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Mainstream journalism is the voice of rampant power
By John Pilger
11/25/05 "ICH"
-- -- The Indian writer Vandana Shiva has called for an
"insurrection of subjugated knowledge." The insurrection is well
under way. In trying to make sense of a dangerous world, millions of
people are turning away from the traditional sources of news and
information and to the World Wide Web, convinced that mainstream
journalism is the voice of rampant power. The great scandal of Iraq
has accelerated this. In the United States, several senior
broadcasters have confessed that had they challenged and exposed the
lies told about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, instead of
amplifying and justifying them, the invasion might not have
happened.
Such honesty has yet to cross the Atlantic. Since it was founded in
1922, the BBC has served to protect every British establishment
during war and civil unrest. "We" never traduce and never commit
great crimes. So the omission of shocking events in Iraq – the
destruction of cities, the slaughter of innocent people, and the
farce of a puppet government – is routinely applied. A study by the
Cardiff School of Journalism found that 90 per cent of the BBC's
references to Saddam Hussein's WMD suggested he possessed them and
that "spin from the British and U.S. governments was successful in
framing the coverage." The same "spin" has ensured, until now, that
the use of banned weapons by the Americans and British in Iraq has
been suppressed as news.
An admission by the U.S. State Department on Nov. 10 that its forces
had used white phosphorus in Fallujah followed "rumors on the
Internet," according to the BBC's Newsnight. There were no rumors.
There was first-class investigative work that ought to shame
well-paid journalists. Mark Kraft of
www.Insomnia.LiveJournal.comfound the evidence in the
March-April 2005 issue of Field Artillery magazine and other
sources. He was supported by the work of filmmaker Gabriele
Zamparini, founder of the excellent site
www.TheCatsDream.com.
Last May, David Edwards and David Cromwell of MediaLens.org posted a
revealing correspondence with Helen Boaden, the BBC's director of
news. They had asked her why the BBC had remained silent on known
atrocities committed by the Americans in Fallujah. She replied, "Our
correspondent in Fallujah at the time [of the U.S. attack], Paul
Wood, did not report any of these things because he did not see any
of these things." It is a statement to savor. Wood was "embedded"
with the Americans. He interviewed none of the victims of American
atrocities nor unembedded journalists. He not only missed the
Americans' use of white phosphorus, which they now admit, he
reported nothing of the use of another banned weapon, napalm. Thus,
BBC viewers were unaware of the fine words of Col. James Alles,
commander of the U.S. Marine Air Group II. "We napalmed both those
bridge approaches," he said. "Unfortunately, there were people there
… you could see them in the cockpit video. … It's no great way to
die. The generals love napalm. It has a big psychological effect."
Once the unacknowledged work of Mark Kraft and Gabriele Zamparini
had appeared in the Guardian and Independent and forced the
Americans to come clean about white phosphorous, Wood was on
Newsnight describing their admission as "a public relations disaster
for the U.S." This echoed Menzies Campbell of the Liberal Democrats,
perhaps the most quoted politician since Gladstone, who said, "The
use of this weapon may technically have been legal, but its effects
are such that it will hand a propaganda victory to the insurgency."
The BBC and most of the British political and media establishment
invariably cast such a horror as a public relations problem while
minimizing the crushing of a city the size of Leeds, the killing and
maiming of countless men, women, and children, the expulsion of
thousands and the denial of medical supplies, food, and water – a
major war crime.
The evidence is voluminous, provided by refugees, doctors, human
rights groups, and a few courageous foreigners whose work appears
only on the Internet. In April last year, Jo Wilding, a young
British law student, filed a series of extraordinary eyewitness
reports from inside the city. So fine are they I have included one
of her pieces in an anthology of the best investigative journalism.
Her film, A Letter to the Prime Minister, made inside Fallujah with
Julia Guest, has not been shown on British television. In addition,
Dahr Jamail, an independent Lebanese-American journalist who has
produced some of the best front-line reporting I have read,
described all the "things" the BBC failed to "see." His interviews
with doctors, local officials, and families are on the Internet,
together with the work of those who have exposed the widespread use
of uranium-tipped shells, another banned weapon, and cluster bombs,
which Campbell would say are "technically legal." Try these Web
sites:
www.DahrJamailIraq.com,
www.ZMag.org, www.Antiwar.com,
www.Truthout.org,
www.InformationClearingHouse.info,
www.Counterpunch.org,
www.VoicesUK.org. There are
many more.
"Each word," wrote Jean-Paul Sartre, "has an echo. So does each
silence."
"Tell Me No Lies: investigative
journalism and its triumphs", edited by John Pilger, is
published by Vintage.
This article was first published in the
New Statesman -
www.newstatesman.co.uk
Copyright John Pilger
http://www.johnpilger.com/
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