Media Lens

Author: admin
Subject: CAN THIS BE TRUE? GEORGE MONBIOT CHALLENGES MEDIA LENS
Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 1:26 pm (GMT 0)
Topic Replies: 0

CAN THIS BE TRUE? GEORGE MONBIOT CHALLENGES MEDIA LENS ON HYPOCRISY

The Guardian columnist, George Monbiot, posted the following on our website message board yesterday:

"Can this be true?

http://dissident93.wordpress.com/2008/ 11/28/medialens-monbiot-wilby-milne/

"If so, I think I have reason to feel aggrieved."

Author: admin
Subject: OBAMA - WIPING THE SLATE CLEAN
Posted: Thu Nov 13, 2008 1:54 pm (GMT 0)
Topic Replies: 0

Appearance And Reality In The Relaunch Of Brand America
In 1997, the British media filled with talk of "historic" change. Blair's victory that year "bursts open the door to a British transformation," the Independent declared. (Neal Ascherson, 'Through the door he can begin to create a freer land,' The Independent, May 4, 1997)

A Guardian leader saluted the nation: "Few now sang England Arise, but England had risen all the same." (Leader, 'A political earthquake,' The Guardian, May 2, 1997)

Author: admin
Subject: PROPPING UP PROPAGANDA
Posted: Wed Oct 22, 2008 12:54 pm (GMT 0)
Topic Replies: 0

IRAQ, CLIMATE AND THE CORPORATE MEDIA'

Since starting Media Lens in 2001, we have learned that corporate journalists are very often ill-equipped, or disinclined, to debate vital issues with members of the public.

In 2004, the esteemed Lancet medical journal published a study showing that 98,000 Iraqis had most likely died following the US-led invasion (http://www.thelancet.com/webfiles/ images/journals/lancet/ s0140673606694919.pdf). John Rentoul, chief political correspondent of the Independent on Sunday, responded with sarcasm when we challenged him about his dismissal of the peer-reviewed science:

Author: admin
Subject: INTELLECTUAL CLEANSING: PART 1
Posted: Thu Oct 02, 2008 10:06 pm (GMT 0)
Topic Replies: 0

Keeping The Media Safe For Big Business
Martin Tierney is one of a tiny number of mainstream journalists willing to review our book, 'Guardians of Power'. In June 2006, he published an accurate outline of our argument in the Herald, commenting: "It stands up to scrutiny."

He added that we "do not see conscious conspiracy but a 'filter system maintained by free market forces.' After all it wouldn't be appropriate to show the limbs of third world children during Thanksgiving as it would only remind consumers who was really being stuffed." (http://www.medialens.org/bookshop/review_herald.php)

Author: admin
Subject: SOME MATTER MORE - WHEN 47 VICTIMS ARE WORTH 43 WORDS
Posted: Tue Jul 22, 2008 3:31 pm (GMT 0)
Topic Replies: 0

Bad Form
In his classic work, Obedience to Authority, psychologist Stanley Milgram observed:

"There is always some element of bad form in objecting to the destructive course of events, or indeed, in making it a topic of conversation. Thus, in Nazi Germany, even among those most closely identified with the 'final solution', it was considered an act of discourtesy to talk about the killings." (Milgram, Obedience to Authority, Pinter & Martin, 1974, p.204)

Author: admin
Subject: SELLING THE FIREBALL - GEORGE BUSH AND IRAN
Posted: Wed Jun 25, 2008 9:19 am (GMT 0)
Topic Replies: 0

When George Bush arrived in Britain last week as part of his “farewell tour”, the real reasons for the visit were buried well out of sight. The tour was not, as the Guardian suggested, a mere “continental au revoir”. The purpose was to coerce Gordon Brown into raising troop levels in Afghanistan and to support toughened sanctions on Iran. Bush said pressure on Iran was necessary to "solve this problem diplomatically", but warned: "Iranians must understand, however, that all options are on the table." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7456081.stm)

Author: admin
Subject: "COMPLICIT ENABLERS" - UK MEDIA IGNORE US WHISTLEB
Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2008 9:49 am (GMT 0)
Topic Replies: 0

April 2006, George Bush bade farewell to his outgoing White House press secretary, Scott McClellan:

"One day he and I are going to be rocking on chairs in Texas talking about the good old days and his time as press secretary." (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/ world/americas/bushs-fury-as- exspokesman-twists-the-knife-837678.html)

The rocking chair plans will have been shelved for good after the publication of McClellan's new memoir, 'What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception.'

Author: admin
Subject: BURMA AND THE MAKING OF IRAQ'S GHOST TOWNS
Posted: Wed May 28, 2008 6:05 pm (GMT 0)
Topic Replies: 0

The Rules Of The Game

The psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan once commented on "how suavely we simply ignore great bodies of experience, any clearly analysed instance of which might present us with a very real necessity for change." (Quoted, Daniel Goleman, Vital Lies, Simple Truths - The Psychology of Self-Deception, Bloomsbury 1997, p.124)

The problem for professional journalists is that they are not free to change. Or at least, they are not free to change +and+ flourish in their chosen careers. Ex-CBS producer Richard Cohen explained the relationship between media and politics:

Author: admin
Subject: SOMALIA - HIDDEN CATASTROPHE HIDDEN AGENDA
Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 1:32 pm (GMT 0)
Topic Replies: 0

On May 1, the BBC website reported an attack on Somalia with the words:

“Air raid kills Somali militants.”

One might think the BBC’s headline would identify the agency responsible for the bombing, but the first few sentences also shed no light:

“The leader of the military wing of an Islamist insurgent organisation in Somalia has been killed in an overnight air strike.

“Aden Hashi Ayro, al-Shabab's military commander, died when his home in the central town of Dusamareb was bombed.

“Ten other people, including a senior militant, are also reported dead.” (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7376760.stm)

Author: admin
Subject: SUHARTO - COVERING UP WESTERN COMPLICITY
Posted: Tue Feb 12, 2008 8:29 pm (GMT 0)
Topic Replies: 0

The death of the former Indonesian dictator, Suharto, on January 27 could have unleashed a flood of revelations detailing British and American support for one of the 20th century’s worst mass murderers. Instead, the media continued the cover up that has so far lasted more than forty years.

Author: admin
Subject: ‘CREATIVE DESTRUCTION’ – THE MADNESS OF THE GLOBAL ECONOMY
Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 11:26 am (GMT 0)
Topic Replies: 0

Watching the corporate media report the ‘financial crisis’ is instructive. From the perspective of power, it is important that a steadying hand is applied to the tiller of news and commentary on the crisis, and the global economy itself.

Author: admin
Subject: ALL SMOKE, NO FIRE - THE NATIONAL JOURNAL SMEARS THE LANCET
Posted: Wed Jan 23, 2008 2:57 pm (GMT 0)
Topic Replies: 0

Last year, we described how mainstream climate sceptics had queued up to praise film-maker Martin Durkin’s now infamous documentary, The Great Global Warming Swindle. The Daily Mail, the Daily Telegraph, and their counterparts in the United States, used the film to heap scorn on the scientific consensus that climate change is a grave and rapidly evolving threat. In the event, the film itself turned out to be a swindle, one denounced by climate scientists far and wide - its media supporters quietly moved on.

Author: admin
Subject: MANUFACTURING THREATS - SUDAN, IRAN, AND THE WAR FOR...
Posted: Tue Dec 18, 2007 1:14 pm (GMT 0)
Topic Replies: 0

MANUFACTURING THREATS - SUDAN, IRAN, AND THE WAR FOR CIVILISATION

News that British schoolteacher Gillian Gibbons had been jailed in Sudan after allowing her pupils to call a teddy bear Mohammed fed straight into the UK media’s hate factory and its “war for civilisation”.

The Gibbons story was mentioned in a massive 257 articles in UK national newspapers in the first week, providing an excuse to boost claims of “genocide” in Sudan in 10 of these.

Author: admin
Subject: THE FACELESS AND THE DEAD - THE GUARDIAN AND IRAQ’S REFUGEES
Posted: Fri Dec 07, 2007 10:20 am (GMT 0)
Topic Replies: 0

“See The World Through Their Eyes”
For several months now, non-UK visitors accessing the Guardian website have been shown an endlessly revolving animation in three segments that would not look out of place on FAIR, ZNet, or indeed Media Lens.

The first segment depicts a blue-eyed man wearing glasses with images of anti-war demonstrators reflected in the glasses. The protestors are carrying a banner that reads: “End The War NOW!” It instantly recalls the enormous February 15, 2003 anti-war march in London.

Author: admin
Subject: ADVERTISING CLIMATE DISASTER - THE GUARDIAN READERS’ EDITOR
Posted: Thu Nov 01, 2007 8:33 pm (GMT 0)
Topic Replies: 0

ADVERTISING CLIMATE DISASTER - THE GUARDIAN READERS’ EDITOR RESPONDS
The Guardian this week published an article by the readers’ editor, Siobhain Butterworth, discussing “the contradiction between what the Guardian has to say about environmental issues and what it advertises”. (Butterworth, ‘Open door - The readers' editor on... the contradiction between what we say and the ads we run,’ The Guardian, October 29, 2007; www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,2200887,00.html)

Author: admin
Subject: “RED HERRING” - Al Gore, The Climate Sceptics And The BBC
Posted: Thu Oct 18, 2007 3:45 pm (GMT 0)
Topic Replies: 0

On October 10, the BBC’s Ten O’Clock News led with the story that a High Court Judge had found nine “errors” in Al Gore’s climate film, ‘An Inconvenient Truth’, which the UK government has been sending to schools around the country. As a result, by way of “balance”, the government will now be required to include “guidance notes” with the film. (BBC news online, ‘Gore climate film's “nine errors”,’ October 11, 2007; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/7037671.stm)

Author: admin
Subject: Oil Laws - Colonising Iraq’s Economic Prize
Posted: Wed Oct 10, 2007 1:31 pm (GMT 0)
Topic Replies: 0

An Equitable Sharing of Resources?
We are led to believe that Western societies are free and open. In many respects this is true: freedom of speech and the right to protest still exist, albeit within ever-tighter constraints. At root, however, much of what we see and hear in the corporate media has been shaped by money, power and greed. What passes for vibrant public debate is often a sham.

Author: admin
Subject: I, (FASCIST) ROBOT - THE BBC’S GAVIN ESLER LETS RIP
Posted: Wed Sep 26, 2007 3:18 pm (GMT 0)
Topic Replies: 0

In response to our September 18 alert, ‘The Media Ignore Credible Poll Revealing 1.2 Million Violent Deaths In Iraq,’ BBC Newsnight presenter Gavin Esler sent one Media Lens reader the following response:

“Sorry but this medialens inspired stuff is very sophomoric. The last time I remember a robotic response from people like this was watching film of the nuremberg rallies. I always wondered why people marched to another's beat without any obvious thought from themselves. Perhaps you know the answer, or perhaps you merely intend to keep marching.

“Please don't write to me again in someone else's words. It is so embarrasing for you. Please learn to think for yourself.

Author: admin
Subject: The Media Ignore Credible Poll Revealing 1.2 Million Viol...
Posted: Tue Sep 18, 2007 9:25 pm (GMT 0)
Topic Replies: 0

The Media Ignore Credible Poll Revealing 1.2 Million Violent Deaths In Iraq

The media are not, as is commonly supposed, windows on the world; they are more like paintings or sketches of windows on the world - both the ‘window’ and the ‘reality’ beyond are manufactured corporate products.

The problem is that the manufacturers selling their wares, while portraying themselves as disinterested, are anything but. They are profit-seeking media corporations that have a very clear interest in highlighting certain issues and in burying others out of sight.

Author: admin
Subject: GIVING THE CLIMATE CAMP A GOOD TELLING OFF!
Posted: Thu Aug 23, 2007 2:31 pm (GMT 0)
Topic Replies: 0

Guardian Environment Editor Lambasts the Heathrow Climate Camp’s “Media Mismanagement”

Last week’s peaceful protests at the Heathrow Camp for Climate Action (http://www.climatecamp.org.uk/) were a heartening sign of sanity in response to the huge climate threat facing us. Activists drew attention to the role of aviation in global warming, conducted seminars on climate science and undertook a series of nonviolent demonstrations. A mass siege even temporarily shut down the national headquarters of British Airports Authority (BAA), owners of Heathrow airport.