded, but instead heavily punished, by powerful interests with plenty at stake. It does not matter how often the likes of Pinter, Le Carré, Noam Chomsky and John Pilger are shown to be right. It does not matter how… Continue reading
-
Damn Lies! By William Bowles
For months we’ve been bombarded with a never-ending stream of state propaganda utilising a vast array of techniques: satellite images, computer simulations, faked documents, ‘revelations’,‘pulpit pounding’ and pleading verging on the evangelical, dossiers, ‘expert analysis’ of one kind or another, exhultations to one’s patriotism, and threats of dire events if we, the people, don’t go… Continue reading
The New Dark Age 