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The
cyber guardians of honest journalism
By John Pilger
11/30/07 "ICH" -- -- What has changed in the way we see the
world? For as long as I can remember, the relationship of
journalists with power has been hidden behind a bogus
objectivity and notions of an "apathetic public" that justify a
mantra of "giving the public what they want." What has changed
is the public's perception and knowledge. No longer trusting
what they read and see and hear, people in western democracies
are questioning as never before, particularly via the internet.
Why, they ask, is the great majority of news sourced to
authority and its vested interests? Why are many journalists the
agents of power, not people?
Much of this bracing new thinking can be traced to a remarkable
UK website, MediaLens. The creators of Media Lens, David Edwards
and David Cromwell, assisted by their webmaster, Olly Maw, have
had such an extraordinary influence since they set up the site
in 2001 that, without their meticulous and humane analysis, the
full gravity of the debacles of Iraq and Afghanistan might have
been consigned to bad journalism's first draft of bad history.
Peter Wilby put it well in his review of Guardians of Power: the
Myth of the Liberal Media, a drawing-together of Media Lens
essays published by Pluto Press, which he described as
"mercifully free of academic or political jargon and awesomely
well researched. All journalists should read it, because the
Davids make a case that demands to be answered."
That appeared in the New Statesman. Not a single major newspaper
reviewed the most important book about journalism I can
remember. Take the latest Media Lens essay, "Invasion - a
Comparison of Soviet and Western Media Performance." Written
with Nikolai Lanine, who served in the Soviet army during its
1979-89 occupation of Afghanistan, it draws on Soviet-era
newspaper archives, comparing the propaganda of that time with
current western media performance. They are revealed as almost
identical.
Like the reported "success" of the US "surge" in Iraq, the
Soviet equivalent allowed "poor peasants [to work] the land
peacefully." Like the Americans and British in Iraq and
Afghanistan, Soviet troops were liberators who became
peacekeepers and always acted in "self-defense." The BBC's Mark
Urban's revelation of the "first real evidence that President
Bush's grand design of toppling a dictator and forcing a
democracy into the heart of the Middle East could work" (Newsnight,
12 April 2005) is almost word for word that of Soviet
commentators claiming benign and noble intent behind Moscow's
actions in Afghanistan. The BBC's Paul Wood, in thrall to the
101st Airborne, reported that the Americans "must win here if
they are to leave Iraq . . . There is much still to do." That
precisely was the Soviet line.
The tone of Media Lens's questions to journalists is so
respectful that personal honesty is never questioned. Perhaps
that explains a reaction that can be both outraged and comic.
The BBC presenter Gavin Esler, champion of Princess Diana and
Ronald Reagan, ranted at Media Lens emailers as "fascistic" and
"beyond redemption." Roger Alton, editor of the London Observer
and champion of the invasion of Iraq, replied to one
ultra-polite member of the public: "Have you been told to write
in by those c*nts at Media Lens?" When questioned about her
environmental reporting, Fiona Harvey, of the Financial Times,
replied: "You're pathetic . . . Who are you?"
The message is: how dare you challenge us in such a way that
might expose us? How dare you do the job of true journalism and
keep the record straight? Peter Barron, the editor of the BBC's
Newsnight, took a different approach. "I rather like them. David
Edwards and David Cromwell are unfailingly polite, their points
are well argued and sometimes they're plain right."
David Edwards believes that "reason and honesty are enhanced by
compassion and compromised by greed and hatred. A journalist who
is sincerely motivated by concern for the suffering of others is
more likely to report honestly . . ." Some might call this an
exotic view. I don't. Neither does the Gandhi Foundation, which
on 2 December will present Media Lens with the prestigious
Gandhi International Peace Award. I salute them.
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