Investigative journalist and author Nicky Hager was part of the Centre for Investigative Journalism’s recent Logan Symposium …
Check out CIJournalism’s YouTube channel for more.
Update: If you’re a journalist, don’t miss John Pilger’s blistering presentation on media vs propaganda & news ‘agenda’. An important message. Pilger’s speech notes War by media and the triumph of propaganda are available at his website www.johnpilger.com too, but the speech is definitely worth a watch.
I watched the video with Mr Pilger.
So Mr Chavez was actually a fantastic leader? Really? I thought he was a dictator, a bully and a despot…
And Mr Putin is just dandy as well? Really? Hmmm. Is this for real?
The problem with extreme lefties such as this guy and Mr Chomsky is that they are so anti the US, they simply lose all balance and perspective, and end up supporting despots.
From wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pilger
“The Economist ’s Lexington columnist commented on Pilger’s account of the Arab uprising:
Next up is the egregious John Pilger, who thinks the Arab revolts show that the West in general and the United States in particular are “fascist.” … Maybe he hasn’t noticed, but what most of the Arab protesters say they want are the very freedoms that they know full well, even if Pilger doesn’t, to be available in the West. No doubt he believes they are labouring under some massive mind-control delusion engineered by the CIA.”
The New York magazine columnist Jonathan Chait responded to Pilger’s 13 May 2014 column in The Guardian about Ukraine.[95] In the view of Chait, Pilger “defend[s] Vladimir Putin on the grounds that he stands opposed to the United States, which is the font of all evil” as a comical “attempt to cast land-grabbing, ultranationalist dictator Vladimir Putin as an enemy of fascism.”
Mr Pilger seems to me to be a far leftist extremist, and his views are so extreme as to potentially be dangerous.
Rgds,
*p*
Hi poormastery,
Thanks for your comment which, forgive me, smacks of attacking the messenger rather than engaging with the message.
Surely it’s not just ‘extreme lefties’ who regard elements of the news media establishment as incompetent, corrupt, complicent in their cheerleading of the misleadingly-justified escapades of war in the middle east? A number of writers & journalists — as well as newspaper editorIal figures admitted their credulous coverage of Sadam’s “WMD” , the sexed up dossier, aluminium tubes controversies etc amounted to nothing more than propaganda and drum beats to war.
Pliger’a point, that the media should have been more QUESTIONING of the spin, rather than regurgitating it, seems inescapable to me.
I read in coverage of UK PM Cameron’s recent visit to Washington that he has agreed to send “another 1000 troops” to NATO “exercises” in Europe designed to discourage Russia from taking action (in Ukraine?).
There’s ample evidence for the argument that Western media is selective in its focus (how else?) … I think whether we agree with Pilger’s description of Putin’s characterisation by the west as a pantomime villain, it does behove us to seek a better, more nuanced view than that generally offered.
Personally, I hate the idea of my views (about anything) being colonized and populated by deceit.
Peter, you ask:
“Surely it’s not just ‘extreme lefties’ who regard elements of the news media establishment as incompetent, corrupt, complicent in their cheerleading of the misleadingly-justified escapades of war in the middle east?”
I would agree with the lefty Mr Aaronovitch on this one (from wiki):
“In 2003, he was scornful of pro-Iraq War commentators on the liberal left, whom he called ‘liberal interventionists’, such as David Aaronovitch. In Pilger’s view, Aaronovitch is a “right-wing provocateur” who “exemplifies the mask-wearers” by pretending to be a liberal.[75] Aaronovitch responded to an article by Pilger about the mainstream media[76] in 2003 as one of his “typical pieces about the corruption of most journalists (ie people like me [Aaronovitch]) versus the bravery of a few (ie people like him).”
Everyone else in the media is corrupt except Mr Pilger? And mr Pilger is incredibly bravely standing alone, pointing out that Chavez / Putin / Saddam are simply misunderstood by the fascist Obama and his band of US war criminals?
Sorry, the guy is a nut.
Rgds,
*p*
“Everyone else in the media is corrupt except Mr Pilger?”
Is that what he said? I must have missed it. I don’t detect the same ‘man alone’ mentality. Indeed, look at the group he’s addressing in that clip: Centre for Investigative Journalism. He’s in that ‘club’. But of course, it’s easy for you to write him (and them too?) off as merely ‘extreme lefties’.
Careful. Next you’ll be defending Rupert Murdoch’s political influence …
Yes, pm, so you don’t respect John Pilger. We differ on that point. I’ve respected him as a campaigning journalist and highlighter of inconvenient narratives to corrupt establishments since the 1970s (the corrupt any-way-you-look-at-it Vietnam war).
– P