tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-90378527328183430522012-02-16T08:58:05.441-08:00Medialenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04776034887166001706noreply@blogger.comBlogger131100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9037852732818343052.post-3684341034150367682006-04-18T10:14:00.000-07:002007-06-05T10:14:36.684-07:00

Hello Davids,I am a regular reader and enjoy your discussions.I posted your "About Us" section in a thread on a political forum where thetopic was bias in journalism. It included this line:"We do not believe that passively observing human misery without attemptingto intervene constitutes 'neutrality'."To which a regular poster replied:"........it appears to suggest that journalism is supposed to

Medialenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04776034887166001706noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9037852732818343052.post-43758833219259419992006-01-25T14:42:00.000-08:002007-05-04T14:42:39.098-07:00

A reader asked for our reaction to comments made on his blog about the media and Media Lens..Thanks, Jon. Good to see an intelligent discussion on these issues. Thanksfor the kind words on the book. Would be interesting to conduct anexperiment by lending the book to one of your more sceptical pals and seeingif it has any effect (either way!)...Comments below:Tom said:"i think we are privelleged

Medialenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04776034887166001706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9037852732818343052.post-12829293254763406802006-01-18T14:41:00.000-08:002007-05-04T14:41:36.654-07:00

We've had many positive responses to the 'Blog-O-Bots' alert, and two or three critical ones, as we expected:I guess you would do to Robert Fisk what Stalin would have -- send himto the gulag or have him executed. I didn't see any of you anonymousholier-than-all media critics do the hard yards in Iraq or the MiddleEast over the past 30 years but I guess it's so much easier for you torubbish Fisk

Medialenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04776034887166001706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9037852732818343052.post-86683022876555852232005-07-17T14:39:00.000-07:002007-05-04T14:40:16.231-07:00

Email received today, followed by a reply:ohhhh so you think that if we are polite and considerate to these people that they will listen better? (the journalists you suggest we write to re: media blackout)Do you think that if we are kind and loving that it will all get better?Do you think that if we pretend that we are not progressives or liberals or whatever that we might get their ear????I

Medialenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04776034887166001706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9037852732818343052.post-67831312115159124672005-06-07T14:38:00.000-07:002007-05-04T14:39:13.263-07:00

Hi PeterHope you're well. BBC journalists consistently toe the government propaganda line in accepting that "rogue states" should be targeted for fierce criticism and contempt. Our own leaders, meanwhile, are typically afforded great respect bordering on reverence. A perfect example of the first tendency was provided by Jon Leyne on Newsnight last night in posing a question to the Syrian minister

Medialenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04776034887166001706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9037852732818343052.post-6770318487707387242005-05-17T14:36:00.000-07:002007-05-04T14:37:09.996-07:00

The mainstream media is beginning to feel the heat from the web. This is very much just the start of what they will come to face in the very near future.In the article below (from today's Media Guardian), former Murdoch journalist Jonathan Miller writes:"Newspapers must be prepared to take criticism and suggestions. A journalist who publishes a story should face the consequences... This is

Medialenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04776034887166001706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9037852732818343052.post-14181714943166540682005-05-07T14:37:00.000-07:002007-05-04T14:38:13.356-07:00

Nick Bryant concluded tonight's report on Afghanistan with the usual BBC version of objective reporting:"American forces believe last year's election marked its [the Taliban's] moral and psychological defeat." (Bryant, BBC 22:00 News, June 6)It's always fascinating to hear the US military view, although it's hardly news.Bryant, of course, is presenting as the actual view of "American forces" what

Medialenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04776034887166001706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9037852732818343052.post-84807391643879559372005-04-29T14:35:00.000-07:002007-05-04T14:36:11.578-07:00

State-private power keeps the media in line with a constant stream of flak. This is used to intimidate 'rogue' journalists and editors, and to keep everyone else's heads down. The most notorious example of recent times was, of course, the government campaign against the BBC over the Iraq war. The power to intimidate is naturally intense when the government appoints the BBC's senior managers and

Medialenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04776034887166001706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9037852732818343052.post-7020310227443487192005-04-21T14:34:00.000-07:002007-05-04T14:35:08.534-07:00

In today's NYT (March 21), Larry Pressler writes:"ONE big story from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's trip to South Asia was that once again Washington's policymakers are trying to send F-16 jet fighters to Pakistan. This is like a broken record - the argument has come up repeatedly since 1990, when an amendment I wrote quashed a deal involving 28 of the planes - but unfortunately this time

Medialenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04776034887166001706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9037852732818343052.post-41272733023965056952005-04-11T14:34:00.000-07:002007-05-04T14:44:05.110-07:00

Dear Davids,The Lancet report which claimed that 100,000+ people have been killed in Iraq since the US/UK invasion should have been discussed at length in the mainstream press, and it's a scandal that it was so quickly shot down by the flak machine. Having said which, it may be wrong. It may have underestimated the true figure, or it may have overestimated it. Of late Medialens seems to have

Medialenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04776034887166001706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9037852732818343052.post-13483655218006917492005-04-03T14:32:00.000-07:002007-05-04T14:33:03.676-07:00

Dissident politics is quite often the preoccupation of people – often young and raging – caught up in the illusion of the permanence and certainty of their lives. They see everything that’s happening, every argument, as of supreme importance: Bush and co are absolutely the worst bad guys ever, the cause of all problems. Other people are the absolute victims, absolute heroes. If only the bad guys

Medialenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04776034887166001706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9037852732818343052.post-15281821994402798882005-04-03T14:31:00.000-07:002007-05-04T14:32:02.400-07:00

Alex Thomson of Channel 4 writes to a reader: "your definition of a terrorist as one bringing terror is nonsensical as it would encompass all military outfits from al Qaeda to the Royal Fusilliers" (Feb 25, 2005). So an argument is nonsensical if it means suggesting the Royal Fusilliers are guilty of terrorism - interesting logic. In a letter to Arthur 'Bomber' Harris in 1945, Churchill wrote:"It

Medialenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04776034887166001706noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9037852732818343052.post-75964369998156856252005-04-01T14:30:00.000-08:002007-05-04T14:31:00.791-07:00

In today's Guardian:“Both the Syrian regime and its puppet government in Beirut have been under pressure since the assassination of the former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri a fortnight ago.” (Protests force out Lebanese government,' Ewen MacAskill, Carolynne Wheeler in Beirut and Conal Urquhart,' The Guardian, March 1, 2005)Puppet government! Don't recall reading that term much in relation

Medialenshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04776034887166001706noreply@blogger.com0