Something quite extraordinary has been happening on Twitter. Corporate journalists have gone into meltdown after two British media analysts – known as Media Lens – tweeted some friendly advice to idealistic youngsters contemplating a career in journalism. Twitter is a social media forum much loved by corporate journalists – probably because media training hones their skills at pithy aphorisms and […]
On January 8, Fiona Bruce introduced an item about Syria on BBC News at Ten with the phrase: ‘Syrian government forces, backed by Russia’. Why does BBC News not regularly use the phrase, ‘Saudi government forces, backed by the United States and the UK’ when reporting on bombs dropped on Yemen? The answer should be obvious.
Open a corporate media website on any given day and you will find someone, somewhere blaming social media for something. No claim is too absurd.
Rather than indulging drum-beating hawks like Carter, politicians, journalists and anyone else really concerned with understanding and challenging British militarism might find in such places much more useful information and critical direction.
ALISON BANVILLE takes to task the BBC flagship programme over its investigation of British foreign aid diversion to extremist groups in Syria
One of the wonders of contemporary propaganda is the extent to which corporate commentators are in denial about their use of the term ‘genocide denial’. Clearly, they believe they are using a neutral, objective term to describe indisputable facts of genocidal killing and ugly refusals to recognise those facts.
The goal of a mass media propaganda campaign is to create the impression that ‘everybody knows’ that Saddam is a ‘threat’, Gaddafi is ‘about to commit mass murder’, Assad ‘has to go’, Corbyn is ‘destroying the Labour party’, and so on. The picture of the world presented must be clear-cut. The public must be made to feel certain that the ‘good guys’ are basically benevolent, and the ‘bad guys’ are absolutely appalling and must be removed.
Last week, Jeremy Corbyn humbled the entire political and corporate media commentariat. With a little help from Britain’s student population. And with a little help from thousands of media activists. Without doubt this was one of the most astonishing results in UK political history. Dismissed by all corporate political pundits, including the clutch of withered fig leaves at the Guardian, […]
Our point is that if journalists like Monbiot are serious about establishing the truth, they will test the French government and other claims against the arguments and evidence offered by dissidents. They will consider the different claims, and come to some kind of informed conclusion. What is not acceptable is that journalists should simply accept as Truth arguments made by Western governments openly seeking regime change in Syria and that have a spectacular track record of lying about claims supposedly justifying war.
It is remarkable that, even after the deceptions of Iraq and Libya, journalists are so unwilling to report credible evidence challenging the US government’s version of events. This is made even more shocking by the fact that Trump has not, of course, been treated with the respect and deference usually reserved for US presidents. Rather, he has been subjected to a barrage of relentless and damning criticism. And yet, in response to his illegal bombing of a foreign country, the press has not only dropped its usual criticism, but showered Trump with praise while suppressing reasoned criticism. Yet more evidence that corporate journalism is dangerously corrupted by political and economic forces demanding Perpetual War.
The title of the editorial said it all: ‘The Guardian view on George W Bush: a welcome return’ In a tongue-in-cheek, almost jovial, piece the Guardian unsubtly rehabilitated a man responsible for crimes that are among the most egregious in all history. Bush was responsible for the destruction of an entire country, the killing of one million Iraqis, the wounding […]
Are we able to prove the existence of a corporate media campaign to undermine British democracy? Media analysis is not hard science, but in this alert we provide compelling evidence that such a campaign does indeed exist.
