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Media Lens is an invaluable source to in describing and measuring how far the “respectable media” kowtows to state and corporate interests.  This excerpt from their latest media alert illustrates the mendacity that is common place in what is considered to be “acceptable journalistic practices”.

“The key to what is precisely wrong with corporate journalism is explained in this nutshell by the US commentator Michael Parenti:

‘Bias in favor of the orthodox is frequently mistaken for “objectivity”. Departures from this ideological orthodoxy are themselves dismissed as ideological.’

Examples of bias towards the orthodoxy of Western power are legion every day of the week. On January 30 this year, David Loyn reported for BBC News at Ten from Bagram airbase in Afghanistan as US troops prepared to withdraw from a blood-strewn occupation. Standing beside a large US military plane, he intoned:

‘For all of the lives lost and money spent, it could have been so much better.’

The pro-Nato perspective of that remark masquerading as impartial journalism is stark. By contrast, Patrick Cockburn summed up the reality:

‘After 12 years, £390bn, and countless dead, we leave poverty, fraud – and the Taliban in Afghanistan…60 per cent of children are malnourished and only 27 per cent of Afghans have access to safe drinking water…Elections are now so fraudulent as to rob the winners of legitimacy.’

The damning conclusion?

‘Faced with these multiple disasters western leaders simply ignore Afghan reality and take refuge in spin that is not far from deliberate lying.’

BBC News has been a major component of this gross deception of the public.”

Hmm. What is troubling is that many outside of the UK look to BBC as a “better” source of news that is more reliable that what is available in North America.

Admittedly, I would take BBC reporting hands down over anything from the propaganda mill known as Fox News, but how many people have the time to really sink their teeth into multiple news sources? How many people even care about the news that much anymore?

I’m shocked that so many people have consciously chosen ignorance as their strategy for dealing with the news and world events.  Denial of the world ‘out there’ can only lead to insular thinking and simplistic interpretations of complex problems.  We need more people, not less, grounded in rationality with a gist of how the world actually works.  How can you effect change in the world if you know nothing of how it works?