MEDIA CRITICISM

JONATHAN COOK—If Rupert Murdoch and company can force the BBC into alienating and antagonising many of its own viewers with endless homilies to a royal little loved by large sections of the population, how else is the BBC’s coverage being skewed for fear of the potential backlash from corporate media tycoons? Is the fear of such repercussions also responsible for the BBC’s complicity in the recent, evidence-free smearing of a socialist Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, or the BBC’s consistent failures in reporting honestly on countries like Syria, Libya, Iraq and Venezuela – all of them in the oil-rich regions of the Middle East and Latin America that the United States and the west demand control over?

CHRIS HEDGES—“On November 30, 2010, two days after the initial release of Cablegate, Sweden issued an Interpol ‘Red Alert Notice’ normally used to warn about terrorists,” Ratner goes on. “It also issued a European Arrest Warrant seeking Assange’s extradition to Sweden. Since he was wanted only for questioning about the sexual misconduct allegations, it seemed clear from the timing and severity of the warrant that the US had successfully pressured the Swedes.”

The efforts to extradite Assange intensified.  He was held for ten days in solitary confinement at Wandsworth Prison before being released on bail of 340,000 pounds.  He spent 551 days under house arrest, forced to wear an electronic anklet and check in with police twice a day. Visa, Mastercard, Bank of America, and Western Union refused to process donations to WikiLeaks.

“It became virtually impossible for anyone to donate to WikiLeaks, and its income immediately plummeted by 95 percent,” Ratner writes. “But none of the financial institutions could point to any illegal activity by WikiLeaks, and none had imposed any restrictions on WikiLeaks’ mainstream co-publishers. The financial blockade applied only to WikiLeaks.”

MoA—Yesterday Glenn Greenwald resigned from the Intercept. The editors of the online journal, which Greenwald had co-founded, tried to censor a recent piece he wrote on the corruption of Joe Biden and on the concerted media effort to suppress that story. Greenwald’s contract with the Intercept guaranteed him editorial independence. With its censorship efforts the Intercept breached that contract.

S. LENDMAN—An Oxford University Internet Institute’s study titled “The Organizational Behavior of RT” was based on dubious questioning of 23 unidentified current and former company sources — only two still with RT. A total of 240 current and former company staffers were contacted for the so-called study. Over 90% declined to be interviewed. Study results lost legitimacy for its small sample size, over 91% comprised of former staffers. No polling organization would ever conduct or publish opinion research this way and consider results representative of a larger universe.

KIM PETERSEN—Given the paucity of rigorous reporting in news media, especially among state and corporate media, RT has for the most part been a necessary and much appreciated breath of fresh air. For this media consumer, RT, CGTN, and Press TV (of those media that I am most aware) are among the most credible of news media. RT has a slogan it promotes: “question more.” It is excellent advice, and RT on-air personalities should abide by it. However, episodes like this one hosted by Malzberg make “question more” seem like an empty slogan.