Media Lens
(...) In our media alert of 26 July 2002, we wrote:
‘This does not mean that there is no dissent in the mainstream; on the contrary the system strongly requires the appearance of openness. In an ostensibly democratic society, a propaganda system must incorporate occasional instances of dissent. Like vaccines, these small doses of truth inoculate the public against awareness of the rigid limits of media freedom.’
That was true two decades ago when we started Media Lens. But, now, the state-corporate media system relies less on inoculation and more on quarantine: inconvenient facts, indeed whole issues, are simply kept from public awareness. We have moved far closer to a totalitarian system depending on outright censorship. (...)
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US media watch site, Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), made the key point:
‘Any serious coverage of the Nord Stream attack should acknowledge that opposition to the pipeline has been a centerpiece of the US grand strategy in Europe. The long-term goal has been to keep Russia isolated and disjointed from Europe, and to keep the countries of Europe tied to US markets. Ever since German and Russian energy companies signed a deal to begin development on Nord Stream 2, the entire machinery of Washington has been working overtime to scuttle it.’
The evidence for this is simply overwhelming. For example, FAIR noted that during his confirmation hearings in 2021, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told Congress he was ‘determined to do whatever I can to prevent’ Nord Stream 2 from being completed. Months later, the US State Department reiterated that ‘any entity involved in the Nord Stream 2 pipeline risks US sanctions and should immediately abandon work on the pipeline’.
If that doesn’t make US hostility to the pipelines clear enough, President Joe Biden told reporters in February:
‘If Russia invades…then there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.’
Asked by a reporter how the US intended to end a project that was, after all, under German control, Biden responded:
‘I promise you, we will be able to do that.’
No surprise, then, that, following the attack, Blinken described the destruction of the pipelines as a ‘tremendous opportunity to once and for all remove the dependence on Russian energy,’ adding that this ‘offers tremendous strategic opportunity for years to come’.
Former UN weapons inspector and political analyst Scott Ritter commented:
‘Intent, motive and means: People serving life sentences in U.S. prisons have been convicted on weaker grounds than the circumstantial evidence against Washington for the attack on the Nord Stream pipelines.’ (...)
Despite all of this, FAIR reported of US corporate media coverage:
‘Much of the media cast their suspicions towards Russia, including Bloomberg (9/27/22), Vox (9/29/22), Associated Press (9/30/22) and much of cable news. With few exceptions, speculation on US involvement has seemingly been deemed an intellectual no-fly-zone.’
Thus, the possibility of US involvement has been intellectually quarantined. Instead, US media have been tying themselves in knots trying to find alternative explanations. (...)
In Britain, the Guardian affected similar confusion. (...)
FAIR discussed a tweet from a Polish member of the European Parliament, Radek Sikorski – a one-time Polish defence minister as well as a former American Enterprise Institute fellow, who was named one of the ‘Top 100 Global Thinkers’ in 2012 by Foreign Policy. FAIR reported:
‘Sikorski tweeted a picture of the methane leak in the ocean, along with the caption, “As we say in Polish, a small thing, but so much joy.” He later tweeted, “Thank you, USA,” with the same picture.’ (...)
Curiously, non-corporate journalists like Jonathan Cook, Caitlin Johnstone, Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Maté, Bryce Green, even hippy Russell Brand, were able to find all the evidence and arguments omitted by ‘mainstream’ journalists supported by far greater resources.
And this makes the point with which we began this alert: there is now so much high-quality journalism exposing the establishment outside the state-corporate ‘mainstream’, that the task of the ‘mainstream’ now is to protect the establishment by acting as a buffer blocking citizen journalism from public awareness. (...)
Complete article
Tags: #media #mass_media #journalist #journalism #the_guardian #mainstream_media #msm #propaganda #censorship #putin #biden #blinken #nord_stream #sabotage #russia #ukraine #bloomberg #associated_press #ap #cable_news #the_telegraph #fair #sikorski #mail_on_sunday #observer
