Gaza – A Brutal Demonstration Of ‘Western Values’

Media Lens

‘I find Westerners in general, and Europeans in particular, extremely indoctrinated and obsessed with perceptions of their own uniqueness. Many see themselves as chosen people, after going through a one-sided education and after relying on their media outlets, without studying alternative sources.’
André Vltchek, Soviet-born US political writer, 1963-2020.

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Displaced children having their faces painted ahead of New Year celebrations at an UNRWA school in Deir al-Balah, Gaza, 28 December, 2023. (Omar Ashtawy APA images)

On 20 March 2006, on the third anniversary of the illegal invasion of Iraq, BBC diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall declared on the Six O’Clock News:

‘There’s still bitter disagreement over invading Iraq. Was it justified or a disastrous miscalculation?’

The supposed ‘justification’ claimed by Prime Minister Tony Blair was the ‘serious and current threat’ posed by Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction. The BBC’s false notion of ‘balance’ was to present ‘disastrous miscalculation’ as the counterargument. In fact, as we detailed at the time in media alerts and in our books, the invasion was considered by many legal experts to be a ‘war of aggression’, the ‘supreme international crime’ as judged by the standards of the post-WW2 Nuremberg trials. (...)

But such narrative control is an endemic feature of state-corporate media, wrongly labelled ‘mainstream’. It is a fundamental requirement of political journalists and editors that they magically transform the crimes of ‘our’ governments into ‘miscalculations’, ‘mistakes’ or ‘misguided’ attempts to do good. (...)

Noam Chomsky succinctly explained the ideological underpinning of ‘mainstream’ news coverage:

‘In discussion of international relations, the fundamental principle is that “we are good” – “we” being the government, on the totalitarian principle that state and people are one. “We” are benevolent, seeking peace and justice, though there may be errors in practice. “We” are foiled by villains who can’t rise to our exalted level.’
(Chomsky, ‘Interventions’, Penguin Books, London, 2007, p.101). (...)

[J]ournalists can be relied upon to perform the necessary whitewashing: the Gulf War in 1990-91, Nato’s bombing of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Iraq sanctions from 1990-2003, the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003, the destruction of Libya in 2011, the US-sponsored toppling of the Ukrainian government in 2014, US-Nato air strikes against Syria, participation in the Saudi-led bombing of Yemen, and now the attacks on ‘Iran-backed’ Houthi rebels. (Of course, convention decrees that the Houthi are always described as ‘Iran-backed’, whereas Israeli forces are not routinely labelled ‘US-backed’.) (...)

In several powerful books, based on careful research of formerly secret UK government documents, historian Mark Curtis, co-founder of Declassified UK, has laid bare the motivations and reality of British foreign policy. Ethical concerns and morality are notable in these internal state records by their absence. (...)

[T]he major source of international terrorism is the West, notably the United States, supported by its ‘special relationship’ ally, the UK. Curtis wrote:

(...) Yet state-sponsored terrorism is by far the most serious category of terrorism in the world today, responsible for far more deaths in many more countries than the “private” terrorism of groups like Al Qaida.
(Curtis, ‘Web of Deceit: Britain’s Real Role in the World’, Vintage, London, 2003, p. 94.)

The Financial Times reported last October:

‘Western support for Israel’s assault on Gaza has poisoned efforts to build consensus with significant developing countries on condemning Russia’s war against Ukraine, officials and diplomats have warned.’ (...)

The senior G7 diplomat added:

‘What we said about Ukraine has to apply to Gaza. Otherwise we lose all our credibility. The Brazilians, the South Africans, the Indonesians: why should they ever believe what we say about human rights?’

Why indeed. (...)

Last week, South Africa presented a detailed 84-page submission to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) – essentially the UN’s global law court – arguing that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. (...)

The South African legal team showed ample evidence of Israeli genocidal acts in Gaza, as well as the stated intention to commit genocide, indicated in public statements by numerous senior Israeli political and military leaders. (...)

Around 24,000 people have been killed in Gaza since 7 October last year, including over 10,300 children and 7,100 women. There may be another 7,000 buried under the rubble. (...)

According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, by the end of 2023, 1.9 million people – nearly 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza – had been internally displaced under Israel’s attacks. (...)

Jonathan Cook noted that the West is now standing in the dock alongside Israel at the ICJ:

‘Israel expects support from western capitals because they have nearly as much to fear from a verdict against Israel as Israel itself. They have staunchly backed the killing spree, with the US and UK, in particular, sending weapons that are being used against the people of Gaza, making both potentially complicit.’ (...)

Israel’s most brutal assault in Gaza’s history is a continuation of its long war of oppression against the Palestinians. (...)

[The political writer Caitlin Johnstone] explained:

‘The demolition of Gaza is indeed being perpetrated in defense of western values, and is itself a perfect embodiment of western values. Not the western values they teach you about in school, but the hidden ones they don’t want you to look at.’ (...)

‘What we are seeing in Gaza is a much better representation of what western civilization is really about than all the gibberish about freedom and democracy we learned about in school.’

True to form, Washington is doing its utmost to protect Israel. During a press briefing, US national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters:

‘South Africa’s lawsuit against Israel is “meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever”.’

Interviewed by Andrew Napolitano, a former judge and law professor, Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University responded to Kirby’s dismissive remark:

‘I just wish there were grown-ups in power. Grown-ups who are responsible, who are honest, who are decent, who would read an 84-page detailed complaint and give a serious answer, rather than a one-sentence smack-off like that.’

He added:

‘I wish, at the same time, that the White House press corps would follow up more seriously. (...)

‘Why don’t the journalists do their job, rather than feeding us the propaganda from the White House? They should be questioning the propaganda. (...)

Media academics have analysed Israel-Palestine coverage and found that Palestinian perspectives are given ‘far less time and legitimacy’ than Israeli views in the British media. (...)

‘The Palestinian perspective is effectively absent from the coverage, in how they understand the reasons for the conflict and the nature of the occupation under which they are living.’ (...)

We should all reject the output of ‘the powerful opinion-forming corporations’ and look elsewhere, to those internet oases of real journalism, in order to understand the world and to radically change it for the better.

Complete article

Tags: #human_rights #russia #ukraine #iraq #invasion #sovereignty #gaza #palestine #palestinians #israel #occupied_teritories #genocide #war_of_agression #media #journalism #journalist #media_bias #news #press #corporate_media #mainstream_media #msm #bbc #the_guardian

When Truth Becomes Silence: Glastonbury’s Cancelling Of A Powerful Film About Jeremy Corbyn

Media Lens

(...) In this country, as in other western ‘democracies’, important truths are effectively being silenced. As we have written on many occasions, antisemitism was used as a weapon to destroy the chances of Jeremy Corbyn becoming the British Prime Minister. Labour HQ staffers, and even Labour MPs, actively conspired against him. Al Jazeera’s powerful series, ‘The Labour Files’, which was blatantly blanked by the establishment media, has documented all this in considerable detail.

And now the Glastonbury Film Festival has succumbed to similar pressure and cancelled a screening of a new film, ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn: The Big Lie’. (...)

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Jeremy Corbyn addressing Glastonbury in 2017

The makers of the film, first shown in London in February, describe the film thus:

‘Produced by award-winning radical film-maker Platform Films, with contributions from Jackie Walker, Ken Loach, Andrew Murray, Graham Bash and Moshe Machover, and narrated by Alexei Sayle, this feature-length documentary film explores a dark and murky story of political deceit and outrageous antisemitic smears. It also uncovers the critical role played by current Labour leader, Keir Starmer and asks if the movement which backed Corbyn could rise again.’

Reviewer Diane Datson wrote:

‘The real message conveyed in this film is that the Labour Party is no alternative to the Conservatives – it serves the ruling class and is led by someone every bit as devious as Boris Johnson, if not more so.’

She added:

‘However, I for one felt uplifted, as the film ended optimistically. Many of the interviewees think that all is not lost – those millions of people who were inspired and given hope by the Corbyn project haven’t gone away – they are to be found supporting the picket lines, protesting and fighting for many causes such as public ownership of the NHS and the right to strike and the establishment is STILL petrified.’ (...)

‘The Big Lie’ is, of course, right to address the important part played by the pro-Israel lobby. It includes clips from the Al Jazeera film, ‘The Lobby’, which exposed Israel’s determined attempts to interfere in Britain’s politics. (...)

‘The Big Lie’ also highlights the incessant establishment media attacks on Corbyn, particularly after the 2017 General Election which he came so close to winning. The ‘smear that stuck’ was the myth that antisemitism was supposedly rife in Labour under Corbyn. (...)

Avi Shlaim, an emeritus professor at Oxford University, observed in the foreword of a 2021 report on how the definition of antisemitism has been misrepresented:

‘[A] definition intended to protect Jews against antisemitism was twisted to protect the State of Israel against valid criticisms that have nothing to do with anti-Jewish racism.’ (...)

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, a founding member of Jewish Voice for Labour who was expelled from Starmer’s Labour Party for being the ‘wrong type of Jew’, [said] on Twitter:

‘Unbelievable that @glastonbury has bowed to demands from fans of Starmer’s @uklabour, banning a film exposing demonisation of @jeremycorbyn. The censors say the film conflates Zionists, Jews & Israel. No, actually, that’s what they do. See it & judge for yourself.’

US journalist Glenn Greenwald noted:

‘The @glastonbury Film Festival capitulated to pressure and cancelled the Corbyn documentary.

‘This illustrates the great crisis in the democratic world: an intense fixation on suppressing and silencing, rather than engaging, dissenting views. (...)

There was minimal reporting by the British state-corporate media and, crucially, no uproar about censorship and yet another step being taken towards suppression of free speech. (...)

The single significant piece refuting the specious, cynical charges was an article in the Independent reporting the reaction of Norman Thomas, the film’s producer. He said that the film’s cancellation had been caused by ‘vicious outside pressure’. He added:

‘An outside pressure group [BDBJ] has declared war on our film. They wrote to the festival’s sponsors… and whipped up huge storm of complaints about the film claiming, without any foundation whatsoever, that the film is antisemitic.’

He continued:

‘The claim that the film is antisemitic is a total smear.

‘The festival organisers even had a lawyer examine the film who pronounced it totally devoid of antisemitism. [Our emphasis]’ (...)

It is ironic indeed that Glenn Greenwald, a US journalist, is far more vocal in defending UK freedom of speech than British journalists. A great silence has fallen over the media in this country.

Complete article

Tags: #media #mass_media #labour #labour_party #corbyn #jeremy_corbyn #starmer #keir_starmer #journalist #journalism #antisemitism #racism #al_jazeera #forde_report #mainstream_media #msm #propaganda #censorship #defamation #corporate_media #state_media #platform_films

Caitlin Johnstone: How The Guardian Can Help Assange

Counterpunch

The most effective way for the paper to help end the publisher’s persecution is to publicly acknowledge the many bogus stories they published about him and correct the record. (...)

This is after all the same Guardian that published the transparently ridiculous and completely invalidated 2018 report that former President Donald Trump’s lackey Paul Manafort had met secretly with Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy, not once but multiple times.

Not one shred of evidence has ever been produced to substantiate this claim despite the embassy being one of the most heavily surveilled buildings on the planet at the time. (...)

This is the same Guardian that ran an article in 2018 titled, “The only barrier to Julian Assange leaving Ecuador’s embassy is pride,” arguing that Assange looked ridiculous for continuing his political asylum in the embassy because “the WikiLeaks founder is unlikely to face prosecution in the US.” (...)

This is the same Guardian that published an article titled “Definition of paranoia: supporters of Julian Assange,” arguing that Assange defenders are crazy conspiracy theorists for believing the U.S. would try to extradite Assange because, “Britain has a notoriously lax extradition treaty with the United States … why would they bother to imprison him when he is making such a good job of discrediting himself?” The paper added: “there is no extradition request.” (...)

The same Guardian that has flushed standard journalistic protocol down the toilet by reporting on Assange’s “ties to the Kremlin” (not a thing) without even bothering to use the word “alleged” on more than one occasion. (...)

As we’ve discussed previously, the narrative that Assange recklessly published unredacted documents in 2011 is another smear.

The unredacted files were actually published elsewhere as the result of a real password being recklessly published in a book by Guardian journalists David Leigh and Luke Harding (the same Luke Harding who co-authored the bogus Manafort-Assange story). (...)

Complete article

> See also: Don’t Extradite Assange (Media Lens)

The Guardian building in London, 2012. (Bryantbob, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons)

Tags: #assange #julian_assange #wikileaks #journalism #journalist #news #guardian #the_guardian #smear_campaign #manning #news #extradition #us #united_states #julianassange #uk #propaganda #truth #justice #freeassange #weareallassange #censorship #chelsea_manning #press #freedom_of_the_press #bbc #dissidents #witch_hunt #JournalistsSpeakUpForAssange #Nils_Melzer #Melzer #whistle_blower #corporate_media #mainstream_media #double_down_news

Wicked Leaks – Part 1: How The Media Quarantined Evidence On Nord Stream Sabotage

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

Mass Media Omertà: Burying Al Jazeera’s ‘The Labour Files’

Media Lens

The damaging revelations about the Labour Party in the recent four-part Al Jazeera series, ‘The Labour Files’, and the almost totalitarian silence in response by British news media, should ram home the illusory nature of ‘democracy’ in the UK.

Based on the largest leak in British political history, Al Jazeera’s Investigative Unit has exposed how Labour party officials smeared and intimidated rivals on the left of the party. The leaked data comprises 500 gigabytes of documents, emails, video and audio files from the Labour Party, dating from 1998 to 2021. They reveal:

• The weaponisation of antisemitism by the right-wing of the Labour Party to hinder Jeremy Corbyn’s chances of becoming Prime Minister.
• A ‘hierarchy of racism’ within the Labour Party disciplinary process which prioritises the investigation of alleged antisemitism cases over other forms of racism.
• Shocking examples of Islamophobia and anti-Black racism within Labour.
• The crushing of dissent within Labour under Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership. (...)

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Keir Starmer

The Al Jazeera (AJ) investigation showed that false accusations of abusive behaviour were hurled at Corbyn supporters in order to have them suspended or expelled from the party. At Labour HQ, party officials were tasked with trawling through members’ social media posts to find anything incriminating, particularly any material that could be deemed ‘antisemitic’.

Whistleblower Halima Khan, who worked as a Labour Party investigations officer, told AJ that ‘Palestine’ was one of the search terms used to find incriminating evidence. (...)

Starmer’s support of Israel, and rejection of it being labelled an ‘apartheid state’ by human rights groups including Amnesty, Human Rights Watch and Israel’s own B’Tselem, is well-documented; as is the strength of the Israel lobby within Labour. (...)

Andrew Feinstein, a veteran anti-racist campaigner originally from South Africa who has written and lectured on genocide prevention, is shown in one AJ programme examining Labour’s confidential disciplinary files. Hundreds of party activists had been suspended on the basis of these files. Feinstein pointed to clear examples of real antisemitism. But there were also many examples of cases where ‘there was no antisemitism whatsoever’. These were typically people criticising Israel for its crimes. (...)

After 2018, once Corbyn was in control of the party bureaucracy, the disciplinary process improved dramatically. (...)

Feinstein emphasised that:

‘The key finding, backed up by the evidence, which we can see represented graphically here, is that the key failings of the Labour party on antisemitism took place in the period before April 2018 – before Jeremy Corbyn had control of the party bureaucracy [our emphasis].’

As the AJ narrator noted:

‘Yet Jeremy Corbyn has taken all the blame and his factional opponents within the party none at all.’

This rational honesty was notably lacking when BBC Panorama broadcast a hatchet job in July 2019, pitched as an ‘impartial’ investigation asking the loaded question, ‘Is Labour Anti-Semitic?’ The programme was presented by BBC journalist John Ware who had previously made clear his antagonism towards Corbyn’s politics, not least in an earlier edition of Panorama. (...)

As we noted in a media alert shortly afterwards, Panorama was immediately followed by the flagship BBC News at Ten programme which gave it extensive coverage, pumping up the propaganda value of the fake ‘investigation’. (...)

By contrast, Peter Oborne told AJ in ‘The Labour Files’:

‘The BBC produced a documentary bearing directly on the character and fitness for office of the leader of the Labour Party, the leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition, in a moment of intense constitutional crisis [over Brexit]. Now, that’s a momentous intervention in British politics. So, I do think the BBC have to look really carefully at their record here.’ (...)

One of the most disturbing aspects of the AJ investigation into the Labour Party is further evidence supporting one of the conclusions of the Forde report that:

‘The Labour Party is not a welcoming place for people of colour’.

This was an understatement, as we will see. (...)

In our media alert at the time, we noted that the leaked internal report revealed that senior Labour figures on the right of the party had actively tried to stop Labour winning the general election in order to oust Corbyn as party leader. (...)

Starmer essentially suppressed Labour discussion of the damning leaked document, attempting to defuse the situation by commissioning an independent inquiry. However, the Forde report would have made uncomfortable reading for Starmer and the current Labour management.

As Jonathan Cook summarised:

‘Despite its careful wording and bogus even-handedness, the Forde Inquiry conceded that the Labour right had indeed waged a dirty factional war against Corbyn and the left of the party, weaponizing antisemitism to tar them.’

Moreover, as the Forde report concluded, the leaked WhatsApp messages revealed:

‘overt and underlying racism and sexism’. (...)

The Forde Report even identified a ‘hierarchy of racism’ in which investigations of alleged antisemitism in the Labour Party took precedence over Islamophobia and anti-Black racism. (...)

‘The Labour Files’ revealed the particularly egregious case of Labour HQ targeting Muslim Labour activists in Newham in east London. A dossier on Labour Party Muslim members and their families in Newham, containing private information about their lives and activities, was sent to Labour Party HQ in London. (...)

Oborne, who has recently published a new book, ‘The Fate of Abraham: Why the West is Wrong About Islam’, told AJ:

‘I found this dossier completely unbelievable. Reading this is like reading some far-right tract by some demented American right-winger. And this is published or done inside the Labour Party. It’s terrifying.’ (...)

In March 2021, Newham’s two party branches were suspended. More than 5,000 party members, mostly Muslim**, were thus denied a voice in Labour Party democracy. (...)

And what has the ‘mainstream’ media response been to the damning findings of AJ’s careful, in-depth investigation? An almost complete blanket of silence. It really is a remarkable demonstration of the near-totalitarian behaviour of British ‘journalism’. (...)

In an article titled, ‘Al Jazeera’s Labour Files has blown a hole in the British media’s Corbyn narrative’, for the Middle East Eye website, Oborne observed:

‘The papers that banged on day after day, and month after month, on allegations that Corbyn was a racist have all but ignored the Al Jazeera reports. The same applies to the BBC, which played a major role in framing the understanding of Corbyn and antisemitism in the run-up to the 2019 election.’

He added:

‘it is impossible to justify the media omerta around the Al Jazeera films. It reminds me of the long refusal of the mainstream British media to engage with the phone hacking scandal involving criminality across large sections of the British media more than a decade ago.’ (...)

In our 2018 book, ‘Propaganda Blitz’, we detailed at length the cynical demolition of the prospects for socialism under a Corbyn-led government. There were the usual suspects at the far-right of the media ‘spectrum’ – the Sun, Daily Mail, The Times and Telegraph among them. But, perhaps more insidious – because of their supposed reputation for reliable, even challenging, reporting – BBC News and, especially, the Guardian, were in the vanguard of the attack. It is obvious that they would be reluctant in the extreme to revisit the scene of their crimes – which are ongoing. (...)

Cook summed up the media’s callous behaviour and suppression of any reporting or discussion of the Al Jazeera series:

‘Which BBC program will acknowledge Al Jazeera’s revelations, let alone pursue them further, when the BBC’s flagship news investigation program, Panorama, is deeply implicated in the very smears Al Jazeera exposed. The BBC would in effect be investigating its own malpractice.’

He added:

‘And similarly for the Guardian. To investigate the leaked documents would convict the paper – traditionally seen by many Labour voters as their house journal – of colluding in a bogus antisemitism narrative against the Labour left that it played a central role in building. The Guardian would expose itself not as it wishes to be seen – as a fearless, independent newspaper confronting the British establishment with uncomfortable truths – but as a key pillar of that very establishment.’ (...)

Concluding Note

Al Jazeera’s ‘The Labour Files’ is a must-watch series. For the state-corporate media, it’s a ‘must-ignore’ series.

All four episodes are available on YouTube:

Part 1: The Purge

Part 2: The Crisis

Part 3: The Hierarchy

Part 4: The Spying Game

Complete article

Tags: #media #mass_media #labour #labour_party #corbyn #jeremy_corbyn #starmer #keir_starmer #journalist #journalism #antisemitism #racism #al_jazeera #panorama #bbc #news_at_ten #forde_report #the_guardian #Kuenssberg #mainstream_media #msm #propaganda #censorship #defamation

Niets is zo zwart-wit als complotdenkers menen, maar een feit is dat de gevestigde media (maistream media) vaak een sterke neiging hebben de macht te volgen.

Amerikaanse regionale krant zet landelijke media in hun hemd

Villamedia

Diverse Amerikaanse media staan in hun hemd, nadat ze een abortuszaak rond een tienjarige wegwuifden als wel érg toevallig, gezien het recente besluit van het Amerikaanse Hooggerechtshof om landelijk recht op abortus in te trekken. Klein probleem: het is echt gebeurd en werd alleen bevestigd door een regionale krant. (...)

Recent deed een verhaal de ronde dat een tienjarig meisje uit Ohio zwanger was geraakt van haar verkrachter. Ze kon in Ohio geen abortus ondergaan en moest uitwijken naar Indiana voor de procedure. Zo’n gruwelijk verhaal kwam wel érg gelegen, vonden conservatieve media - zeker nadat president Biden erover sprak.

Zakenkrant Wall Street Journal publiceerde woensdag een redactioneel onder de kop “Een abortusverhaal dat te goed was om te bevestigen” en noemde de het verhaal van een zwangere tienjarige fanicful. Verzonnen, kortom.

Opmerkelijk is dat de Dave Yost, nota bene de procureur-generaal van de staat Ohio, eerder deze week op Fox News verklaarde dat er “geen flinter” bewijs zou zijn van de zaak. “Het ligt meer voor de hand dat dit een verzinsel is”, aldus Yost.

Tot woensdag een 27-jarige verdachte uit Columbus werd voorgeleid in de zaak, nadat hij dinsdag werd opgepakt. (...)

Bethany Bruner was voor regionale krant The Columbus Dispatch aanwezig bij de voorgeleiding. “Ik was de enige verslaggever in de zaal.” (...)

Hele artikel

> Zie ook: Arrestatie in zaak verkrachting 10-jarig meisje in VS (NOS Nieuws)

> Zie ook: Ik dacht dat ik met The Handmaid’s Tale fictie had geschreven. Het Amerikaanse Hooggerechtshof maakt er werkelijkheid van. (Margaret Atwood in De Volkskrant)

Demonstranten in Cincinnati, Ohio gingen eind juni de straat op om te demonstreren tegen het verdwijnen van abortusrechten | Jason Whitman / NurPhoto.

Tags: #nederlands #media #pers #regionale_media #mainstream_media #journalist #journalistiek #vs #verenigde_staten #abortus #abortusrechten #recht_op_abortus #hooggerechtshof #vrouwenrechten #reproductieve_rechten

Free Assange now!

IFJ

> See also: Don’t Extradite Assange (Media Lens)

Tags: #media #news #censorship #journalist #journalism #assange #wikileaks #manning #julian_assange #chelsea_manning #press #freedom_of_the_press #the_guardian #bbc #dissidents #witch_hunt #JournalistsSpeakUpForAssange #Nils_Melzer #Melzer #whistle_blower #corporate_media #mainstream_media #double_down_news #freeassangenow

Don’t Extradite Assange

Media Lens

Last Friday’s decision by UK Home Secretary Priti Patel to authorise the extradition of Julian Assange to the United States is both deeply shameful and unsurprising. Her action paves the way for Assange to be tried under the 1917 Espionage Act, introduced by the US government shortly after entering World War I, with a sentence of 175 years if found guilty. In essence, the US wishes to set a legal precedent for the prosecution of any publisher or journalist, anywhere in the world, who reports the truth about the US.

Despite all the warnings from human rights groups, advocates of press freedom, Nils Melzer (then UN Special Rapporteur on Torture), doctors, lawyers and many other people around the world, it has long been clear that Washington is determined to punish Assange and make an example of him as a warning to others. As always, US allies will go along with what the Mafia Godfather wants. (...)

Peter Oborne, an all-too-rare example of a journalist speaking out on behalf of Assange, called Patel’s decision a ‘catastrophic blow’ to press freedom. But, he said, it was a blow that had been carried out with:

‘the silent assent of much of the mainstream press. Too many British newspapers and broadcasters have treated the Assange case as a dirty family secret. They have failed to grasp that the Assange hearing leading up to the Patel decision is the most important case involving free speech this century.’

Not only was there ‘silent assent’, but much of the media actually cheered and applauded Assange’s arrest in the Ecuadorian Embassy in April 2019 ‘with undisguised glee’, as Alan MacLeod wrote at the time. (...)

As Nils Melzer packed up and moved on from his term as the UN Special Prosecutor on Torture, on the day that Patel announced Assange’s extradition, he said:

‘How far have we sunk if we prosecute people who expose war crimes for exposing war crimes?

‘How far have we sunk when we no longer prosecute our own war criminals because we identify more with them than we identify with the people that actually exposed these crimes?

‘What does that tell about us and about our governments?

‘How far have we sunk when telling the truth becomes a crime?’

(...) The Guardian is a prime stoker of revitalised Cold War rhetoric about the ‘threat’ of Russia and China, mirroring what is prevalent across the whole ‘spectrum’ of ‘mainstream’ news. Indeed, as revealed by Declassified UK, an independent investigative news website, the UK’s leading liberal newspaper has essentially been ‘neutralised’ by the UK security services. Mark Curtis, editor and co-founder of Declassified UK, observed that the paper’s:

‘limited coverage of British foreign and security policies gives a misleading picture of what the UK does in the world. The paper is in reality a defender of Anglo-American power and a key ideological pillar of the British establishment.’

(...) In a brave and eloquent interview, Stella Assange, Julian’s wife and mother of their two young children, declared that:

(...) ‘And then you have the actual case. He’s charged under the Espionage Act. He faces 175 years. There is no public interest defence under the Espionage Act. It’s the first time it’s being repurposed; it’s being used against a publisher. It’s an Act that’s been repurposed in order to criminalise journalism, basically. And, of course, if you say that publishing information is a crime, then Julian’s guilty. He published information and he faces a lifetime in prison for it.’

(...) We can take a significant step towards a saner society by shouting loudly for Julian Assange to be freed immediately. A good start would be to share widely this video from Double Down News in which Stella Assange describes the importance of the case and how we can all help.

Please also visit the Don’t Extradite Assange website to see what actions you can take now.

Complete article

Tags: #media #news #censorship #journalist #journalism #assange #wikileaks #manning #julian_assange #chelsea_manning #press #freedom_of_the_press #the_guardian #bbc #dissidents #witch_hunt #JournalistsSpeakUpForAssange #Nils_Melzer #Melzer #whistle_blower #corporate_media #mainstream_media #double_down_news

Doubling Down On Double Standards – The Ukraine Propaganda Blitz

Media Lens

(...) Every time US-UK-NATO launches a war of aggression on Iraq, Libya, Syria – whoever, wherever – our TV screens and front pages fill with ‘beautiful pictures’ of missiles blazing in pure white light from ships. This is ‘Shock And Awe’ – we even imagine our victims ‘awed’ by our power. (...)

By contrast, the morning after Russia launched its war of aggression on Ukraine, front pages were covered, not in tech, but in the blood of wounded civilians and the rubble of wrecked civilian buildings. (...)

Political analyst Ben Norton commented:

‘Russia’s intervention in Ukraine has gotten much more coverage, and condemnation, in just 24 hours than the US-Saudi war on Yemen has gotten since it started nearly 7 years ago… US-backed Saudi bombing now is the worst since 2018’

This is no small matter. Norton added:

‘An estimated 377,000 Yemenis have died in the US-Saudi war on their country, and roughly 70% of deaths were children under age 5’

Some 15.6 million Yemenis live in extreme poverty, and 8.6 million suffer from under-nutrition. A recent United Nations report warned:

‘If war in Yemen continues through 2030, we estimate that 1.3 million people will die as a result.’ (...)

We can be sure that Instagram, YouTube and Tik Tok will never be awash with the sentiment: ‘I stand with Yemen!’

As if the whole world belongs to ‘us’, our righteous rage on Ukraine is such that we apparently forget that we are not actually under attack, not being bombed; our soldiers and civilians are not being killed. Nevertheless, RT (formerly Russia Today), Going Underground and Sputnik have been shut down on YouTube and Google as though the US and UK were under direct attack, facing an existential threat. (...)

So how did we get here? State-corporate news coverage has some glaring omissions. (...)

In a rare example of dissent in the Guardian, Ted Galen Carpenter, senior fellow for defence and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, wrote this week:

‘The Obama administration’s shockingly arrogant meddling in Ukraine’s internal political affairs in 2013 and 2014 to help demonstrators overthrow Ukraine’s elected, pro‐​Russia president was the single most brazen provocation, and it caused tensions to spike. Moscow immediately responded by seizing and annexing Crimea, and a new cold war was underway with a vengeance…’

Carpenter concluded:

‘Washington’s attempt to make Ukraine a Nato political and military pawn (even absent the country’s formal membership in the alliance) may end up costing the Ukrainian people dearly.

‘History will show that Washington’s treatment of Russia in the decades following the demise of the Soviet Union was a policy blunder of epic proportions. It was entirely predictable that Nato expansion would ultimately lead to a tragic, perhaps violent, breach of relations with Moscow. Perceptive analysts warned of the likely consequences, but those warnings went unheeded. We are now paying the price for the US foreign policy establishment’s myopia and arrogance.’ (...)

The New Yorker magazine describes political scientist John Mearsheimer as ‘one of the most famous critics of American foreign policy since the end of the Cold War’:

‘For years, Mearsheimer has argued that the U.S., in pushing to expand NATO eastward and establishing friendly relations with Ukraine, has increased the likelihood of war between nuclear-armed powers and laid the groundwork for Vladimir Putin’s aggressive position toward Ukraine. Indeed, in 2014, after Russia annexed Crimea, Mearsheimer wrote that “the United States and its European allies share most of the responsibility for this crisis.”’ (...)

In 2014, then US Secretary of State John Kerry had the gall to proclaim of Russia’s takeover of Crimea:

‘You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext.’

Senior BBC correspondents somehow managed to report such remarks from Kerry and others, without making any reference to the West’s invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. (...)

Noam Chomsky highlights one obvious omission in Western media coverage of Ukraine, or any other crisis involving NATO:

‘The question we ought to be asking ourselves is why did NATO even exist after 1990? If NATO was to stop Communism, why is it now expanding to Russia?’ (...)

Conclusion – ‘Whataboutism’ Or ‘Wearenobetterism’?

Regardless of the history and context of what came before, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a major international crime and the consequences are hugely serious.

Our essential point for over 20 years has been that the public is bombarded with the crimes of Official Enemies by ‘mainstream’ media, while ‘our’ crimes are ignored, or downplayed, or ‘justified’. A genuinely free and independent media would be exactly as tough and challenging on US-UK-NATO actions and policies as they are on Russian actions and policies.

To point out this glaring double standard is not to ‘carry water for Putin’; any more than pointing out state-corporate deceptions over Iraq, Libya and Syria meant we held any kind of candle for Saddam, Gaddafi or Assad. (...)

Complete article

The American population was bombarded the way the Iraqi population was bombarded. It was a war against us, a war of lies and disinformation and omission of history. That kind of war, overwhelming and devastating, waged here in the US while the Gulf War was waged over there.’ (Howard Zinn, ‘Power, History and Warfare’, Open Magazine Pamphlet Series, No. 8, 1991, p.12)

Tags: #russia #putin #ukraine #zelenskiy #freedom #war #war_propaganda #fake_news #disinformation #propaganda #john_pilger #stop_the_war_coalition #nato #syria #assad #chemical_weapons #imperialism #anti-imperialism #democracy #dictatorship #international_law #iraq #media #news #journalism #journalist #coporate_media #mainstream_media #RT #Russia_Today #Going_Underground #Sputnik #censorship #freedom-of_the_press #afghanistan #libya

A Remarkable Silence: Media Blackout After Key Witness Against Assange Admits Lying

Media Lens

As we have pointed out since Media Lens began in 2001, a fundamental feature of corporate media is propaganda by omission. Over the past week, a stunning example has highlighted this core property once again.

A major witness in the US case against Julian Assange has just admitted fabricat­ing key accusati­ons in the indictment against the Wikileaks founder. These dramatic revelations emerged in an extensive article published on 26 June in Stundin, an Icelandic newspaper. The paper interviewed the witness, Sigurdur Ingi Thordarson, a former WikiLeaks volunteer, who admitted that he had made false allegations against Assange after being recruited by US authorities. (...)

Under President Obama, the US Department of Justice had decided against indicting Assange, despite devoting huge resources to building a case against him. The stumbling block was ‘The New York Times Problem’: the difficulty in distinguishing between WikiLeaks publications and NYT publications of the same material. In other words, prosecuting WikiLeaks would pose grave First Amendment risks for even ‘respectable’ media such as the NYT. (...)

Even before the Stundin article was published five days ago, Thordarson’s testimony should have already been recognised as suspect, to say the least. (...)

But all of this is seemingly of no interest to the ‘mainstream’ media. We have not found a single report by any ‘serious’ UK broadcaster or newspaper. (...)

[I]n a sane world, Stundin’s revelations about a key Assange witness – that Thordarson lied in exchange for immunity from prosecution – would have been headline news everywhere, with extensive media coverage on BBC News at Six and Ten, ITV News, Channel 4 News, front-page stories in the Times, Telegraph, the Guardian and more. The silence is quite extraordinary; and disturbing. Caitlin Johnstone described it as a ‘weird, creepy media blackout’. (...)

As we have often observed, the establishment media relentlessly warn of the insidious nature of ‘fake news’: a claim that does have a seed of validity. But it is the state-corporate media themselves who are the primary purveyors of fake news. (...)

In fact, the most dangerous component of ‘MSM’ fake news is arguably propaganda by omission. In ostensible ‘democracies’, the public cannot make informed decisions, and take appropriate action, when the crimes of ruling elites are kept hidden by a complicit media.

Full article

Tags: #media #newspaper #journalism #journalist #editor #news #the_guardian #bbc #assange #julian_assange #wikileaks #propaganda #msm #mainstream_media #fake_news #corporate_media #government_propaganda #press_freedom #freedom_of_the_press