On March 27, Channel 4 News included a report by Washington Correspondent Jonathan Rugman: Hugo to go?

Rugman relentlessly smeared Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, in a piece described by John Pilger as “one of the worst, most distorted pieces of journalism I have ever seen”. (Email to Channel 4 News, copied to Media Lens, March 27, 2006)

The Magical Transformation of the Supreme War Crime into a “Miscalculation”

The third anniversary of the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq has brought out the very worst in our national news media. Consider an item on yesterday’s Six O’Clock News on BBC1. Diplomatic Correspondent Bridget Kendall declared solemnly:

“There’s still bitter disagreement over invading Iraq. Was it justified or a disastrous miscalculation?” (Kendall, BBC Six O’Clock News, March 20, 2006)

How could the war possibly be justified when the ‘justification’ was said by Tony Blair to be the “serious and current threat” posed by Iraqi WMD? And how can “disastrous miscalculation” be presented as the opposing argument?

Introduction – 2003 And All That

Three years on, it is clear that the case for war against Iraq was based on lies. Despite the cover-ups, insider compromise and silence, there can be no serious doubt that the lies were conscious and carefully planned.

The real target of Western ’intelligence’ was not Iraq, but the British and American public – the goal was to frighten and deceive us to support a war fought for elite interests. It was to persuade us to send our troops to kill and die for profits. It was to persuade us to ignore clear warnings that, in all likelihood, we would be subject to terrorist reprisals. Such risks were clearly deemed a small price to pay for the prize that mattered – control of Iraqi oil and enhanced influence in the region and beyond.

Media Lens Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media

On January 25 and 26, Media Lens published a two-part Media Alert: ‘Paved With Good Intentions – Iraq Body Count, Parts 1 and 2’. We reported how we had searched the Iraq Body Count (IBC) database for incidents involving the mass killing of Iraqi civilians by US-UK forces between January-June 2005. We found, for example, 58 incidents of a minimum of 10+ deaths. Of these, just one was attributed to ’coalition’ action – a US airstrike. By contrast, 54 incidents of 10+ deaths were clearly attributed to the insurgency.

Robbins’ newest play, an adaptation of Orwell’s ‘1984,’ speaks directly to the Bush administration’s perpetual war on terror.

After his incandescent plays about the death penalty (“The Exonerated”) and the media in Iraq (“Embedded”), it seemed inevitable that actor-writer-director Tim Robbins would continue to fearlessly produce politically charged theater.

In his newest production by Los Angeles’ Actors’ Gang ensemble, a corrosive play based on George Orwell’s novel “1984” and adapted by Michael Gene Sullivan, director of the San Francisco Mime Troupe, Big Brother is here and torture is us.

So how many journalists are actually agents of the state, or working for agents of the state? We can think of several very likely candidates – and not just in the right-wing media.

In addition to a certain living standard, another condition must be met: if man is to be successfully propagandized, he needs at least a minimum of culture. Propaganda cannot succeed where people have no trace of Western culture. We are not speaking here of intelligence; some primitive tribes are surely intelligent, but have an intelligence foreign to our concepts and customs. A base is needed — for example, education; a man who cannot read will escape most propaganda, as will a man who is not interested in reading. People used to think that learning to read evidenced human progress; they still celebrate the decline of illiteracy as a great victory; they condemn countries with a large proportion of illiterates; they think that reading is a road to freedom. All this is debatable, for the important thing is not to be able to read, but to understand what one reads, to reflect on and judge what one reads. Outside of that, reading has no meaning (and even destroys certain automatic qualities of memory and observation).

Media Lens Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media
Originally published February 9, 2006

Writing in the Guardian last month, Timothy Garton Ash observed:

“Now we face the next big test of the west: after Iraq, Iran.”

Garton Ash thus blithely ignored the fact that every last scrap of evidence coming out of Iraq has pointed to only one conclusion – that Iraq’s “big test” was in fact the West’s big lie. Iraq was offering a threat to precisely no one outside its own borders.

Nevertheless, Garton Ash warned: “we in Europe and the United States have to respond. But how?” (Timothy Garton Ash, ‘Let’s make sure we do better with Iran than we did with Iraq,’ The Guardian, January 12, 2006)

The Guardian’s Polly Toynbee joined the propaganda chorus demonising Iran:

“Now the mad mullahs of Iran will soon have nuclear bombs, are we all doomed?… Do something, someone! But what and who?” (Toynbee, ‘No more fantasy diplomacy: cut a deal with the mullahs,’ The Guardian, February 7, 2006)

Media Lens: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media

January 26, 2006

Testing Iraq Body Count

Earlier this month Media Lens searched the IBC database looking for incidents involving the mass killing of Iraqi civilians by ‘coalition’ forces between January-June 2005. We began by searching for incidents citing a minimum of 10 deaths and above. This seemed reasonable. After all, the New York Times reported in July 2003:

Media Lens: Correcting for the distorted vision of the corporate media

January 25, 2006

On the rare occasions when the issue of civilian casualties is discussed in the mainstream media three words are invariably mentioned: Iraq Body Count (IBC).

IBC describes itself as a project which maintains “the world’s only independent and comprehensive public database of media-reported civilian deaths in Iraq that have resulted from the 2003 military intervention by the USA and its allies”.