[Sivad]

Jimmy Dore & Matt Taibbi talk about the current state of American Journalism

[Sivad]

During her interview for CNN with James Comey, the alleged journalist Kristine Amanpour asserted that the slogan "lock her up" is hate speech and suggested that Comey, as director of the FBI, should have "shut down that language" :

Amanpour: “Of course, ‘Lock her up’ was a feature of the 2016 Trump campaign. Do you in, retrospect, wish that people like yourself, the head of the FBI, the people in charge of law and order, had shut down that language, that it was dangerous potentially, that it could have created violence, that it kind of is hate speech?"


and Comey answers: “That’s not a role for government to play." "The beauty of this country is people can say what they want, even if it’s misleading and it’s demagoguery."

So you really gotta love this, a "journalist" is suggesting that the FBI "shut down" speech and the director of the state security police has to tell this "journalist" that in this country the government isn't permitted to prohibit speech.

This women and the corporate propaganda outfit she shills for are both total fucking jokes. Someone needs to email Amanpour a copy of the first amendment and maybe ask her why she's such a total fucking disgrace to journalism.

[Patrickov]

During her interview for CNN with James Comey, the alleged journalist Kristine Amanpour asserted that the slogan "lock her up" is hate speech and suggested that Comey, as director of the FBI, should have "shut down that language" :

Amanpour: “Of course, ‘Lock her up’ was a feature of the 2016 Trump campaign. Do you in, retrospect, wish that people like yourself, the head of the FBI, the people in charge of law and order, had shut down that language, that it was dangerous potentially, that it could have created violence, that it kind of is hate speech?"


and Comey answers: “That’s not a role for government to play." "The beauty of this country is people can say what they want, even if it’s misleading and it’s demagoguery."

So you really gotta love this, a "journalist" is suggesting that the FBI "shut down" speech and the director of the state security police has to tell this "journalist" that in this country the government isn't permitted to prohibit speech.

This women and the corporate propaganda outfit she shills for are both total fucking jokes. Someone needs to email Amanpour a copy of the first amendment and maybe ask her why she's such a total fucking disgrace to journalism.

On first sight, I think you have taken Amanpour's words out of context. There are many reasons that Amanpour would have asked this question. It's even possible that she and Comey had pre-agreed with the dialogue, and the question was deliberately asked so that Comey can use this statement to properly educate the people (including you, of course).

[Hindsite]

Now that is a real propaganda spin.

[skinster]

Jimmy Dore & Matt Taibbi talk about the current state of American Journalism

"video unavailable"

[skinster]

[Sivad]

The deep rot of American journalism w/Matt Taibbi

Chris Hedges discusses the deep rot that infects American journalism with reporter Matt Taibbi.

[Sivad]

Bad: Nate Silver Doing Propaganda Not Math

[skinster]

The deep rot of American journalism w/Matt Taibbi

That was good, I want his book. Here's part two:

[skinster]

[Sivad]

[QatzelOk]

Gaza Militants fire Rockets, Israel responds with Airstrikes
(and takes more land)

(parentheses mine)

I would like to point out the eternal value of foreign evil as a justification for land theft.

And also the long history of propaganda - in the form of false flags.

Many a flaming-arrow shot into a saloon (classic olde west war-starter) was the work of a pale-faced real-estate developer looking to unleash the gatling guns.

The backroom conversation beforehand went: "We can win a war here but first, we've got to start one."

Not much social evolution under capitalism since then. Just bigger gatling guns.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a70yJwgQtzo

[skinster]

[Sivad]

The Propaganda Multiplier: How Global News Agencies and Western Media Report on Geopolitics

Introduction: “Something strange”

“How does the newspaper know what it knows?” The answer to this question is likely to surprise some newspaper readers: “The main source of information is stories from news agencies. The almost anonymously operating news agencies are in a way the key to world events. So what are the names of these agencies, how do they work and who finances them? To judge how well one is informed about events in East and West, one should know the answers to these questions.” (Höhne 1977, p. 11)

A Swiss media researcher points out:

“The news agencies are the most important suppliers of material to mass media. No daily media outlet can manage without them. () So the news agencies influence our image of the world; above all, we get to know what they have selected.” (Blum 1995, p. 9)

In view of their essential importance, it is all the more astonishing that these agencies are hardly known to the public:

“A large part of society is unaware that news agencies exist at all … In fact, they play an enormously important role in the media market. But despite this great importance, little attention has been paid to them in the past.” (Schulten-Jaspers 2013, p. 13)

Even the head of a news agency noted:

“There is something strange about news agencies. They are little known to the public. Unlike a newspaper, their activity is not so much in the spotlight, yet they can always be found at the source of the story.” (Segbers 2007, p. 9)

“The Invisible Nerve Center of the Media System”

So what are the names of these agencies that are “always at the source of the story”? There are now only three global agencies left:

The American Associated Press (AP) with over 4000 employees worldwide. The AP belongs to US media companies and has its main editorial office in New York. AP news is used by around 12,000 international media outlets, reaching more than half of the world’s population every day.
The quasi-governmental French Agence France-Presse (AFP) based in Paris and with around 4000 employees. The AFP sends over 3000 stories and photos every day to media all over the world.
The British agency Reuters in London, which is privately owned and employs just over 3000 people. Reuters was acquired in 2008 by Canadian media entrepreneur Thomson – one of the 25 richest people in the world – and merged into Thomson Reuters, headquartered in New York.
In addition, many countries run their own news agencies. However, when it comes to international news, these usually rely on the three global agencies and simply copy and translate their reports.

Wolfgang Vyslozil, former managing director of the Austrian APA, described the key role of news agencies with these words:

“News agencies are rarely in the public eye. Yet they are one of the most influential and at the same time one of the least known media types. They are key institutions of substantial importance to any media system. They are the invisible nerve center that connects all parts of this system.” (Segbers 2007, p.10)

Small abbreviation, great effect

However, there is a simple reason why the global agencies, despite their importance, are virtually unknown to the general public. To quote a Swiss media professor: “Radio and television usually do not name their sources, and only specialists can decipher references in magazines.” (Blum 1995, P. 9)

The motive for this discretion, however, should be clear: news outlets are not particularly keen to let readers know that they haven’t researched most of their contributions themselves.

Occasionally, newspapers use agency material but do not label it at all. A study in 2011 from the Swiss Research Institute for the Public Sphere and Society at the University of Zurich came to the following conclusions (FOEG 2011):

“Agency contributions are exploited integrally without labeling them, or they are partially rewritten to make them appear as an editorial contribution. In addition, there is a practice of ’spicing up‘ agency reports with little effort; for example, visualization techniques are used: unpublished agency reports are enriched with images and graphics and presented as comprehensive reports.”

The agencies play a prominent role not only in the press, but also in private and public broadcasting. This is confirmed by Volker Braeutigam, who worked for the German state broadcaster ARD for ten years and views the dominance of these agencies critically:

“One fundamental problem is that the newsroom at ARD sources its information mainly from three sources: the news agencies DPA/AP, Reuters and AFP: one German/American, one British and one French. () The editor working on a news topic only needs to select a few text passages on the screen that he considers essential, rearrange them and glue them together with a few flourishes.”

Swiss Radio and Television (SRF), too, largely bases itself on reports from these agencies. Asked by viewers why a peace march in Ukraine was not reported, the editors said: “To date, we have not received a single report of this march from the independent agencies Reuters, AP and AFP.”

In fact, not only the text, but also the images, sound and video recordings that we encounter in our media every day, are mostly from the very same agencies. What the uninitiated audience might think of as contributions from their local newspaper or TV station, are actually copied reports from New York, London and Paris.

Some media have even gone a step further and have, for lack of resources, outsourced their entire foreign editorial office to an agency. Moreover, it is well known that many news portals on the internet mostly publish agency reports (see e.g., Paterson 2007, Johnston 2011, MacGregor 2013).

In the end, this dependency on the global agencies creates a striking similarity in international reporting: from Vienna to Washington, our media often report the same topics, using many of the same phrases – a phenomenon that would otherwise rather be associated with »controlled media« in authoritarian states.

The role of correspondents

Much of our media does not have own foreign correspondents, so they have no choice but to rely completely on global agencies for foreign news. But what about the big daily newspapers and TV stations that have their own international correspondents? In German-speaking countries, for example, these include newspapers such NZZ, FAZ, Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Welt, and public broadcasters.

First of all, the size ratios should be kept in mind: while the global agencies have several thousand employees worldwide, even the Swiss newspaper NZZ, known for its international reporting, maintains only 35 foreign correspondents (including their business correspondents). In huge countries such as China or India, only one correspondent is stationed; all of South America is covered by only two journalists, while in even larger Africa no-one is on the ground permanently.

Moreover, in war zones, correspondents rarely venture out. On the Syria war, for example, many journalists “reported” from cities such as Istanbul, Beirut, Cairo or even from Cyprus. In addition, many journalists lack the language skills to understand local people and media.

How do correspondents under such circumstances know what the “news” is in their region of the world? The main answer is once again: from global agencies. The Dutch Middle East correspondent Joris Luyendijk has impressively described how correspondents work and how they depend on the world agencies in his book “People Like Us: Misrepresenting the Middle East”:

“I’d imagined correspondents to be historians-of-the-moment. When something important happened, they’d go after it, find out what was going on, and report on it. But I didn’t go off to find out what was going on; that had been done long before. I went along to present an on-the-spot report. ()

The editors in the Netherlands called when something happened, they faxed or emailed the press releases, and I’d retell them in my own words on the radio, or rework them into an article for the newspaper. This was the reason my editors found it more important that I could be reached in the place itself than that I knew what was going on. The news agencies provided enough information for you to be able to write or talk you way through any crisis or summit meeting.

That’s why you often come across the same images and stories if you leaf through a few different newspapers or click the news channels.

Our men and women in London, Paris, Berlin and Washington bureaus – all thought that wrong topics were dominating the news and that we were following the standards of the news agencies too slavishly. ()

The common idea about correspondents is that they ‘have the story’, () but the reality is that the news is a conveyor belt in a bread factory. The correspondents stand at the end of the conveyor belt, pretending we’ve baked that white loaf ourselves, while in fact all we’ve done is put it in its wrapping. ()

Afterwards, a friend asked me how I’d managed to answer all the questions during those cross-talks, every hour and without hesitation. When I told him that, like on the TV-news, you knew all the questions in advance, his e-mailed response came packed with expletives. My friend had relalized that, for decades, what he’d been watching and listening to on the news was pure theatre.” (Luyendjik 2009, p. 20-22, 76, 189)

In other words, the typical correspondent is in general not able to do independent research, but rather deals with and reinforces those topics that are already prescribed by the news agencies – the notorious “mainstream effect”.

In addition, for cost-saving reasons many media outlets nowadays have to share their few foreign correspondents, and within individual media groups, foreign reports are often used by several publications – none of which contributes to diversity in reporting.

“What the agency does not report, does not take place”

The central role of news agencies also explains why, in geopolitical conflicts, most media use the same original sources. In the Syrian war, for example, the “Syrian Observatory for Human Rights” – a dubious one-man organization based in London – featured prominently. The media rarely inquired directly at this “Observatory”, as its operator was in fact difficult to reach, even for journalists.

Rather, the “Observatory” delivered its stories to global agencies, which then forwarded them to thousands of media outlets, which in turn “informed” hundreds of millions of readers and viewers worldwide. The reason why the agencies, of all places, referred to this strange “Observatory” in their reporting – and who really financed it – is a question that was rarely asked.

The former chief editor of the German news agency DPA, Manfred Steffens, therefore states in his book “The Business of News”:

“A news story does not become more correct simply because one is able to provide a source for it. It is indeed rather questionable to trust a news story more just because a source is cited. () Behind the protective shield such a ’source‘ means for a news story, some people are quite inclined to spread rather adventurous things, even if they themselves have legitimate doubts about their correctness; the responsibility, at least morally, can always be attributed to the cited source.” (Steffens 1969, p. 106)

Dependence on global agencies is also a major reason why media coverage of geopolitical conflicts is often superficial and erratic, while historic relationships and background are fragmented or altogether absent. As put by Steffens:

“News agencies receive their impulses almost exclusively from current events and are therefore by their very nature ahistoric. They are reluctant to add any more context than is strictly required.” (Steffens 1969, p. 32)

Finally, the dominance of global agencies explains why certain geopolitical issues and events – which often do not fit very well into the US/NATO narrative or are too “unimportant” – are not mentioned in our media at all: if the agencies do not report on something, then most Western media will not be aware of it. As pointed out on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the German DPA: “What the agency does not report, does not take place.” (Wilke 2000, p. 1)

America’s “Righteous” Russia-gate Censorship. “Russia Bashing All the Time”
“Adding questionable stories“

While some topics do not appear at all in our media, other topics are very prominent – even though they shouldn’t actually be: “Often the mass media do not report on reality, but on a constructed or staged reality. () Several studies have shown that the mass media are predominantly determined by PR activities and that passive, receptive attitudes outweigh active-researching ones.” (Blum 1995, p. 16)

In fact, due to the rather low journalistic performance of our media and their high dependence on a few news agencies, it is easy for interested parties to spread propaganda and disinformation in a supposedly respectable format to a worldwide audience. DPA editor Steffens warned of this danger:

“The critical sense gets more lulled the more respected the news agency or newspaper is. Someone who wants to introduce a questionable story into the world press only needs to try to put his story in a reasonably reputable agency, to be sure that it then appears a little later in the others. Sometimes it happens that a hoax passes from agency to agency and becomes ever more credible.” (Steffens 1969, p. 234)

Among the most active actors in “injecting” questionable geopolitical news are the military and defense ministries. For example, in 2009, the head of the American news agency AP, Tom Curley, made public that the Pentagon employs more than 27,000 PR specialists who, with a budget of nearly $ 5 billion a year, are working the media and circulating targeted manipulations. In addition, high-ranking US generals had threatened that they would “ruin” the AP and him if the journalists reported too critically on the US military.

Despite – or because of? – such threats our media regularly publish dubious stories sourced to some unnamed “informants” from “US defense circles”.

Ulrich Tilgner, a veteran Middle East correspondent for German and Swiss television, warned in 2003, shortly after the Iraq war, of acts of deception by the military and the role played by the media:

“With the help of the media, the military determine the public perception and use it for their plans. They manage to stir expectations and spread scenarios and deceptions. In this new kind of war, the PR strategists of the US administration fulfill a similar function as the bomber pilots. The special departments for public relations in the Pentagon and in the secret services have become combatants in the information war. () The US military specifically uses the lack of transparency in media coverage for their deception maneuvers. The way they spread information, which is then picked up and distributed by newspapers and broadcasters, makes it impossible for readers, listeners or viewers to trace the original source. Thus, the audience will fail to recognize the actual intention of the military.” (Tilgner 2003, p. 132)

What is known to the US military, would not be foreign to US intelligence services. In a remarkable report by British Channel 4, former CIA officials and a Reuters correspondent spoke candidly about the systematic dissemination of propaganda and misinformation in reporting on geopolitical conflicts:

Former CIA officer and whistleblower John Stockwell said of his work in the Angolan war,

“The basic theme was to make it look like an [enemy] aggression in Angola. So any kind of story that you could write and get into the media anywhere in the world, that pushed that line, we did. One third of my staff in this task force were covert action, were propagandists, whose professional career job was to make up stories and finding ways of getting them into the press. () The editors in most Western newspapers are not too skeptical of messages that conform to general views and prejudices. () So we came up with another story, and it was kept going for weeks. () [But] it was all fiction.”

Fred Bridgland looked back on his work as a war correspondent for the Reuters agency: “We based our reports on official communications. It was not until years later that I learned a little CIA disinformation expert had sat in the US embassy, in Lusaka and composed that communiqué, and it bore no relation at all to truth. () Basically, and to put it very crudely, you can publish any old crap and it will get newspaper room.”

And former CIA analyst David MacMichael described his work in the Contra War in Nicaragua with these words:

“They said our intelligence of Nicaragua was so good that we could even register when someone flushed a toilet. But I had the feeling that the stories we were giving to the press came straight out of the toilet.” (Hird 1985)

Of course, the intelligence services also have a large number of direct contacts in our media, which can be “leaked” information to if necessary. But without the central role of the global news agencies, the worldwide synchronization of propaganda and disinformation would never be so efficient.

Through this “propaganda multiplier”, dubious stories from PR experts working for governments, military and intelligence services reach the general public more or less unchecked and unfiltered. The journalists refer to the news agencies and the news agencies refer to their sources. Although they often attempt to point out uncertainties with terms such as “apparent”, “alleged” and the like – by then the rumor has long been spread to the world and its effect taken place.

The Propaganda Multiplier: Governments, military and intelligence services using global news agencies to disseminate their messages to a worldwide audience.

As the New York Times reported …

In addition to global news agencies, there is another source that is often used by media outlets around the world to report on geopolitical conflicts, namely the major publications in Great Britain and the US.

For example, news outlets like the New York Times or BBC have up to 100 foreign correspondents and other external employees. However, Middle East correspondent Luyendijk points out:

“Dutch news teams, me included, fed on the selection of news made by quality media like CNN,the BBC, and the New York Times. We did that on the assumption that their correspondents understood the Arab world and commanded a view of it – but many of them turned out not to speak Arabic, or at least not enough to be able to have a conversation in it or to follow the local media. Many of the top dogs at CNN, the BBC, the Independent, the Guardian, the New Yorker, and the NYT were more often than not dependent on assistants and translators.” (Luyendijk p. 47)

In addition, the sources of these media outlets are often not easy to verify (“military circles”, “anonymous government officials”, “intelligence officials” and the like) and can therefore also be used for the dissemination of propaganda. In any case, the widespread orientation towards the Anglo-Saxon publications leads to a further convergence in the geopolitical coverage in our media.

Full study @ https://www.globalresearch.ca/propagand ... cs/5670371

[skinster]

^ I didn't know there was a video on it.

Britain’s ‘Media Freedom’ is Smokescreen to Hide the Persecution of Journalists Who Expose War Crimes
As Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, fights on from inside high-security Belmarsh prison, we see a stream of ‘Media Freedom’ campaign tweets from the Foreign Office. Jeremy Hunt’s campaign is apparently running parallel to Assange’s arrest and battle against extradition to the US by way of Sweden. But Hunt’s campaign cannot erase or hide the fact the British government is persecuting a journalist who has dared to empower people throughout the world with knowledge of their leaders’ war crimes. Nor can its shiny press releases blind us to its increasingly hostile and repressive position towards journalists and truth-tellers.

On the day Wikileaks tweeted the first warning that Assange could have his asylum imminently withdrawn, British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt announced that the government’s new Media Freedom campaign which would be fronted by celebrity human rights lawyer Amal Clooney. It was a media circus. It was noticeable that despite Clooney’s previous role in Assange’s legal counsel, any connections between the two were effectively left out of mainstream media reports, so that without prior knowledge or research nobody would have known this was the case.

As Hunt’s media campaign got going, so did Clooney’s “Trial Watch,” part of her Clooney Foundation for Justice project, with a particular focus on journalists. In its promotional video a narrator points out some telltale signs of an unfair court:

“Was the court’s presiding official impartial?

Are the public allowed to enter the courtroom?”

After Assange was betrayed by Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno and arrested by UK police on 11th April, he was found guilty at Westminster Magistrate’s Court of skipping a police bail in 2012 when he sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy, fearing extradition to the US via Sweden. This is how ex-ambassador Craig Murray described the judge’s treatment of Assange that day:

“District Judge Michael Snow is a disgrace to the bench who deserves to be infamous well beyond his death. He displayed the most plain and open prejudice against Assange in the 15 minutes it took for him to hear the case and declare Assange guilty last week, in a fashion which makes the dictators’ courts I had witnessed, in Ibrahim Babangida’s Nigeria or Isam Karimov’s Uzbekistan, look fair and reasonable, in comparison to the gross charade of justice conducted by Michael Snow.”

At Southwark Crown Court on 1st May, the judge imposed a 12 month prison sentence on Assange for skipping the police bail in 2012 despite the fact no charges had ever been brought against him and successive Swedish investigations into sexual allegations had been dropped, with the most recent case dropped in 2017. If we went looking for a ‘fair and reasonable’ application of the law it seems we would not find it in this court. Anyone would have expected this sort of sentence in Victorian England or possibly in one of Donald Trump’s ‘shithole countries‘.

At Assange’s third court appearance, on 2nd May, which was conducted by video link, very few friendly faces were able to make it into court, as his case was moved to a small courtroom where only a few people were accommodated, despite many supporters turning up to attend. Only a few accredited press were allowed into small court, some of whom could have spent years smearing Assange.

So bearing in mind all of these questions hanging over the fairness of the British court system for Julian Assange, according to the standards of Clooney, the face of Hunt’s media freedom campaign, it seemed reasonable for this author to submit a ‘trial alert’ request to the Clooney Foundation to ask for Assange’s case to be monitored. To-date they have yet to respond, but perhaps they are weighing up the odds it would meet with approval given husband George Clooney’s political alliances with Hillary Clinton who once suggested droning Assange.

Unfair treatment of Assange is not only visible through conditions set out in Clooney’s Trial Watch video; according to the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention the sentence for skipping bail is disproportionate, and contravenes the “principles of necessity and proportionality envisaged by the human rights standards.” Damning all round, by UN human rights standards and by the standards of Hunt’s very own media freedom envoy.

The day a British court dismissed entirely the human rights of a journalist fighting persecution, Hunt’s Media Freedom campaign told us the British government cares about media freedom. Yes, we are to believe we have a civilised and fair government:


Starting Hunt’s campaign a few weeks before World Press Freedom Day allowed for a constant flow of Foreign Office propaganda about media freedom:


Hunt’s campaign is a trust-building exercise. The government cannot be attacking civil and human rights or the power of journalists as the Fourth Estate, or abusing its legal systems and courts if it is seen promoting media freedom, giving scholarships to students in Africa, and showing it concern for ‘bastions of a free society.’

We were presented with courageous female role models who bring us the truth:


And the role models were carefully picked: Christiane Amanpour‘s career advocating for western military intervention is a long and impressive one, spanning from Yugoslavia, to Iraq, the Libya and Syria. Recently, she has spent years promoting regime change in Syria, which the British government has supported alongside its allies in the EU, the US and Gulf State dictatorships, making her a handsomely paid useful corporate media mouth piece. What are the odds of seeing a Gazan reporter being given a platform by the Foreign Office?

World Press Freedom Day saw the airbrushing of Julian Assange by the liberal press freedom organisations the day after he began his fight in court against extradition to the US on charges that are effectively an unprecedented attack on journalism.


“Promoting journalistic safety and combating impunity for crimes against journalists are central elements within UNESCO‘s mandate.”

How is it possible to have a World Press Freedom Day which promotes the role of the press in holding the powerful to account and at the same time ignores this unprecedented attack on truth-tellers? The risk has been repeatedly stated: if Assange is extradited to the US, no journalist or publisher is safe from persecution by the US government.

This is the dilemma of the liberal class: they want to champion human rights of journalists so they can hold power to account and at the same time they want to protect the status quo of the established Western liberal world order, whose corrupt and psychopathic nature has been exposed in unprecedented detail by a journalist. What’s more, the leaders of the order also promote democracy and human rights and fund press freedom projects.


The Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Global Media Freedom Inquiry by the Foreign Affairs Committee is running alongside Hunt’s campaign. It is another platform selling the idea the British government can tolerate its own people or peoples from around the world holding it to account. This very notion of willingness to be accountable is particularly unlikely given the government’s increasing contempt for international law and its increasingly authoritarian behaviour towards its own country’s media for ‘national security‘ reasons. These include the Investigatory Powers Act (IPA) on the media:

“It has put journalists and their sources at risk because it enables the authorities to go fishing through vast quantities of information. It allows the state to legally access journalistic communications and material in secret (including information capable of identifying journalistic sources), and there are no judicial hearings at which the interests of the journalist are represented. The cumulative impact of these developments for our industry is both detrimental and profound.”

Other examples can be seen on the National Union of Journalists website which also describes cases of journalists being placed unlawfully under police surveillance.

It’s important to note that although the UK recently rose in the press freedom index from 40 to 33, out of 180 countries, this followed changes in ratings of other countries, as explained by Journalists Without Borders:

“Although there have been improvements in some areas, unfortunately, part of the reason for the rise in the UK’s ranking is that the press freedom climate deteriorated so sharply in other countries. We should hold ourselves to a higher standard, and seek to be one of the best, not worst-performing countries in Western Europe.”

The UK is likely to crash down the press freedom index if recommendations by the Law Commission follow the suggestions in its 2017 Review of the Official Secrets Act. This has been described as a “full frontal attack on whistle blowers” that would lead to prison sentences of up to 14 years and expand the definition of espionage to affect the people receiving the information, in other words journalists and publishers. This could lead to lengthy prison sentences for journalists and the criminalisation of journalism in the UK. Interesting Hunt’s media freedom campaign will coincide with another potentially crushing blow to journalism in 2019.

This takes us back to the government’s media freedom drive. The motive behind the Foreign Affairs inquiry is likely to be multi-faceted and involves the triggering of funds destined for the Foreign Office. This is likely to be used in part in political meddling using journalists, steeped in human rights rhetoric – a practice already seen in countries such as Venezuela, where the UK is supporting the US-backed coup attempt against the democratically elected government.

Common sense and evidence tell us that, for the domestic audience, Hunt’s media freedom campaign is simply a public relations show designed to cover-up the true nature of a corrupt regime which has tried to dehumanise a journalist and which is slowly criminalising the profession of journalism.
https://21stcenturywire.com/2019/05/21/ ... HW1YeJbiEo

[Hindsite]

^ I didn't know there was a video on it.

Is there? If Journalists would report the truth instead of lies, then CNN, MSNBC, NYT, and The Washington Post would not have to worry about so many people distrusting them and seeing them as scumbags. Freedom of the press never meant freedom to lie to the people.

[Godstud]

Your fabled Fox News is as guilty of this as any other media network, yet you ignore that because they heap praises on Deranged Donald. Stop being a hypocrite and supporting fake news while dismissing all other news as fake news. It's two-faced.

[skinster]

Is there?

Yes, at the top of the post before mine that stated as much.

Godstud is right, Fox News is the other side of the shitcoin of U.S. media that CNN/MSNBC are a part of.

[Hindsite]

Yes, at the top of the post before mine that stated as much.

Godstud is right, Fox News is the other side of the shitcoin of U.S. media that CNN/MSNBC are a part of.

FOX News is the truth side.
CNN/MSNBC is the lies side.

[colliric]

Yes, at the top of the post before mine that stated as much.

Godstud is right, Fox News is the other side of the shitcoin of U.S. media that CNN/MSNBC are a part of.

I kinda agree. But at least they occasionally tell you the truth due to the imbalance of being the only major conservative MSM cable news outlet.

Truth be told Russia Today, Al Jazeera and to an extent Fox News are at least the better of the major international tv news media outlets. BBC(+our ABC ) use to be great, but it's gone down the toilet too since not long after the turn of the millennium. Takes it's lead too much from CNN now. I use to like watching the German network DW(Deutsche Welle) but they've also followed the same direction lately.