Media Lens, Noam Chomsky, WikiLeaks (and Julian Assange), Glenn Greenwald and Bitcoin: all groups, systems or individuals that present threats or challenges, of varying levels of potency, to the established order. Labeling those who raise legitimate concerns about an issue in such a manner is not only lazy and dishonest (not to mention cowardly), it is deeply cynical
There are Democrats and there are Republicans. Report honestly what they’re saying—balance and so on—and then you’re objective. If you go beyond that and you ask a question about the bounds, then you’re biased, subjective, emotional, maybe anti-American, whatever the usual curse words are. So that’s a task and, you know, you can understand it from the point of view of established power. It’s a distorting prism with enormous impact.
the determination of corporate commentators to ignore the importance and truth of Brand’s arguments, and to focus instead on his ‘sexism’, ‘narcissism’, and his relationship with Jemima Khan, are classic examples of group narcissism; of journalists prioritising their careers, their corporations, their class, ‘not on the basis of an objective value judgement, but because it is me or mine’.
Thousands of people in the UK and US united in their rejection of mainstream media in a mass protest. Protesters targeted the headquarters of media giants like Fox News, the BBC and NBS, decrying their narrow coverage of world affairs.
Why Doesn’t Alex Thomson Have the Guts to Resign? The Plight of the Captive Corporate Journalist.
Channel 4 News is not like the rest of the mainstream media, it is fearless and engaging, endlessly dedicated to getting to the truth and making jazz hands along the way, its eccentric personalities a hallmark of its independence.
March Against The Mainstream Media this Saturday, 16th November 2013
Stand up against the so called ‘Fourth Estate’ and demand the truth
Whether it’s claims that Iraq could deploy its WMDs ‘within 45 minutes’, or that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, or that Hugo Chavez fixed elections, no one does conspiracy theories better than the West’s conspiracy-theory hating elite.
Corporations now call all the key shots, with the political class acting as gun-toting bodyguards. Despite the fig-leaf of parliamentary appearances, corporations have a malleable political elite in their boardroom-suited pockets. Political ‘participation’ is a wholesale pretence, the cartel of political parties just more corporate-type brands, And, while a corporate media helps keep the whole charade ideologically intact, corporate surveillance maintains a beady panoptic over the entire social and cultural landscape.
To maintain neutrality, journalists are loath to call out one side for lying. They also do not want to antagonize their sources, upon whom they are dependent. Instead, journalists prefer to report that one side is calling the other side liars and leave it at that. We report; you decide. The problem is that the liars can dismiss the criticism as being driven by their opponents and ignore it, so this becomes a liar’s paradise.
Russell Brand’s recent political essay, viral BBC interview, and ongoing comedy tour – The Messiah Complex – raise important political and philosophical questions concerning, among other issues, the nature of justice, the importance of voting, and the need for radical, revolutionary change. These deserve serious consideration.
“Citizens have to fight against the suppression of information about affairs of essential importance for the public. Those who speak the truth are not committing a crime.”
Bob Baer, CNN National Security Analyst and Former CIA operative and Ray McGovern is a former CIA analyst.
An apathetic mainstream media, an ambivalent political class and a broad populace who have become spectators rather than actors in their daily lives, have created the mistaken impression that Britain is taking its austerity hammering lying down. This could not be further from the truth. Many of the most disenfranchised groups in UK society are rising, rebellion is fomenting, and flames of dissidence are licking the powder keg of mainstream mood. So why doesn’t it feel like it?
