blair on the media ...

[luke]

[web]https://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6744261.stm[/web]

what more do the media need to do to please him?!?! as someone posted on another forum 'There's just no pleasing the totalitarian mindset.'

[faceless]

Who was it who offered up Dr David Kelly to that same pack of 'feral beasts' I wonder?

[Mandy]

"Spin" was Blair's weapon .. His latest announcement is hypocritical since the issue is that the Media is no-longer falling for his spin. And to Blair, it is the media which has to change .. not his policies.

Long live the alternative media.

[Ash]

Wolf is telling a flock of sheep that they are not tasty enough grrrrrrrr

[popinjay]

The media have dogged him on Iraq though. Rightfully so.

[luke]

The media have dogged him on Iraq though. Rightfully so.

i don't think they have, any criticism is within a tiny spectrum and fits in with the image of the invasion and continuing occupation created by the government, you rarely see in the mainstream any real criticism of the fundamental reality of how we got into this or the continuing occupation

i mean take the independant, you'd think it was a pretty good paper, i used to read it myself, and after blairs speech today, they're loving it - the editor of the independent, mr kelner, said today "I regard what Blair said as a vindication of our stance on Iraq"

but if you go back over the coverage of the last few years, its bollocks - the criticism fits into the 'reality' of the war created by government, they work within the framework created by government - but not the actual reality - not the truth

Notice Kelner is delighted to receive and respond to this criticism from Blair. Criticism from the right is highly system-supportive - it helps increase the pressure on more honest journalists while allowing the liberal media to further deceive the public: 'Hey, we MUST be doing a great job - he hates us!'

Criticism from the left, by contrast, is meaningful and threatening - left critics are not allowed to be recognised, or exist, and so responses are muted as far as possible, or non-existent. Kelner, for example, has never responded to any of the dozens of emails we've sent him.

Blair's comments are a vindication of nothing because nothing would be sufficiently servile for him. As we have documented endlessly, the Independent's reporting on Iraq has been, not just average, not just poor - it's been simply appalling. They can crow and self-deceive all they like, but there are probably a million people dead in Iraq and that blood is all over their hands.

go through the medialens archives at www.medialens.org

the fact that the independent is unwilling to even engage in dialog with medialens i think is very telling ... you should check https://www.amazon.co.uk/Guardians-Power ... 0745324827

i mean we're always told this was blairs big mistake, and criticism is within that - he started off with good intentions but it all went a pear shaped along the way - well, it wasn't a mistake - they invaded because they knew saddam didn't have wmd, they invaded because they knew iraq had been destroyed by 10 years of sanctions. the only mistake they made was underestimating the resistance.

look at the way the media always goes along with the image government is trying to create of iraqi's fighting amongst themselves, when recent reports showed 80% of attacks are against the occupying forces.

looks at how they keep saying maybe the best solution now is to split iraq into three - well go back and read the project for a new american century documents - thats exactly what they wanted to achieve before they even invaded.

a mistake? this was the plan ...

[luke]

go on boris

Boris Johnson: "fat-cat columnists face a new and terrifying threat"

The Telegraph

"I have now been writing columns in this newspaper for almost 20 years, and in the past couple of years the game has completely changed. We fat-cat columnists face a new and terrifying threat. It is called consumerism. It is called democracy. For the first time we must come face to face with our readers - hordes of lynx-eyed brainboxes out there in cyberspace - and no sooner do our words appear on the website than they can be abusively peer-reviewed and fact-checked.

"Our judgments are mocked, our non sequiturs are skewered. Journalists - these feral characters that Blair claims to fear - are increasingly accountable, increasingly vulnerable to the pithy rejoinders of the man or woman on the net.

"And this is the key point: it is not so much that politics and journalism are increasingly tawdry or despised. It is the growing media literacy of the public - the understanding of soundbites and vox pops and two-ways and blogs - that allows everyone to participate in activities once reserved for the journalistico-political complex.

"That is a wonderful thing, and I would much rather have cyberspace regulated by public scorn than by Tony Blair, who should depart as soon as possible to complete his farewell tour in an open-top submarine."