THE NEWS IN 2021 IS FEAR AND HATRED
What is "the news" anyway? I woke up yesterday and saw snow falling on the trees outside my home. The gas tank which feeds my cooker had frozen so I had to dig out the primus stove to boil a kettle.
Walking the main street I found one of the many abandoned shops had re-opened as a dodgy-looking furniture showroom. A mangy old stray cat we've been feeding on and off hasn't shown up for four days and is presumed dead. Just after Xmas I went online and found that one of the regular readers of this blog had hit the Paypal Donate button and sent the price of a drink, a gesture that is appreciated more than supporters ever know. My brother phoned to say he'd enjoyed a jovial New Year's Eve, and I finally cooked a rainbow trout to perfection.For me then, last week's news was: snow, gas crisis, a new shop, a dead cat, a gift, a family chat and a home-cooking coup.
WHAT ABOUT THE REAL NEWS?
But that's not the REAL news! -comes the voice of The World Beyond -the voice of TV and radio. What of Covid? And the pandemic emergency!What about Trump? And Brexit! And the virus! And Boris! And climate change!And the vaccines! Don't Black Lives Matter? Did you see the number of CASES???
As for that world -a depraved lunatic asylum where a thing called 'society' once stood- I observe 'global' events like an addicted spectator who lives in dread of being dragged onto the field and into the game. I take a measure of what is actually happening on the ground (as opposed to on the screens) by consulting a variety of independent sources from the internet, with occasional personal input from friends who inhabit The World Beyond. I find this gives me the most accurate picture of the reality which I will encounter in those wretched intervals when I'm unavoidably dragooned into a town or city. Television and radio are not used in this house, ever. Tv and radio have played no part in my life for fifteen years, since I committed two dreadful sins.
911, IRAQ & 7/7
Number one was the sin of Thomas, the doubter. Like his, my doubts were born after an extraordinarily bloody murder. The 21st century began, as older readers may recall, with a series of bangs. In 2001, three thousand people were killed by four plane crashes and a series of explosions, all in one Sepember day in New York City. In 2003 a multi-national rocket, bomb and bullet assault began on Iraq, lasted four years and killed over one million people. In July 2005 four coordinated explosions on London Public Transport killed 56 and injured a further 700.
I recall how each of these events was accompanied by the media response soon known as wall-to-wall coverage. In 'wall-to-wall' coverage, not an hour would pass without some kind of statement, announcement, speech or declaration regarding the catastrophe du jour.
JOURNALISM NOT REQUIRED
But my personal doubts about the reporting of these perplexing matters led me each time to the same disturbing, question. Why is it that in the aftermath of such catastrophic events, tv and radio quickly fill up with 'statements and announcements' regarding WHAT HAPPENS NEXT? A real journalist would be saying woah! What just happened, exactly? After all, until you are sure what just happened, you shouldn't be moving straight to step two. also, in the absence of facts or evidence there is rarely a good reason to believe statements from politicians: people who lie for a living. So I came to the conclusion that mainstream media simply could NOT be trusted. My doubts were growing before the fires beneath the wreckage of the World Trade Centre had stopped burning.
My doubts did not require a rush to judgement by the way, because those WTC fires burned for an astounding 12 WEEKS, the "longest burning structural fire in history". The idea that flying rwo jet planes into two buildings created a rubble pile that would burn unstoppably for three consecutive months was -mysteriously- not 'newsworthy'. Not a single newspaper, television or radio station thought this merited a proper fact-based investigation. Journalism not required. [For comparison purposes, the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima caused an explosion that flattened several square miles and killed sixty-five thousand people. All fires were extinguished within 48 hours.]
My disillusionment with 'news' led me to commit sin number two; the original sin of 'actual journalism'. A late-arriver on the world-wide web, I quickly became well-versed in the research opportunities that had opened up. I was acutely aware the web contained plenty of speculation, rubbish and disinformation, but in 2001 it was not at all difficult for a hard-worker to source credible material from independent professional sources. (Unlike the internet of 2021, where censorship is closing the free web at horrific speed). I began to record my growing scepticism of many of the narratives peddled by the media.
HOW JOURNALISM WORKS
Within 18 months, my concerns about how 'news' was created and broadcast were confirmed in-person, real-world, first-hand. In early 2003 I was (to my surprise) being paid to contribute freelance writing to one of the UK's major national newspapers. My work was well recieved. Wearing the freelance hat, I attended the Hyde Park anti-war march on February 16th 2003 and afterwards submitted 3000 words describing my eye-witness experience of that amazing event, along with some observations regarding the people in attendance, and the actions of the police and military. This piece was not well-recieved.
It was not printed either, and I was never again employed by that newspaper. I was not shocked to lose the work -freelance is like that- but I was apalled to spend the next week reading and watching official "news" outlets describe an entirely different event to the one I attended. Not a word about the helicopter that descended above the central stage to drown out the speakers -literally silencing free speech. No mention of the brigade of heavily-armed mounted police hiding in the courtyard behind the American Embassy, or the black-clad snipers positioned on its roof. Over a million protesters turned out that day (a figure routinely halved by official/mass media 'sources') yet their collective experience had been re-framed. Their story had been twisted and replaced by another, 'acceptable' tale to be fed to the British public ON THE NEWS. It felt as if I -and a million others- had been robbed, and I have never forgotten thar.
U-TURN IF YOU WANT TO
By that spring of 2003 I had learned far too much. I decided never again to trust anything from mainstream media until and unless I saw it confirmed with my own eyes or by sources of my own choosing. Television and radio left my life, quickly followed by all newspapers. I recall as if it was yesterday, the day the Guardian, the so-called 'left-wing' paper, U-turned on its self-righteous liberal readers to announce that attacking Iraq was super important, just and legal and let's get behind Tony Blair and the guys wearing Union Jacks, guys n gals! Because "WMD!". I remember well how a few days later WMD expert Dr David Kelly was clumsily suicided after he tried to blow the whistle of truth on the British government's lies - and I do not forget that either. I won't, for now, dwell on the details of the grotesque catalogue of lies we have been handed as the 'official history' of the 21st century. [Read : THE DOMINOS OF FREEDOM ARE FALLING by clicking here]
Time passes. The very same techniques used to spin complex events into simplistic fairy-tales for TV viewers have been honed, perfected and refined. Wall to wall was renamed '24/7'. The 'news' in 2021 is a non-stop rolling product, a tragi-comedy improvised in real time, all day, every day. Headlines are chosen in advance by an unknown process and unnamed individuals. These 'stories' are pre-crafted and polished, and presented in a manner that ,cleverly suggests they are the product of 'journalism'. In fact they are almost entirely 'soundbites' - script-written phrases, spoken like prayers or spells. Journalists are not welcome in the news media -just ask Julian Assange. The channel-hopping public become prey to the "collective voice" in which all stations and 'news' aggregators: Google, Youtube, Amazon, Facebook, Twitter etc, compress the 'acceptable' news into mindless rhyming cliches and childish mantras. Flatten the curve. Build Back Better. Clap for Carers. Quack me quackers.
THE LEADER SPEAKS
Regular as a clockwork cuckoo some President or Prime Minister appears on national TV to announce today's new orders for 'fighting the deadly dictator/terrorist/carbon atom/ virus' while referring to 'experts' and 'committees' who made the 'difficult decisions'. Nothing to do with me, is the message. And every day the average Premier will make sure to be photographed, all muzzled up like a cartoon pooch. (Look! He's wearing a mask! Where's yours?) With all the vulgar glee of a stand-up comedian in a strip club he/she will sign off with a catchphrase reminder to Keep Your Distance or Stay Home, Save Lives in case you have fallen asleep or already thrown your takeaway at the wall in disgust.
Nothing important about the content of these 'broadcasts' will be questioned. Instead, TV employees and yet more 'spokespersons' will blandly accept every word as gospel. Then they hastily proceed to 'analysis' - a mindless chat about irrelevant details that follow from the unchallenged premise, while ignoring the central issue. (Once again - a real journalist would say -woah! What was just said there - exactly?) But instead the politician's 'statement' is accepted as if Moses just recieved a DM from God.
Television & radio 'news' almost never involves any independent attempt to establish the truth about anything. 'News' is usually no more than a series of statements made by people who are deemed to be authorities although their "authority" often stems from nothing more than being on television. For 20 years now, the act of being on television has been elevated into a kind of qualification. Any idiot who appears often enough can be trusted because...he's on telly.
NEWS IS MANUFACTURED LIKE SAUSAGES
The 'news' itself must come from somewhere, however. But just try and find out where, exactly, and you rapidly enter a vast maze of connections and loose ends that leads to no-one in particular. I once wasted two hours on the phone from the Times office trying to persuade the BBC to give me the name of just one single person -any name at all- who actually writes the scripts which the actors read every hour and call 'news'. That information is NOT available. Not ever.
But in our hearts we already know how news is made. News is manufactured like sausages, in a hurry, behind closed doors while nobody is looking. A 'news' programme is a low-grade production, like a play, or an episode from a soap opera. Every word prepared, rehearsed, edited and packaged, complete with music and fancy graphics. By far the best way to observe the truly ridiculous content of TV 'news' programming is to watch with subtitles and the sound turned off. Without the artfully 'grave' voice of the actor reading the lines, the script is revealed as a limp collection of 'statements'.
An entertaining alternative is to watch with the sound off and no subtitles. You realise you are looking at an overpaid actor reading out loud, three cheers! From time to time provocative images are thrown at the viewer to (a) steer our emotional responses and (b) short-circuit any critical thinking. Certain images beloved of TV and are forever in use, e.g. the 'sobbing child or sobbing parent' to provoke sympathy (nb-the dead child/parent is optional here). Or 'the serious-faced-man-in-a-suit-and-tie who knows something you don't' to make you feel informed. Popular face-free images are the colourful zig-zagging graph or the huge number (of something terrible) -to provoke fear. These last two were originally pioneered for climate change 'news' but have been effortlessly transplanted onto Corona 'news'. In my last months of tv watching in 2004 I used to indulge the soundless viewing methods as my BS detector grew horns.
TODAY'S NEWS IS AN INSTRUCTIONAL VIDEO
The aim of all this 24/7 rolling update, very latest, breaking hoo-hah is of course, to stun you into submission. It must be true -they're saying it on every channel. News is no longer a window on the world -if it ever was. Today's 'news' is basically an instructional video to arrange our thinking in line with gobal governmental plans, although we are supposed to believe there is no global government.
ON THE NEWS mask-wearing is 'normal', so shall it be in the world. IN THE NEWS black people live in constant fear and danger of death from white people, who are all racists, so behave accordingly. IN THE NEWS everyone around you is about to die of Coronavirus so stop pretending they're not. In THE NEWS you were trusted with a teeny weeny bit of freedom and you went and used it to catch the killer virus and you gave it to everyone else's granny, so there's 'blood on your hands' and you're a 'Covidiot'. Unless you're sitting alone at home in a freshly-laundered muzzle eating your way through your last Tesco delivery and praying for the 'jabs' they told you about ON THE NEWS. In which case you're coming along nicely.
See? We all understand the news in 2021.
My own suspicions about politicians’ agendas and their use of ‘News’ date back nearly thirty years, to the time of the wars following the breakup of Yugoslavia. Ancient history now, but it was a steep and rapid learning curve for me, and one that I've never forgotten.
ReplyDeleteI vividly remember in 1992 a French general being sacked by President Mitterand for claiming that in Sarajevo, Bosnian snipers were shooting their own civilians and blaming it on the Serbs. But this was reported without either comment, or follow-up investigation. And all record of this seems to have been expunged from the internet now.
I remember a BBC television programme in which former Foreign Secretary David Owen stated that within three weeks of arriving in Bosnia as an envoy, he became aware that the Bosnians were shelling their own hospitals and blaming it on the Serbs. And that the US military was covertly flying in C130's at night, full of equipment and ammunition for the Bosnian armed forces. And on the same programme, the former British commander in Bosnia stating that Bosnian troops would set up a mortar unit just outside the perimeter of a British base and mortar the Serbs, and that when the Serbs replied in kind, the headline next day would be ‘Serbs Shell British Base’. He also stated that UK troops, who were equipped with radar that tracked artillery fire, were well aware of who had carried out the notorious attack on the Sarejevo market – and it wasn’t the Serbs.
I watched this programme myself – but I was surprised, to say the least, that subsequently there was absolutely no mention of the programme and its content anywhere, either in the newspapers or on the television. Clearly, it didn’t fit the narrative.
I also remember the notorious photo of emaciated people peering through the wire of a Serb prison camp. Eighteen months later, I read that the photographer who took it admitted that the photograph was actually of war refugees looking INTO the camp, hoping to obtain food there – not of concentration camp victims looking out, as the entire media had spun it. But nevertheless the MSM still kept on using the same photo for anti-Serb propaganda purposes.
And I remember seeing an item on Channel 4 news, a year after the alleged Srebrenica massacre, where a C4 team reported that when on assignment to another story they were driving in the Serbian countryside, they had come across a Serb prison camp which housed many hundreds of Bosnian conscript prisoners, all captured at Srebrenica, all still alive and in reasonably good shape. They reported that the inmates were not particularly happy with their treatment by the Serbs, but that they were all too scared to go home because according to the Bosnian authorities, they were all supposed to have been ‘massacred’. But again, no follow-up, and no report of this news item anywhere else.
Credit, at the time, to the small number of programme makers who were prepared to go off-message, even if they were conspicuously ignored by everyone else. It certainly wouldn’t happen nowadays - no-one in the media would dare, after the Dr Kelly affair.
But nearly thirty years ago the Bosnian war taught me that when a government has decided on an agenda, the Truth is never allowed to stand in the way.
I very much appreciate your comments and the thought that goes into them. Could I interest you in contributing the occasional article? I wouldn't think 700 to 1000 words would trouble you and I genuinely think readers would enjoy that. I can be mailed -through extremely secure encryption - at lordofzero@protonmail.com if that appeals. We can easily organise a nom de plume etc. Regards, IAP.
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