A battle of ideas is being fought in Australia. And the front line is the drive to war and the demonisation of China. There is a battle but it is a one-sided affair. (more…)
Category: Media
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The mass media used to publish perspectives on Ukraine they would never publish today
The other day I stumbled across a 2014 opinion piece in The Guardian titled “It’s not Russia that’s pushed Ukraine to the brink of war” by Seumas Milne, who the following year would go on to become the Labour Party’s Executive Director of Strategy and Communications under Jeremy Corbyn. (more…)
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Psy-ops warriors: Tiananmen Square and the media-pack
As a Hong Kong based columnist for much of his writing career Nury Vittachi was known for his persistent anti-Beijing slant. But no longer. What changed his mind was the mainstream media – the BBC in particular – coverage of the 2019 Hong Kong riots. (more…)
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Harvard China academic takes on the Economist
Even without Chat-bot assistance, it is fun to look up quotations and their origins online and then discover, for example, this quote reportedly from Winston Churchill: “The only statistics you can trust are the ones you have falsified yourself.” (more…)
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Day of triumph, day of shame
It was a day of triumph and a day of shame for The Age newspaper, the once-great Melbourne daily. On Friday June 2, 2023, with justifiable pride, the newspaper trumpeted its victory over the defamation suit brought by Ben Roberts Smith, VC. On the same day, the newspaper announced that it would “trial a reduction” in the frequency of its editorials. (more…)
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The cowardly conduct of the media, government and AFP
When former NSW Labor MP Shaoquett Moselmane was vilified, his home raided and false claims made by a journalist who wanted to promote himself, no apology was given, no restoration made. Instead, the victim became the guilty party, punished for something he did not do. Sounds familiar? (more…)
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A climate of betrayal
“All grimly true, but they can be sure that they won’t be recorded for their crimes in history – because there won’t be any history” (Noam Chomsky) (more…)
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How serious is the Australian propaganda infection?
Propaganda is a potent weapon used by politicians and rival nations to wage a war of words, especially those abetted by a biased media. (more…)
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How psy-ops warriors fooled me about Tiananmen Square: a warning
The myth of the “Tiananmen Square massacre” is arguably the most successful disinformation campaign of modern times, according to western and eastern sources—so much so that proud psychological warfare specialists recently used it to ADVERTISE their news manipulation skills. We’ll get to that below. (more…)
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15 reasons why mass media employees act like propagandists
If you watch western news media with a critical eye you eventually notice how their reporting consistently aligns with the interests of the US-centralised empire, in almost the same way you’d expect them to if they were government-run propaganda outlets. (more…)
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3 reasons why China is not a threat
The recent ‘Red Alert’ series, along with statements by some U.S, and Australian military leaders would have us believe that Chinese military forces could soon in waves be running up Bondi Beach invading our erstwhile peaceful land. Strange then, given this immediacy of threat, our military preparations are increasingly linked to AUKUS, its central plank being Australia’s acquisition of nuclear powered submarines some 20 or more years hence. In an atmosphere of hyped up Sino-phobia I hope to allay fears by recourse to history, logic and military realities. (more…)
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Mainstream media need to focus on peace
The fact that Australia is sleepwalking towards a catastrophic war against China has received very welcome and responsible coverage in Pearls and Irritations and other non-mainstream media. The head-in-the-sand stance adopted by much of the mainstream media stands in stark contrast. The most recent example of the latter was a 15-page supplement in The Canberra Times (CT) on 17 May – ‘Our Next Steps’, on the Defence Strategic Review. It was a most shameful collection of war-mongering articles and images. (more…)
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Most propaganda looks nothing like this
When most people in the English-speaking world hear the word “propaganda”, they tend to think of something that’s done by foreign nations who have governments that are so totalitarian they won’t even let people know what’s true or think for themselves. (more…)
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Compromise worked in Aceh – why not Papua?
There are parallels between Indonesia’s Aceh where an Ozzie surfer faced a flogging, and Papua where a Kiwi pilot is facing death. Both provinces have fought brutal guerrilla wars for independence. One has been settled through foreign peacekeepers. The other still rages as outsiders fear intervention. (more…)
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I work on Q+A’s social media and I see racist abuse every day. You might be shocked by who’s writing it
For the past few years, I’ve worked as the social media producer for a high-profile show, one that has made headlines the past couple of weeks after our beloved presenter had to take a break. (more…)
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A deep sadness: reflections about the racist treatment of Stan Grant
As the people of Thailand say, ‘same, same.’ Here we go again. Another indigenous Australian, and this one an educated, travelled, and articulate First Nation public intellectual is being maligned. (more…)
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Vale, Stan Grant
Stan Grant is always intelligent, insightful and provocative. He demonstrated this in his extraordinary farewell piece last Monday night on the ABC’s Q+A. (more…)
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Junk food ads for the chop? Don’t hold your breath
Banning harmful advertising such as junk food, gambling, and alcohol advertising should be a political no-brainer. The evidence of the harm they cause is clear, especially among children and young people, the health and social benefits of such restrictions are real and public support is high and undeniable. And yet – tobacco advertising excepted – action by the political class on preventive health policy is unacceptably slow. (more…)
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In solidarity with Stan Grant
The racist vitriol to which our ABC colleague Stan Grant has been subjected, especially over the last few weeks, says a lot about Australia’s media. And it’s not pretty.
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60 Minutes Australia keeps churning out war-with-China propaganda
60 Minutes Australia has been playing a leading role in saturating Australian airwaves with consent-manufacturing messaging in support of militarising to participate in a US war against China. (more…)
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Stella Assange in Australia
For those familiar with the ongoing prosecution of Julian Assange by the United States, a brutal carnivalesque endeavour that continues to blight that legal system, there is not much to be said. Assange is a political prisoner who must be freed. But the task remains for those like Stella Assange to convince politicians and journalists to embrace that course. (more…)
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The orbit of Russian cultural influence
One of the stranger aspects of the current war, at least for this observer, is the sight of Ukrainian military commanders telling BBC cameras in perfect Russian of their anti-Moscow plans. They have yet to learn to speak Ukrainian. (more…)
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Can the Global South build a new world information and communication order?
It is remarkable how the media in a select few countries is able to set the record on matters around the world. The European and North American countries enjoy a near-global monopoly over information, their media houses vested with a credibility and authority inherited from their status during colonial times (BBC, for instance) as well as their command of the neocolonial structure of our times (CNN, for instance). (more…)
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The creeping shadow of army rule – Asian Media Report
In Asian Media this week: Big economies talk about rules-based order. Plus: empire strikes back in Imran Khan showdown; hot Asian summers will add to climate change; US return to Philippines sparks sex abuse fears; Gandhi bests Modi in latest test; post-poll scenarios after progressive victory in Thailand. (more…)
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The dangerous idiocy of current Red Menace Journalism
Many contributors have exposed the blatant ethical corruption of recent journalism that presages combat with a rampaging China. Just as before, now again, there are ‘interested’ parties more than happy to be the beneficiaries of the click-bait journalism on display. Eisenhower cautioned against complacency towards the military-industrial complex. To this we can nowadays add too much of the mainstream media (‘MSM’) and the advertising industry. (more…)
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Dan Andrews and Murdoch crying wolf
Rupert Murdoch has done incalculable harm to the democratic experiment throughout the AUKUS nations and beyond. In Victoria, his propaganda campaigns have made him the magnate who cried wolf. The state’s integrity infrastructure is in perilous condition but Newscorp’s constant invective against Labor governments, and Premier Dan Andrew’s government in particular, has made it more difficult to fix. (more…)
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Limits, damned lies, and perception management
At a reconstruction site in Mariupol during President Putin’s visit in March, a woman cried from the back of the crowd, ‘It’s all lies’. Her comment was later taken down from social media, though it wasn’t clear who did that, nor whose lies she meant. (more…)
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White Man’s Media: Anti-China media beat ups continue…
This time over possible Chinese naval bases in the South Pacific. (more…)
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Terror Nullius: the tale of Tasmania
England invaded Australia in 1788, releasing a terror of death and dispossession on first nations’ peoples, particularly in Tasmania. Now 235 years later, Aboriginals, through the Statement from the Heart and the Constitutional Voice, say that it is time that this terror ceased. (more…)
