George Monbiot is an influential journalist, and his words on Syria over the past seven years will have carried weight in shaping public opinion. Some critical readers, however, have been concerned.
Tag: Tim Hayward
Media on Trial Event Banned
Today, on World Press Freedom Day, Leeds City Museum, a city council owned and operated venue, cancelled the Media on Trial’s booking for the event we had planned for 27 May.
How The Media Reveal Inconvenient Truth About Syria
The truth is sometimes revealed through words, but more often through deeds. The Times and several other papers recently carried alarming stories about “Apologists for Assad” to be found in social media, in independent journalism, and even in universities. Passive consumers of corporate media communications may have taken the papers’ word for it and been perturbed. The more alert, however, […]
The authoritarians who silence Syria questions
Long before the current fighting, western governments and Israel expressed a strong interest in overthrowing the government of Bashar Assad. In fact, their desire to be rid of Assad dates to at least the start of the “war on terror” they launched after 9/11, as I documented in my book Israel and the Clash of Civilisations.
The Guardian, White Helmets, and Silenced Comment
The Guardian recently published an article claiming that critical discussion of the White Helmets in Syria has been ‘propagated online by a network of anti-imperialist activists, conspiracy theorists and trolls with the support of the Russian government’. Many readers were dismayed at this crude defence of a – presumably – pro-imperialist perspective, and at the unwarranted smearing of reasoned questioning based on evidence from independent journalists.
Reporters Without Principles?
Anybody who pays critical attention to outputs of corporate news media will be aware that the idea of a free press, while lauded in principle, is scarcely actualised in practice. A further worrying development is that the very principles animating the idea are apparently being called into question by an organisation that purports to defend them.
Amnesty International: is it true to its mission?
Amnesty International has a moral mission: ‘to undertake research and action focused on preventing and ending grave abuses of human rights’. Could that be an impossible mission for an organisation that calls for military intervention on human rights grounds? This question arises from an attempt to understand Amnesty International’s role in the war in Syria. Critics have argued that by justifying […]
Syria’s Moderate Opposition: beyond the doublethink
Moderate political opposition does not involve or support taking up arms against the government, let alone against unarmed fellow citizens. This proposition would be treated as self-evident in our own country, so why are people seemingly ready to discard it when talking about Syria? Some who do so aim thereby to claim legitimacy for wishing ‘regime change’ upon that country, […]
Who’s Afraid of Conspiracy Theory?
‘Conspiracy theory’ is frequently used as a derogatory term, a term of disdain and implicit criticism. An effect of this is to discourage certain kinds of legitimate critical inquiry. But surely, in a world where conspiracies happen, we need good theories of what exactly is happening. The only people who really have anything to worry about from conspiracy theories are […]
Finance, War, and the Rule of Rogue Law
Why is it that certain ‘regimes’ become ripe for imperial subversion or overthrow? What was it, in particular, that linked together the list of countries that retired general Wesley Clark shared in his famous 2007 interview as being next in the sights of the United States’ bellicose intentions and most of which since have indeed been plunged into horrendous wars?
It’s Time To Raise the Level of Public Debate about Syria
These past six months I have been getting to know the inter-media. They’re not formally part of mainstream, and they’re not very social, so I call them inter-media. They are like the maintenance team for the mainstream. To explain this, I’ll first say how I came to meet them. The context of these encounters is writing posts on Syria. Doing so, I rely entirely […]
A Response To George Monbiot’s ‘Disavowal’
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.
Recent
History Repeating at Columbia: Student Gaza Protests Inspire the World
UK insurers refuse to pay Nord Stream because blasts were ‘government’ backed
Screams without proof: The Grayzone Exposes New York Times’ Oct 7th ‘Mass Rape’ Fraud
New York Times Leaked Memo Tells Journalists to Avoid Words ‘Genocide’, Ethnic Cleansing’, ‘Occupied Territories’.
The British media’s complicity in Israel’s slaughter in Gaza
Jonathan Cook: The Ways Western Media Disguise Genocide in Gaza
Iran Responds To Israel’s Terror Attack on its Consulate in Damascus
Israeli propagandist behind Hamas ‘mass rape’ narrative exposed as grifter, fraud.
Popular
- Russiagate, Corbyn and the Crimes of the Corporate Media 13 comments
- Evidence Begins To Indicate Gary Webb Was Murdered 12 comments
- BBC forced to admit it misled over Palestine 9 comments
- Jon Snow and the Murdered Children: His Six-Figure Salary Cannot Buy a Clear Conscience 7 comments
- What’s Wrong With Channel 4 News? Part Three: The Making of a Corporate Journalist 6 comments
- For Jim 6 comments
- BREXIT: John Pilger Explains why the British said No to Europe 5 comments
- Movie Review ‘The Damp Squibel’: Cult hit or hit cult? 5 comments
- Iraq Tells US ‘Get Out of Our Country!’ in Massive March in Baghdad 5 comments
- Jobcentre Misleading Claimants on Universal Jobmatch 4 comments