The many hundreds of thousands of words posted on the Daily Blog, both the essays written and the responses they attract, are all presented in the hope that their content has merit. From the expletive-dotted, the heavily-referenced, the short and sweet, to the ponderously long, each is offered in the hope that good will come of it.
But sadly, just as “a lie can be halfway around the world while the truth is still pulling its pants on”, so it seems, when it comes to accepting another point of view, the minds of most are long-since set in their ways for the effort to have any measurable effect. As Aristotle said; “Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.”
Yet, borne on by some nagging need, perhaps even arrogance, still we persist. And so, for the umpteenth time, I say again; “it’s still the media’s fault!” And, being a paid up member of the “heavily-referenced” essay brigade, I present someone else’s evidence as proof.
Jonathan Cook is an award-winning British journalist and author, and his carefully researched essay, detailing how the media carefully manages our understanding of events, is certainly worth your consideration.
The Corporate News Media at Work
Large numbers of Palestinians and Ukrainians were killed in missile strikes days apart, writes Jonathan Cook. The differing coverage of these comparable events is the clue to the media’s true function.
When all we have to rely on in understanding our relationship to the news media is the media’s self-proclaimed assessment of its own role, maybe it is no surprise that most of us assume the West’s “free press” is a force for good: the bedrock of democracy, the touchstone of a superior western civilisation.
The more idealistic among us think of the news media as something akin to a public service. The more cynical of us think of it as a competitive marketplace in information and commentary, one in which ugly agendas are often in evidence but truth ultimately prevails.
Both views are fanciful. The reality is far, far darker – and I speak as someone who worked for many years in The Guardian and Observer newsrooms, widely seen as the West’s most progressive newspapers.
As readers, we don’t, as we imagine, “consume” news. Rather, the news consumes us. Or put another way, the media uses the news to groom us, its audience. Properly understood, the relationship is one of abuser and abused.
Sounds like a paranoid conspiracy theory?
In fact, just such an argument was set out many years ago — in more academic fashion — in Noam Chomsky and Ed Herman’s book Manufacturing Consent.
If you have never heard of the book, there may be a reason. The media don’t want you reading it.
When I worked at The Guardian, there was no figure more reviled in the newsroom by senior editors than Noam Chomsky. As young journalists, we were warned off reading him. How might we react were we to start thinking more deeply about the role of the media, or begin testing the limits of what we were allowed to report and say?
Chomsky and Herman’s Propaganda Model explains in detail how Western publics are “brainwashed under freedom” by a media driven by hidden corporate and state interests. Those interests can be concealed only because the media decides what counts as news and frames how we understand events.
Its chief tools are misdirection and omission — and, in extremis, outright deception.
Tribal Camps
Election Day: The Newseum’s Campaign 2016 exhibit in Washington, D.C. (Lorie Shaull, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)
The Propaganda Model acknowledges that competition is permitted in the news media. But only of a narrow, superficial kind, meant to divide us more usefully into tribal, ideological camps – defined as the left and the right.
Those camps are there to keep us imagining that we enjoy a plurality of ideas, that we are in charge of our response to events, that we elect governments — just as we enjoy a choice between watching the BBC and Fox News.
But our herding into oppositional camps isn’t really about choice. The camps are there to keep us divided, so we can be more easily manipulated and ruled. They are there to obscure from us the deeper reality that the state-corporate media is the public relations arm of an establishment that needs us weak.
To survive, the Western power establishment has to engineer two related kinds of popular endorsement.
First, we must consent to the idea that the West has an inalienable right to control the Earth’s resources, even at the cost of committing terrible crimes both against the rest of humanity, such as the current genocide in Gaza, and against other species, as we wreck the natural world in our pursuit of impossible, endless economic growth on a finite planet.
And second, we must consent to the idea that the richest and most powerful elites in the West have an inalienable right to cream off most of the profits from this industrialised rape of our only home.
The media rarely identifies this wasteful, greed system, so normalised has it become. But when given a name, it is called capitalism. It emerges from the shadows only when the media need to confront and ridicule a bogeyman caricature of its main ideological rival, socialism.
Immersed in Propaganda
Guardian’s office in London, 2010. (Michael Brunton-Spall, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)
The news media have been fantastically successful at making a system of suicidal resource extraction designed to enrich a tiny number of billionaires seem entirely normal to their audiences.
Which is why those same billionaires are as keen to own the news media as they are to own politicians. In fact, gain ownership of the media, and you own the political class too. It is the ultimate two-for-one offer.
No politician can afford to take on key state-corporate interests, or the media that veils those interests — as Jeremy Corbyn soon found out in the U.K. a few years back.
I have spent the past 15 years or more trying to highlight to readers the true nature of our relationship to the media — the groomer and groomed — using the media’s coverage of major news events as a practical peg on which to hang my analysis.
Talking about the abusive relationship purely in the abstract is likely to persuade few, given how deeply we are immersed in propaganda.
Understanding how the media carries out its day-to-day switch and baits, its omissions, deceptions and misdirections, is the key to beginning the process of freeing our minds.
If you look to the state-corporate media for guidance, you are already in its clutches. You are already a victim — a victim of your own suffocating ignorance, of your own self-sabotage, of your own death wish.
I have expended many hundreds of thousands of words on this topic, as have others such as Media Lens.You can read a few recent examples from me here, here and here. Or you can watch this talk I gave on how I freed myself professionally from the clutches of the corporate media and gained my freedom as an independent journalist:
Different Narratives
But rarely do we have examples of propaganda so flagrant from our “free press” that it is hard for readers not to notice them. The state-corporate media just made my job a little easier.
Earlier this month, it reported on two closely comparable events that it framed in entirely different ways. Ways that all too clearly serve state-corporate interests.
The first such event was an Israeli air strike on July 6 on a school in Gaza, where Palestinian civilians, including children, had been sheltering from months of a rampaging Israeli military that has slaughtered many tens of thousands of Palestinians and destroyed most of the enclave’s homes and infrastructure.
The massive scale of death and destruction in Gaza has forced the World Court to put Israel on trial for genocide — not that you would know that from the media coverage. The genocide case against Israel has been largely disappeared down the memory hole.
The second event, on July 8, was a Russian air strike on a hospital in Kyiv. It was part of a wave of attacks on Ukrainian targets that day that killed 36 Ukrainians.
Let us note that on a typical day in Gaza, at least 150 Palestinians are killed by Israel. That has been happening day-after-day for nine months. And the death toll is almost certainly a massive under-estimate. In decimated Gaza, unlike Ukraine, officials long ago lost the ability to count their dead.
Let us note too that, despite huge numbers of Palestinian women and children being killed each day by Israeli missiles, the news media largely stopped covering the carnage in Gaza months ago. The BBC’s main evening news barely reports it.
The fact alone that the killing of 36 Ukrainian civilians attracted so much attention and concern from the Western media, in a war that’s more than two years old, when there is a far larger daily death toll of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, which our governments have been directly aiding, and the slaughter is of more recent origin, is telling in and of itself.
So how did our most trusted and progressive media outlets report these comparable events, in Gaza and Ukraine?
The headlines tell much of the story.
In an all-too-familiar pattern, the BBC shouted from the rooftops: “At least 20 dead after ‘massive’ Russian missile attack on Ukraine cities”. It named Russia as responsible for killing Ukrainians, and did so even when there was still some debate about whether Russian missiles or Ukrainian air-defence missiles had caused the destruction.
Meanwhile, the BBC carefully avoided identifying Israel as the party that killed those in Gaza sheltering from its bombs, even though Israel long ago stopped pretending that feeble Palestinian rockets could cause damage on such a scale. The headline read: “Air strike on Gaza school kills at least 15 people.”
The Guardian’s headlines were even more revealing.
The paper did, at least, identify Israel as responsible for the killing: “Israeli strike on Gaza school kills 16, say Palestinian officials.”
However, the dry, matter-of-fact language about those Palestinian deaths, the suggestion that the deaths were only a claim, and the attribution of that claim to “Palestinian officials” (with the now widely accepted implication that those officials can’t be trusted) was intended to steer the emotional response of readers. They would be left cold and indifferent.
The framing was clear: this was just another, routine day in Gaza. No need to be overly invested in Palestinian suffering.
Contrast that with the entirely different tone The Guardian struck in its headlines on the cover story(below) of the attack on Ukraine: “‘No words for this’: horror over Russian bombing of Kyiv children’s hospital.”
The subhead reads: “Witnesses express shock and revulsion after deadly missile strike on Ukraine’s largest paediatric clinic.” [Human Rights Watch said only child died and 10 were injured compared to the much larger casualties in the Gaza attack.]
The emphasis is on “horror”, “shock”, “revulsion”. “No words”, we are told, can convey the savagery of this atrocity. The headline’s emphasis is on the targeting of “children” with a “deadly missile”.
All of which, of course, could be equally said about the horror of Israel’s targeting of Palestinian children day-in, day-out. But, of course, isn’t.
Swaying Readers
If this isn’t convincing enough, take another example of The Guardian’s treatment (below) of comparable events in Gaza and Ukraine.
Here is how the paper reported Israel destroying Gaza’s largest hospital back in November, when such actions had not yet become routine, as they are now, and when it had killed far larger numbers of civilians at the hospital in Gaza than Russia did in Ukraine.
The headline reads clinically: “IDF says it has entered Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital in ‘targeted’ operation against Hamas.”
The Guardian readily repeats the Israeli military’s terminology, conferring legitimacy on the carnage at al-Shifa hospital as a “targeted operation.”
The fact that patients and medical personnel were the main victims is obscured by The Guardian’srepeating of Israel’s claim that it was simply “targeting Hamas” – just as Israel’s wanton destruction of Gaza has supposedly been about “eliminating Hamas”, even as Hamas grows stronger.
Apparently there is no “horror, “shock” or “revulsion” at The Guardian over the destruction and killing spree at Gaza’s largest hospital. Such sentiments are reserved for Ukraine.
The same differences are illustrated in the U.S. “liberal” media, as Alan MacLeod noted on X.
A day after Russia’s strike on Ukraine, Israel was attacking another school shelter in Gaza. The New York Times made it clear how differently readers were supposed to feel about these similar events.
Headline: “At Least 25 Reported Killed in Strike on School Building in Southern Gaza.”
Note the passive, uncertain treatment – this was, after all, only a report. Note too that the perpetrator, Israel, remains unidentified.
Headline: “Russia Strikes Children’s Hospital in Deadly Barrage Across Ukraine.”
In stark contrast, Russia is clearly identified as the perpetrator, the active voice is used to describe its crime, and once again emotional descriptors — “deadly” — can be readily deployed to sway readers into an emotional response.
Headlines and photos are the part of a story that almost every reader sees. Which is why their role in framing our understanding of events is so important. They are the print media’s main means of propagandising us.
Skewed Priorities
Broadcast media like the BBC work slightly differently in manipulating our responses.
Running orders — the channel’s way to signal its news priorities — are important, as are the emotional reactions of anchors and reporters. Just think of the way Steve Rosenberg, the BBC’s Moscow correspondent, half-stifles a sneer every time he mentions Vladimir Putin by name, or how he struggles to suppress a scoff at any of the Russian president’s statements.
Then try to imagine any BBC reporter being allowed to do the same with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, let alone British leader Sir Keir Starmer.
Another way to make us invested in some events but not others is by concentrating on what are called “human-interest” stories, taking ordinary individuals and making their troubles and suffering the focus of a piece rather than the usual talking heads.
The BBC evening news, for example, has largely stopped reporting on Gaza’s suffering. When it does, reports occur briefly and late in the running order and they usually cover little more than the dry facts. Human-interest stories have been rare.
The BBC broke with that trend twice on Tuesday’s News at Ten – in the midst of Israel twice targeting schools that were supposed to be offering shelter to Palestinians driven from their homes by Israeli bombs.
Did the BBC tell the stories of the victims of those air strikes? No, those attacks received the most minimal coverage.
The first human-interest story concerned a Ukrainian mother, shown desperately searching for her child in the aftermath of the attack on the Kyiv hospital the previous day, as well as their later reunion.
The second human-interest story, this one from Gaza, didn’t concern any of the many victims of the Israeli attacks on school-shelters. It focused instead — and at great length — on a Palestinian man beaten in Gaza for opposing Hamas rule.
In other words, not only did the BBC consider the day-old deaths of Ukrainians far more important news than Israel’s killing that day of 29 Palestinian civilians, but it also considered the beating of a man by Hamas as a bigger news priority too.
When we are encouraged to care about Palestinians, it is only when the odd one is being brutalised by other Palestinians, not when millions of them are being brutalised by their occupier, Israel, in their ghetto-prisons.
The pattern to this skewing of news priorities, the constant distorted framing of events is the clue to how we should decipher what the media is trying to achieve, what it is there to do.
BBC news coverage all too often looks like it is exploiting any opportunity to highlight violence by Russia, in strict accordance with British foreign policy objectives. Equally, it all too often looks like the BBC is engineering pretexts to ignore or downplay violence by Israel, again in strict accordance with British foreign policy objectives.
Ukraine is a key battleground for the West in its battle for global “full-spectrum dominance”, Washington’s central foreign policy strategy in which it positions itself so that no other great power, such as Russia and China, can challenge its control over the planet’s resources. The U.S. and its Western allies are ready to risk an entirely unnecessary nuclear war, it seems, to win that battle.
Israel, meanwhile, a colonial fortress-state implanted by the West into the oil-rich Middle East, is a critically important ally in realising Washington’s dominance in its region. The Palestinians are the fly in the ointment — and like a fly, they can be swatted away with utter indifference and impunity.
With this as our framework, we can understand why the BBC and other media fail so systematically to fulfill their self-professed remits to reporting objectively and disinterestedly, and fail to scrutinise and hold power to account — unless it is the power of an Official Enemy.
The truth is the BBC, The Guardian and the rest are nothing more than conduits of state-corporate propaganda, masquerading as news outlets.
Until we grasp that, they will continue grooming us.
The media are shite really .Look at the headline on stuff .DEAD MAN NAMED AS PATCHED GANG MEMBER .What the fuck is that .A search of birth records would fail to find any one by that name in the world let alone NZ for fuck sake . The head line should have read DEAD MAN NAMED AS JOE BLOGGS.Followed by MR BLOGGS IS patched member of a gang .Why his membership of a gang is important I dont know .When Luxon dies will the head line read SKIN HEAD BIBLE BASHING GANG LEADER DIES ?No the head line will read former pm dies and a massive wastefull state funeral will be held and the country must stop tp worship him and remember him as the pm that fucked nz .
Malcolm – I agree with your statement – “It is all the media’s fault” – BUT, because they are telling half the truth…for example, both the refugee camp and school were attacked AFTER Hamas fired rockets from the refugee camp, and school…
Yes yes nathan how dare the Palestinians attempt to use their sovereign right to defend themselves against their genocidal land stealing aggressive fascist neighbor! HOW DARE THEY????? wtf are you on?
Shona – Sovereign right does not extend to killing innocent people in another territory…like Hamas is doing right now…that is a war crime…WTF are YOU on?
BUT ITS OK IF Israel continues to kill people and take land that is not theirs eh .Bit like NZ in the 18oos .How many people have they killed and how much land have they stolen .?There is 3 maps on this site that will show you how much they have stolen since 1948 .But the white supremists of the world just turn a blind eye
gordon walker – Firing rockets into settlements using Refugee camp, and schools as cover, and people as Human Shields is a War Crime…stop covering for Hamas
what a crock of right wing bull shit .You should be ashamed to call your self a human
gordon walker – your insults prove my point about Hamas and their supporters.
Nathan your justification for genocidal actions start at the bottom and go downhill.
Nick – Gazan population is increasing – strange Genocide
The land is theirs, that’s the difference. There has never been a Palestinian state in the area, Jews have lived there for thousands of years, and most Arabs either lived sporadically in the area or arrived 200 years ago.
Oh and some genocide when the total population of Palestinians has been increasing year over year.
If thats the case why was the state of isreal set up by the un in 1948 .Just another bloody lie by you blood thirsty fucker
learn some history instead of throwing puerile insults
We know the history — 5% Jewish, 10% Christian and 85% Muslim in the 1890s. And when the Palestinians had any sort of say after 1920 they said no more Jewish immigration. Mouldy old books and occupation 2000 years ago has no relevance to any modern country. You make yourselves look silly.
If the English conquered my ancestral land of Scotland in the 40s and tried to clear off the Scots I’d be pure flame … that’s the Zionists in Palestine. Now f..k off you c..t.
Fantastic. Now all we have to do is hand ownership of this land back to Maori, do the same for Aboriginals in OZ and same again for the Indians and Mexicans of the USA, and this is just the starter for ten. This is what your argument now allows the world to do, or should do in order for your argument to be sound. Can you see this happening, can you see this happening!
And ah, we have not had a full year yet, of this horror show, to be able to ascertain what the current population of Gaza and Palestine is, in order for your point to hold any type of meaning. Nonetheless, tens of thousand of people dead, hundreds of thousands on the verge of death and everyone else suffering and trapped in an open-air prison constructed and overseen by Israel, and yes, what a credit to humanity Israel and its supporters have proven to be. We must not allow this type of inhuman behavior to bleed over into the greater world at large, but alas, as most of the world are none the wiser, then tragically, it is only a matter of time….
I think you’ll find that a lot of those Jews are also Arabs. Who have lived with Christian Arabs, Muslim Arabs and secular Arabs for more centuries that European Jews have lived in Palestine.
Both the Jews and Christians lived as second class dhimmi subject to intermittent massacres by the Muslim rulers.
Oh but my relatives went to fight in Palestine some of them died there in the 1400s….
There were in fact more Palestinians than jews and the three great Abrahamic Christians, Jews, Moslems lived side by side in Palestine in relative peace.
Sure Michal. Just like the “relative peace” in Europe.
Hamas vs the IDF and the Western arms manufacturers??? Israel slaughters innocents daily fuckwits like you say that’s OK!!!! Cos’ you know antisemitism blah blah blah
Shona – Hamas needs to stop using Schools, Refugee Camps, Hospitals, and any other facilities with vulnerable people as places to fire rockets from…the only Fuckwits here are Hamas and their supporters…Got it Shona?
We’ll get in, when the lies that come naturally to Israeli officialdom and their supporters, stop, and verifiable truth is finally said. The gap between these two circumstances is currently gargantuan in scale. Meanwhile, under the cover of “Hamas”, Israel is getting away with killing/harming tens of thousands of human beings, aka committing genocide. Oh, what little regard the powerful (which includes all governments that accept this horror show) hold for humanity.
pissrael isn’t a country, and it never will be. The Palestinians have every right to fire upon every inch of 1948 Palestine to take the invaders out.
The ‘Palestinians’ have lost every war to date, Mo. They’re the ones pissing in the wind, like you.
What sovereign right? Isn’t that the problem? Those who identify as palestinians have never had sovereignty over the land to which they aspire.
Malcolm if your point is that different media organisations put their own flavour into their reporting, then I’m not sure that anyone would doubt that. The Guardian is biased? Yes. The BBC? Yes. I could have told you that back when I lived in England and the BBC talking heads would adopt that same sneering tone every time they mentioned George Bush.
Of course I could also point at media like Al Jazeera and compare their coverage of what is happening in Gaza and it will be substantially different from what Johnathan Cook shows about with the Guardian etc.
Just go to Al Jazeera’s main page on any given day and look at their head lines.
And we live in an age where all of this media is easily accessible, so it’s not as if people are just listening to “Western Media” (and comparing say FOX to MSNBC I’m not really sure how you would equate those as being at all the same even though they’re both “Western”).
So I think people have a choice. Find those sources that they trust and follow them or – as I choose to do – try to read everything, even the stuff that I instinctively want to disagree with. For example, I make no secret of not being a fan of Putin but I’m still happy to go to places like rt.com and see the coverage there.
As for beating your head against a brick wall trying to convince people that you’re right? Welcome to the internet. The good thing though is that we continue to talk and present our ideas and that we live in a place where that is possible.
The point is, is that all the media that you speak of, and mainstream media in general, they are all subservient to govt and big-money interests. They now serve the interests of the powerful rather than holding them to account. Thus the choices you speak of (and the ideas that grow from them), are simply a choice between one compromised media outlet and another. Therefore, we are ‘groomed’ into believing their narratives rather than being informed by them. This is why genocide is allowed to take place in today’s world with only minimal push back. This is why – peace – is a foreign concept to most people today even though most people would be loathe to become involved in war. Our govt and the media, at the very, very least, accept war, they do not rally against it let alone talk about peace.
So, the bigger point is, if you really want choice and informed ideas then move away from the media that you speak of and move towards independent, typically user-funded media, as largely laid out by the former mainstream media journo and now independent media journo Jonathon Cook in the very first video within this piece.
What and those “independent” sites come with their own sets of bias? Come on. I also read the links that people post here to “inform me” and as a rule they also have their own (often blatant) spin.
Gordon Campbell at scoop probably considerers himself independent and yet he’s completely biased.
Just because the MSM has someone funding it doesn’t mean it’s all a lie.
So as I say. If I want to read different ideas and perspectives to inform myself then I will continue to try to read everything.
Independent media can be biased (flavorsome) up to its arse, but as long as it doesn’t kowtow to big money and or officialdom, then independent it sure is. Bias is natural – it is not the problem.
The problem is a bought and paid for point of view and a bought and paid for – official – point of view that the media outlets you have mentioned, largely deal in. They all sing the same tune differing only slightly. Take war for example, do you ever hear any of them talk the language of peace? The answer to that is no. Instead, they all offer a range of viewpoints but set within the bounds of the big-money interests that fund them and or officialdom whom they rely upon for access, therefore they rarely rock that boat. As such – peace – the option that the populace at large, prefers, is absent in all their reporting. This is the true tale of the tape right here.
It is this bought and paid for point of view, that most people are constantly exposed to, that is the problem.
And the way around this, for both MSM or independent media is to look for the verifiable proof to the claims being made. Big claims means big verifiable evidence that supports it. Big claims or any claim with zero verifiable supporting evidence equals fairy tale time….
I am broadly in agreement with you. I think where we differ is that people seem to hold up “independent” like it has some moral high ground and I don’t believe that to be the case. I think a lot of “independents” – or people that call themselves “independent” lie out of their arses to promote their own opinions or at least are highly selective with their facts which to me is just lying by omission. They cater to their own paying market. Especially the talking heads in the USA.
“Big claims or any claim with zero verifiable supporting evidence equals fairy tale time….”
Once again no disagreement here. I was slightly floored by a claim on the last Working Group but I’ll leave that as homework for Martyn’s readers to help get him more viewers.
I will offer up that a lot of the bigger organisations have fact checking divisions with a lot more resource. I quite like Al Jazeera’s fact checking organisation Sanad which seems to be well regarded. Ultimately though we just all have to make our own judgement call.
“Bigger organisations have fact checkers”….. Says it all, if you believe fact checkers paid by organisations with agendas you will believe anything.
Hey Nick, why don’t you offer up a valid criticism of Sanad instead of just a sarcastic response.
And also explain how your “trusted” sources check their facts?
That is a very valid criticism in my experience. Where’s the sarcasm?
How do I trust my sources? Simple you keep questioning their accuracy based upon the record plus viewpoints at variance.
You didn’t offer any criticism of Sanad and their reliability as a fact checking organisation, you just dismissed them out of hand with a sarcastic response.
You offer no evidence as to their agenda. Give me an example of where they have been misleading.
Morality cuts both ways. MSM and some of those that follow it tend to hold a negative view towards independent media and as you quite rightly point out, vice versa. Therefore morality is only an issue for those that make this so.
And yes, independents are as flavorsome as MSM outlets, that you mentioned earlier, can be as well. They all have their own bias – fine, they want to bullshyt – fine again, none of this is the key issue.
The key problem is when media – of all types – bullshyts on behalf of government and or big-money interests. And this, this is the realm that MSM almost exclusively operates within – despite often giving the appearance that they are independent of these interests (which in of itself further highlights this point). To kind of use your words, MSM caters to their stakeholders, they being the big money that funds them and the official sources they rely upon for their content. Their stakeholders are not the general public!
Thus it boils down to which catering you prefer, the official, big-money flavour and everything that entails or an independent flavour, as you again, quite rightly points out, can come with its own faults – as well.
And despite all this, again, we can cut threw a lot of b/s ourselves by getting into the habit of looking for verifiable evidence to any claims being made, with the absence of such sources tending to give the game away.
As for fact-checkers, as long as they provide the verifiable evidence that supports their argument, on top of ensuring that the argument they are correcting, was actually the original argument given, then it should pass muster.
AO I hate to say this but we’re probably violently in agreement with each other.
I do take your point about the MSM, but generally once you know who their backers are it becomes pretty obvious where they get pretty skewed in their reporting.
People slag off FOX News but at least they don’t pretend to be neutral unlike the say “holier-then-thou” BBC.
Our fundamentals are most likely similar but which media sphere best serves, or caters to these fundamentals – we are polls apart on.
What best serves the interests of the people – is what guides me…this is best served, IMO, by (typically) people funded independent media.
Cook is brilliant have subscribed to his Substack for quite some time now.
His books are in the same realm as Norman Finkelstein’s , meticulous in their research.
Bloody hard to get here best sourced from The Nile in Sydney. Very expensive.
He is Robert Fisk’s natural heir
The total land mass should be devided in half and the palastinians have the half next to Lebenon and isreal can have the bit closest to Egypt and they can fix up gazza seeing they have totally wrecked it .
gordon walker – Israel would possibly accept this, providing there are no more attacks on its citizens…
fuck off they have clearly stated they want it all since 1967 when they stole more land .Im sure the palastinians would like to live free too without having to go through IDF checkpoints in their own town .Why does isreal have to control what went in and out of gazza and who said they could treat the gazzans as prisoners in their own citty as they have done for years .
gordon walker – you need to “F” off, and stop believing the hyper from Hamas.
Your spelling gordon exposes your lack of education,unless English is not your first language,then I will excuse you.
There are no possible circumstances under which the zionists will accept not being able to rape and kill Palestinian kids for fun, apart from being forced at gunpoint to desist. That’s fine. If that’s what it takes.
Can’t really bear to comment, except to say this situation so wrong, so bad. It’s evil. My heart is broken to think for a minute about the atrocious vendictive revenge on the innocentin Gaza.
ME the comments above prove your point.
” The truth is the BBC, The Guardian and the rest are nothing more than conduits of state-corporate propaganda, masquerading as news outlets. ”
” Until we grasp that, they will continue grooming us.”
Hi Malcolm thank you for this post and you haven’t let me down with regards to your razor sharp analysis of the current media landscape.
I think you are spot on with your analogy of the public being ” groomed ”
That practice has been in place long before the current media environment if you look back to the right wing bias that has been in place with our recent fourth estate that has intensified without attention since the coup de tat of 1984.
” The more idealistic among us think of the news media as something akin to a public service. The more cynical of us think of it as a competitive marketplace in information and commentary, one in which ugly agendas are often in evidence but truth ultimately prevails ”
And that is where we are in danger but that has not been grasped yet.
On a lighter note I always enjoyed your Edna cartoons which encapsulated our special Kiwi way of life and made be proud to be a New Zealander.
Thank you for that,
And any time Hezbolah or the Houthis are mentioned they are always Iran backed. Sometimes propaganda is subtle but usually it just relies on people being too dumb to think about what they read or hear.
Everyone not dense as concrete is insulted at the two standards on full display — 5 kids dead in Ukraine makes the news but not 80 in Gaza. End of any claim to the old post WW ll supposed morality.
I read Chomsky and Hernan’s book years ago but when you consider that most of today’s right-wing would be overjoyed to see the MSM burn to the ground you should probably question your assumptions.
Comments are closed.