Newspeak at the Media Freedom Conference
Joint UK-Canada Event Littered With Insidious Undertones
Kit Knightly
OffGuardian already covered the Global Media Freedom Conference, our article Hypocrisy Taints UK’s Media Freedom Conference, was meant to be all there was to say. A quick note on the obvious hypocrisy of this event. But, in the writing, I started to see more than that. This event is actually…creepy.
Let’s just look back at one of the four “main themes” of this conference:
building trust in media and countering disinformation
“Countering disinformation”? Well,that’s just another word for censorship.
This is proven by their refusal to allow Sputnik or RT accreditation. They claim RT “spreads disinformation” and they “countered” that by barring them from attending.
“Building trust”? In the post-Blair world of PR newspeak, “building trust” is just another way of saying “making people believe us” (the word usage is actually interesting, building trust not earning trust).
The whole conference is shot through with this language that just feels…off.
Here is CNN’s Christiane Amanpour:
Our job is to be truthful, not neutral…we need to take a stand for the truth, and never to create a false moral or factual equivalence.”
Being “truthful not neutral” is one of Amanpour’s personal sayings, she obviously thinks it’s clever.
Of course, what it is is NewSpeak for “bias”.
Refusing to cover evidence of The White Helmets staging rescues, Israel arming ISIS or other inconvenient facts will be defended using this phrase – they will literally claim to only publish “the truth”, to get around impartiality…and then set about making up whatever “truth” is convenient.
Oh, and if you don’t know what “creating a false moral quivalence is”, here I’ll demonstrate:
MSM: Putin is bad for shutting down critical media.
OffG: But you’re supporting RT being banned and Wikileaks being shut down.
BBC: No. That’s not the same.
OffG: It seems the same.
BBC: It’s not. You’re creating a false moral equivalence.
Understand now? You “create a false moral equivalence” by pointing out mainstream media’s double standards.
Other ways you could mistakenly create a “false moral equivalence”:
- Bringing up Gaza when the media talk about racism.
- Mentioning Saudi Arabia when the media preach about gay rights.
- Referencing the US coup in Venezuela when the media work themselves into a froth over Russia’s “interference in our democracy”
- Talking about the invasion of Iraq. Ever.
- OR Pointing out that the BBC is state funded, just like RT.
These are all no-longer flagrant examples of the media’s double standards, and if you say they are, you’re “creating a false moral equivalence”…and the media won’t have to allow you (or anyone who agrees with you) air time or column inches to disagree.
Because they don’t have a duty to be neutral or show both sides, they only have a duty to tell “the truth”…as soon as the government has told them what that is.
Prepare to see both those phrases – or variations there of – littering editorials in the Guardian and the
Equally dodgy-sounding buzz-phrases litter topics on the agenda.
“Eastern Europe and Central Asia: building an integrated support system for journalists facing hostile environments”, this means pumping money into NGOs to fund media that will criticize our “enemies” in areas of strategic importance. It means flooding money into the anti-government press in Hungary, or Iran or (of course), Russia. That is ALL it means.
I said in my earlier article I don’t know what “media sustainability” even means, but I feel I can take a guess. It means “save the government mouthpieces”.
The Guardian is struggling for money, all print media are, TV news is getting lower viewing figures all the time. “Building media sustainability” is code for “pumping public money into traditional media that props up the government” or maybe “getting people to like our propaganda”.
But the worst offender on the list is, without a doubt…
“Navigating Disinformation”
“Navigating Disinformation” was a 1 hour panel from the second day of the conference. You can watch it embedded above if you really feel the need. I already did, so you don’t have to.
The panel was chaired by Chrystia Freeland, the Canadian Foreign Minister. The members included the Latvian Foreign Minister, a representative of the US NGO Committee to Protect Journalists, and the Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Information
Have you guessed what “disinformation” they’re going to be talking about?
I’ll give you a clue: It begins with R.
Freeland, chairing the panel, kicks it off by claiming that “disinformation isn’t for any particular aim”.
This is a very common thing for establishment voices to repeat these days, which makes it all the more galling she seems to be pretending its is her original thought.
The reason they have to claim that “disinformation” doesn’t have a “specific aim” is very simple: They don’t know what they’re going to call “disinformation” yet.
They can’t afford to take a firm position, they need to keep their options open. They need to give themselves the ability to describe any single piece of information or political opinion as “disinformation.” Left or right. Foreign or domestic. “Disinformation” is a weaponised term that is only as potent as it is vague.
So, we’re one minute in, and all “navigating disinformation” has done is hand the State an excuse to ignore, or even criminalise, practically anything it wants to. Good start.
Interestingly, no one has actually said the word “Russia” at this point. They have talked about “malign actors” and “threats to democracy”, but not specifically Russia. It is SO ingrained in these people that “propaganda”= “Russian propaganda” that they don’t need to say it.
The idea that NATO as an entity, or the individual members thereof, could also use “disinformation” has not just been dismissed…it was literally never even contemplated.
Next Freeland turns to Edgars Rinkēvičs, her Latvian colleague, and jokes about always meeting at NATO functions. The Latvians know “more than most” about disinformation, she says.
Rinkēvičs says disinformation is nothing new, but that the methods of spreading it are changing…then immediately calls for regulation of social media.
Nobody disagrees.
Then he talks about the “illegal annexation of Crimea”, and claims the West should outlaw “paid propaganda” like RT and Sputnik.
Nobody disagrees.
Then he says that Latvia “protected” their elections from “interference” by “close cooperation between government agencies and social media companies”.
Everyone nods along.
If you don’t find this terrifying, you’re not paying attention. They don’t say it, they probably don’t even realise they mean it, but when they talk about “close cooperation with social media networks”, they mean government censorship of social media. When they say “protecting” their elections…they’re talking about rigging them.
It only gets worse.
The next step in the Latvian master plan is to bolster “traditional media”. The problems with traditional media, he says, are that journalists aren’t paid enough, and don’t keep up to date with all the “new tricks”.
His solution is to “promote financing” for traditional media, and to open more schools like the “Baltic Centre of Media Excellence”, which is apparently a totally real thing. It’s a training centre which teaches young journalists about “media literacy” and “critical thinking”.
You can read their depressingly predictable list of “donors” here.
I truly wish I was joking.
Next up is Courtney Radsch from CPJ – a US-backed NGO, who notionally “protect journalists”, but more accurately spread pro-US propaganda. (Their token effort to “defend” RT and Sputnik when they were barred from the conference was contemptible). She talks for a long time…without saying much at all. Her revolutionary idea is that disinformation could be countered if everyone told the truth. Inspiring.
Beata Balogova, Journalist and Editor from Slovakia, gets the ship back on course – immediately suggesting politicians should not endorse “propaganda” platforms. She shares an anecdote about “a prominent Slovakian politician” who gave exclusive interviews to a site that is “dubiously financed, we assume from Russia”.
They assume from Russia. Everyone nods. It’s like they don’t even hear themselves.
Then she moves on to Hungary.
Apparently, Orban has “created a propaganda machine” and produced “antisemitic George Soros posters”. No evidence is produced to back-up either of these claims. She thinks advertisers should be pressured into not giving money to “fake news sites”. She calls for “international pressure”, but never explains exactly what that means.
The stand-out maniac on this panel is Emine Dzhaparova, the Ukrainian First Deputy Minister of Information Policy. (She works for the Ministry of Information – nicknamed the Ministry of Truth, which was formed in 2014 to “counter lies about Ukraine”. Even The Guardian thought that sounded dodgy.)
She talks very fast and, without any sense of irony, spills out a story that shoots straight through “disinformation” and becomes “incoherent rambling”. She claims that Russian citizens are so brainwashed you’ll never be able to talk to them, and that Russian “cognitive influence” is “toxic…like radiation.”
Is this paranoid, quasi-xenophobic nonsense countered? No. Her fellow panelists nod and chuckle.
On top of that, she just lies. She lies over and over and over again.
She claims Russia is locking up Crimean Tartars “just for being muslims”, nobody questions her.
She says the war in Ukraine has killed 13,000 people, but doesn’t mention that her side is responsible for over 80% of civilian deaths.
She says only 30% of Crimeans voted in the referendum, and that they were “forced”. A fact not supported by any polls done by either side in the last four years, and any referenda held on the peninsula any time in the last last 30 year. It’s simply a lie.
Nobody asks her about the journalists killed in Ukraine since their glorious Maidan Revolution.
Nobody questions the fact that she works for something called the “Ministry of Information”.
Nobody does anything but nod and smile as the “countering disinformation” panel becomes just a platform for spreading total lies.
When everyone on the panel has had their ten minutes on the soapbox, Freeland asks for recommendations for countering this “threat” – here’s the list:
- Work to distinguish “free speech” from “propaganda”, when you find propaganda there must be a “strong reaction”.
- Pressure advertisers to abandon platforms who spread misinformation.
- Regulate social media.
- Educate journalists at special schools.
- Start up a “Ministry of Information” and have state run media that isn’t controlled, like in Ukraine.
This is the Global Conference on Media Freedom…and all these six people want to talk about is how to control what can be said, and who can say it.
They single only four countries out for criticism: Hungary, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Russia….and Russia takes up easily 90% of that.
They mention only two media outlets by name: RT and Sputnik.
This wasn’t a panel on disinformation, it was a public attack forum – a month’s worth of 2 minutes of hate.
These aren’t just shills on this stage, they are solid gold idiots, brainwashed to the point of total delusion. They are the dangerous glassy eyes of a Deep State that never questions itself, never examines itself, and will do anything it wants, to anyone it wants…whilst happily patting itself on the back for its superior morality.
They don’t know, they don’t care. They’re true believers. Terrifyingly dead inside. Talking about state censorship and re-education camps under a big sign that says “Freedom”.
And that’s just one talk. Just one panel in a 2 day itinerary filled to the brim with similarly soul-dead servants of authority.
Truly, perfectly Orwellian.
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https://southfront.org/countering-russian-disinformation-or-new-wave-of-freedom-of-speech-suppression/
Read and be appalled at what America is up to…….keep for further reference. We are in danger.
“Apple revealed 72 different emojis to represent gay, straight & lesbian couples”
But they haven’t released a single emoji representing the lies of politicians and boot-licking sycophant journalists despite the overarching power they are enjoying.
Another Circle Massage from the Masters of Smug.
It would serve Ms. Amanpour well, to relax, rewind & review her own interview with Sergei Lavrov:-
Then she might see why Larry King could stomach the appalling corporate dictatorship, even to the core of False & Fake recording of ‘our’ “History of the National Security State” , No More
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8H7aKGOpSwE
Amanpour was forced to laugh uncontrollably, when confronted with Lavrov’s humorous interpretations of various legal aspects of decency & his Judgement of others’ politicians and ‘Pussy Riots’ >>> if you haven’t seen it, it is to be recommended, the whole interview, if nothing else but to study the body language and micro-facial expressions, coz’ a belly up laugh is not something anybody can easily control or even feign that first spark of cognition in her mind, as she digests Lavrov’s response :- hilarious 🙂
A GE won’t solve matters since we have a Government of Occupation behind a parliament of puppets.
Latest is the secretive Andy Pryce squandering millions of public money on the “Open Information Partnership” (OIP) which is the latest name-change for the Integrity Initiative and the Institute of Statecraft, just like al-Qaeda kept changing its name.
In true Orwellian style, they splashed out on a conference for “defence of media freedom”, when they are in the business of propaganda and closing alternative ‘narratives’ down. And the ‘media’ they would defend are, in fact, spies sent to foreign countries to foment trouble to further what they bizarrely perceive as ‘British interests’. Just like the disgraceful White Helmets, also funded by the FO.
Pryce’s ventriloquist’s dummy in parliament, the pompous Alan Duncan, announced another £10 million of public money for this odious brainwashing programme.
That panel should be nailed & plastered over, permanently:-
and as wall paper, ‘Abstracts of New Law’ should be pasted onto a collage of historic extracts from the Guardian, in offices that issue journalistic licenses, comprised of ‘Untouchables’ :-
A professional habitat, to damp any further ‘Freeland’ amplification & resonance,
of negative energy from professional incompetence.
NOBODY takes this rubbish seriously. It is about as credible as a hooker telling an obese 60 year old that they are the worlds best cocksman.
What is pathetic is the MSM and BBC reporting it.
There comes a time when regulation of journalists must be imposed and unfortunately 90% of the current lot will not be issued with a license to practice.
Good suggestion, Rhys: Something for Leveson 2:0 to initiate …
An ‘Untouchable’ Jury: jurists of public journalistic jurisprudence & to issue licenses,
where no member of the National Security State or any Corporate Lobby,
has any influence.
Just imagine, never having to read any article from someone like Luke Harding ever again,
other than on his private blogspot or as someone below the line commenting, obligatorily
in their real name ?
Hilarious and slightly reassuring! However, I think you might be being a little unfair. The porn star, Ron Jeremy, is no skinny-mini and I think he’d take issue at that simile.
Apropos of the redoubtable Ms Freeland, Canada’s Foreign Secretary.
The records now being opened by the Polish government in Warsaw reveal that Freeland’s maternal grandfather Michael (Mikhailo) Chomiak was a Nazi collaborator from the beginning to the end of the war. He was given a powerful post, money, home and car by the German Army in Cracow, then the capital of the German administration of the Galician region. His principal job was editor in chief and publisher of a newspaper the Nazis created. His printing plant and other assets had been stolen from a Jewish newspaper publisher, who was then sent to die in the Belzec concentration camp. During the German Army’s winning phase of the war, Chomiak celebrated in print the Wehrmacht’s “success” at killing thousands of US Army troops. As the German Army was forced into retreat by the Soviet counter-offensive, Chomiak was taken by the Germans to Vienna, where he continued to publish his Nazi propaganda, at the same time informing for the Germans on other Ukrainians. They included fellow Galician Stepan Bandera, whose racism against Russians Freeland has celebrated in print, and whom the current regime in Kiev has turned into a national hero.
Those Ukrainian ‘Refugees’ admitted to Canada in 1945 were almost certainly members of the 14th Waffen SS Division Galizia 1. These Ukie collaboraters – not to be confused with the other Ukie Nazi outfit – Stepan Bandera’s Ukrainian Insurgent Army -were held responsible for the massacre of many Poles in the Lviv area the most infamous being carried out in the Polish village of Huta Pienacka. In the massacre, the village was destroyed and between 500] and 1,000 of the inhabitants were killed. According to Polish accounts, civilians were locked in barns that were set on fire while those attempting to flee were killed. That’s about par for the course.
Canada’s response was as follows:
The Canadian Deschênes Commission was set up to investigate alleged war crimes committed by the collaborators
Memorial to SS-Galizien division in Chervone, Lviv Oblast, western Ukraine
The Canadian “Commission of Inquiry on War Crimes” of October 1986, by the Honourable Justice Jules Deschênesconcluded that in relation to membership in the Galicia Division:
‘’The Galicia Division (14. Waffen grenadier division der SS [gal.1]) should not be indicted as a group. The members of Galicia Division were individually screened for security purposes before admission to Canada. Charges of war crimes of Galicia Division have never been substantiated, either in 1950 when they were first preferred, or in 1984 when they were renewed, or before this Commission. Further, in the absence of evidence of participation or knowledge of specific war crimes, mere membership in the Galicia Division is insufficient to justify prosecution.’’
However, the Commission’s conclusion failed to acknowledge or heed the International Military Tribunal’s verdict at the Nuremberg Trials, in which the entire Waffen-SSorganisation was declared a “criminal organization” guilty of war crimes. Also, the Deschênes Commission in its conclusion only referenced the division as 14. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (Galizische Nr.1), thus in legal terms, only acknowledging the formation’s activity after its name change in August 1944, while the massacre of Poles in Huta Pieniacka, Pidkamin and Palikrowy occurred when the division was called SS Freiwilligen Division “Galizien”. Nevertheless, a subsequent review by Canada’s Minister of Justice again confirmed that members of the Division were not implicated in war crimes.
Yes, the west looks after its Nazis and even makes them and their descendants political figureheads.
So very, very scary. It’s absolutely out of control. I just don’t understand how people can just keep going with their lying nonsense. How on earth do they do it? It’s a monumental conspiracy everyone’s signed up for.
We really are far down the rabbit hole
The earnest and uncritical fawning over the “moon landings” over the last few days is rather symbolic of the mainstream media’s increasing inability to do anything except peddle American propaganda. It’s going to be fascinating to see what happens when public skepticism of media stories reaches a critical mass – which I think it is very close to doing. A Labour government could well deliver the coup de grace.
The irony being, of course, is. that if a man ‘was put on the moon”, it was by the Germans, courtesy of Paperclip and other programmes running at the time.
Most of these people are so smugly and complacently convinced of their own moral superiority that they just can’t see the hypocrisy and doublethink involved in the event.
Eva Bartlett gives a wider perspective:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/londons-media-freedom-conference-smacks-irony-critics-barred-no-mention-jailed-assange/5683808
Freedom-lover, Cunt, will be furious when he hears about this!
Apparently Steve Bell is doubleplusbad for alluding to the fact Netanyahu has got his hand shoved deep into Tom Watson’s arse – the Guardian pulled Bell’s most recent ouvre which suggests the media’s antisemitism trope might not be quite as politically untainted as the likes of Freedland, Cohen and Viner would have you believe.
https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/guardian-cartoonist-steve-bell-specious-charge-of-antisemitism-in-email-to-all-paper-1.486570
Meanwhile Owen Jones has taken to Twitter to rubbish allegations that a reign of terror exists at Guardian Towers – the socialist firebrand is quoted as saying ‘journalists are free to say whatever they like, so long as it doesn’t stray too far from Guardian-groupthink’.
Good analysis Kit, of the cognitive dissonant ping pong being played out by Nazi sympathisers such as Hunt and Freeland.
The echo chamber of deceit is amplified again by the selective use of information and the ignoring of relevant facts, such as the miss reporting yesterday by Reuters of the Italian Neo-Nazi haul of weapons by the police, having not Russian but Ukrainian links.
Not a word in the WMSM about this devious miss-reporting as the creation of fake news in action. But what would you expect?
Living as I do in Russia I can assure anyone reading this that the media freedom here is on a par with the West and somewhat better as there is no paranoia about a fictitious enemy – Russians understand that the West is going through an existential crisis (Brexit in the UK, Trump and the Clinton war of sameness in the US and Macron and Merkel in the EU). A crisis of Liberalism as the failed life-support of capitalism. But hey, why worry about the politics when there is bigger fish to fry. Such as who will pay me to dance?
The answer is clear from what Kit has writ. The government will pay the piper. How sweet.
I’d like to thank Kit for sitting through such a turgid masquerade and as I’m rather long in the tooth I do remember the old BBC schools of journalism in Yelsin’s Russia. What I remember is that old devious Auntie Beeb was busy training would be hopefuls in the art of discretion regarding how the news is formed, or formulated.
In other words your audience. And it ain’t the public…
The British government’s “Online Harms” White Paper has a whole section devoted to “disinformation” (ie, any facts, opinions, analyses, evaluations, critiques that are critical of the elite’s actual disinformation). If these proposals become law, the government will have effective control over the Internet and we will be allowed access to their disinformation, shop and watch cute cat videos.
The liberal news media & hypocrisy, who would have ever thought you’d see those words in the same sentence.
But what do you expect from professional liars, politicians & ‘their’ free press?
Can this shit show get any worse? Yes, The other day I wrote to my MP regards the SNP legislating against the truth, effectively making it compulsory to lie! Mr Blackford as much as called me a transphobic & seemed to go to great length publishing his neo-liberal ideological views in some scottish rag, on how right is wrong & fact is turned into fiction & asked only those that agreed with him contact him.
“The science or logical consistency of true premise, cannot take place or bear fruit, when all communication and information is ‘marketised and weaponised’ to a mindset of possession and control.”
B.Steere
I saw, somewhere (but can’t find it now) a law or a prospective law which goes under the guise of harassment of MPs to include action against constituents who ‘pester’ them.
I’ve found a link for the Jo Cox gang discussing it, though.
https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/new-research-on-the-intimidation-and-harassment-of-mps-featured-in-inaugural-conference
I only emailed him once! That’s hardly harassment. Anyway I sent it with proton-mail via vpn & used a false postcode using only my first name so unlikely my civil & sincere correspondence will see me locked up for insisting my inalienable rights of freedom of speech & beliefs are protected. But there again the state we live in, i may well be incarcerated for life, for such an outrageous expectation.
“The Guardian is struggling for money”
Surely, they would be enjoying some of the seemingly unlimited US defense and some of the mind control programmes budgets.
Nothing to do with that conspiracy theory bollocks. The truth is, the Guardian has alienated anyone not believing in climate change, anyone male, anyone not calling for affirmative action in the workplace.
Eventually, they’ll be no one left
BATman Gnat-Rat Radar detector on:
“Broadsword calling ole’ TATT – Broadsword calling ole’ TATT”
TATT (Tel Aviva Talmudic Transmissions), we hear you loud & clear,
Calling affirmative action in the work place, implying work,
get typing’ BBB … _ _ _ … or the Chinese will zap you!
over & out 🙂
Oh and once again, less of the ‘theory’ BollocksBillyBoy:-
Never mind the bollocks here’s the sex pistols & real conspiracies & Ghislaine Maxwell’s sexual conspiracy with Jeff Epstein, half of the US Congress, the US Judiciary & Andrew, abused kids & god save the queen, too, in a freezer for her corgis, just for starters: with Lynn d’Rothschild & Christine Lagarde vacuum packed & ready to ship out on Branson’s next Virgin projection for the ECB … 😉 & awaiting more sealed indictments in the UK for your pedo-ring-bosses, ‘old bears’ with stern responses expected & ‘D’ Notices & Censorship to back you up, other than that… yer’ on yer’ Todd, no one left with any credibility, already see ? ! ! ! No one left !
BAT spins TATT over & OUT L.B.W. HBonney, edged & played on 🙂 for a golden duck 😉
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZflAp7OKvOs
Conspiracy “Theory bollocks”, as you call it, is technically know as projection & transference and commonly known as ‘Gaslighting’ & an ole’ TATT technique, to avoid discussing the outrageously obvious Fascist depraved manipulation of Laws & Peoples’ minds, with censorship & terror campaigns from media-maniac agents provocateurs like the Guardian:-
distracting from Apartheid & Land Thefts,
orchestrated by what Dostoyevsky described as …
‘The Possessed’ or ‘Demons’, (the ‘Obsebene’) . . .
Corbett talks extensively about your style of deflections & nonsense:
lol, excellent ridicule: hope you appreciate 😉
seeing how much people truly conspire,
like Treason USA, with GCHQ complicity, again not ‘theory’,
all proven conspiracy with Legal consequences & happening now.
The Guardian has alienated “anyone male”? Going by your delightfully quaint views, that means they have alienated anyone not too effete to display tumescence over nuclear warheads.
Its the brazen nature of the conference that is especially galling, but what do you expect when crooks and liars no longer feel they even have to pretend?
Nothing will change so long as politicians (or their shady backers) are never held to account for public assets diverted toward a rapacious off-shore economic system, or the fact millions of lives have been shattered by the ‘war on terror’ and its evil twin, ‘humanatarian regime change’ (while disingenuous Labour MPs wail about the ‘horrors’ of antisemitism rather than the fact their former leader is a key architect of the killings).
Kit remains a go-to voice when deconstructing claims made by political figures who clearly regard the MSM as a propaganda vehicle for promoting western imperialism – the self-satisfied smugness of cunts like Jeremy Cunt stand in stark contrast to a real journalist being tortured by the British authorities just a few short miles away.
It’s a sligtly depressing thought but somebody has the unenviable task of monitoring just how far our politicians have drifted from the everyday concerns of the ‘just about managing’ and as I say Mr Knightly does a fine job in informing readers what the real of agenda of these media love-ins are actually about – it goes without saying a very lengthy barge pole is required when the Saudis are invited but not Russia.
This Media Freedom Conference is surely a creepy theatre of the absurd.
It is a test of what they can get away with.
Yep. Any soviet tv watcher would recognise this immediately. Message? THIS is the reality – and you are powerless.
When are they going to give us the Ministry of Truth we so desperately need?
Orwellian is absolutely the word. Fighting disinformation, from the people who lied us into Iraq, austerity, Libya, invented Russiagate, desperately tried to lie us into regime changes in Syria and Venezuela, and is telling us Britain’s most anti-racist politician / party is actually its most racist. Fighting disinformation. . .
It appears these people have forgotten recent history especially concerning Ukraine and Latvia whose fascist tendencies aided and abetted the Nazi’s wholesale slaughter of millions of innocent people throughout Eastern Europe. This disease, with American assistance is once again taking hold where blind hatred of Russia is the main focus of their hostility. The symptoms are there for all to see in this panel of deluded mouthpieces who promote their “quality journalism” and advocacy of yet “more government information”.
So……Martin Luther nailed his 95 thesis on the door….to protest against the sale of indulgences by Catholic Church as a way of sin being forgiven…..are we not being told if not forced to repent our love of the freedom of the press and free speech by the offer if not imposition by indulgence to regain admittance and acceptance of the false world these people are wishing to rule over us with…..do we need our own petitions and whatever is available to create our own 95 thesis for our own protection of freedoms of information and opinion? To whose door do we nail it?
Sorry, JJ. Martin Luther was controlled opposition. The deviants ruled the show then, and they rule the show now.
What this conference on (sic) “Media Freedom” really demonstrates is that the Mainstream Corporate Media is soiling its panties in a major way because deep down they realize that increasing numbers of their audience are questioning the disinformation that they are peddling–such as propaganda to justify thinly disguised wars of aggression or interventions by the Anglo American Empire.
The whole hysteria about “fake news” is simply a way to discredit any non-mainstream media that falls outside the corporate media machine and even slightly questions the “journalism” that it spews.
Indeed, instead of wringing one’s hands about “Fake News,” perhaps it would be more appropriate to speak of a Fake Free Press.
Absolutely….one can imagine II and ISS -?- Eu anti fake news dept and others similar all being justified to join up and act cohesively….then being if not so already developing as a cyber weapon with Nato blessing(pretentious supporting freedom and democracy but rapidly heading to lead and promote their own military version)…..all in the name of truth pretence ….pretending to protect us from anything other than their own sense of “reality”… it is horrifying.
Our media are morally right, while their media are morally wrong. See: no moral equivalence, Kit!
In a nutshell , gotta’ love ‘The Undertones’, lmao Seamus 😉
Great post Kit. Thanks for doing this as I don’t think my gag reflex could have handled watching this myself. One wonders how anyone in that room could maintain a straight face while uttering an endless stream of lies and propaganda – all in service to our amoral uber-violent Western oligarchy.
Georgie O was dead right! 1984=2019
BTW, what is disinformation? is it untrue, or just another view of an incident?
Like the crew of the tanker who said they saw flying objects hit their ship,
while the Yanks claim Iran used mines?
This past 13 July, Kiev’s tv station 112 Ukraine was hit by a grenade, fired by a grenade launcher.
The station’s “crime”? It was to air Oliver Stone’s documentary on the 2014 Coup.
By 15 July, after further threats to the station & employees, the airing of the documentary was cancelled.
This little site has somehow flown under the radar of Ukraine’s Ministry of Truth:
http://www.infocenter-odessa.com
Orwellian Dystopia or Oxymoron I will let the readers of Knights brilliant Journalism Well done.
Post Scriptum: So no mention of Assanges incarceration
RT and Press TV not allowed at the conference.
But lets have a Talk feast on freedom of the press Hosted by the modern day version of Goebels .
Who needs fiction when pax-americana and the dead WASP paradigm is presenting all this wonderful narrative.
Brilliant observations of how the world’s most elite solid gold idiots (I love that description) behave in a room with each other. If only when they were all in this setting we could press a button making them all disappear. Then again, we would not have such fascinating case studies and be deprived of the comedy. Can’t wait for the next one.
I was about to consider how history chimes rather than simply repeating. But this is much to funny to miss, the headline is
‘Labour peers tell Corbyn: you have failed test of leadership’
The link is
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jul/16/tom-watson-backs-labour-motion-auto-exclude-racism
It is all going a bit fairy tale as their narratives wheels fall off. Fi fi fo fum, we smell the stink of an english anti-semite!…
The ultimate chicken coup tries to lift off. Unelected members of the Lords, the steaming pile of Blairite detritus on their £400/day ‘jobs’for life retirement and pensions on top, get to earn their keep.
Funny how no tories are equally up in arms about the imminent coronation of a clown to the actual position of PM, without demanding even a plebescite to see if the country approves.
But the Corbynite Labour Party is to be denied that verdict. Because Tony’s barmy army in the Lords doesn’t want the Country to have that say.
The cross party coup is underway.
Anyway, the British public will not be fooled by the viscious scapegoating of anyone, especially by the toffs, in fact we will rush to support the underdog. 66
‘First THEY ignore, then THEY ridicule, finally THEY attack – then THEY lose!’
LOL.
Ps – it seems La Whiner has pulled Steve Bell’s ‘If’ strip from todays online edition so far. He’s been giving Fatboy slim witchfinder general a ride out on his pale horse…genius and funny. Well i’ll just have to go find it on his personal belltoons site.
The Empire lies, distorts and ignores their own sages, the goths are at the gates and they wants their revenge!
Well actually he has failed the test, they constructed some BS antisemitism scandal & he allowed it to get out of control. I’m not saying it was an easy quagmire to get out of but he didn’t even seem to try.
He has shown his weakness, it was a huge mistake, it will cost him everything hes fought for.
See … you guys never get tired of pointing at squirrels, throwing dead cats on tables… strawman in short.
There is a time and a place to have the fight you are seeking. It is for the Labour leadership to decide.
It will happen when there is a general election and a level playing field is introduced in media broadcasting for the 4 week period.
Only then, will you be able to claim that Corbyn the man, not the issues of the Corbynite Labour has been judged by the voters and found wanting.
If you and yours are so convinced that is the guaranteed outcome, why aren’t you and the tory government, the press and broadcasters, the rebel PLooPers and the 60 nazgul lords demanding a general election? Why don’t the tories? Why didn’t May? Why won’t Johnson/Hunt? Cameron didn’t either and his last words were to Corbyn ‘for gods sake GO!’
Hilarious how the tories are more interested in seeing the loser Corbyn out of opposition than making hay from it!
The only option left for you lot is to cancel democracy in the mother of parliaments and install a junta by a soft coup. At which point you will see something like the show in Hong Kong last week – but this really will be millions and it won’t have been set up.
Wait what? That’s one mighty stretch, lumping me in with the Tories because I’m not impressed by Corbyns leadership.
Are you asserting he’s handled the antisemitism farce well?
They’ve kept it alive because its working to discredit him, wake up. Anyway corbyn the man is of little importance.
No,but Corbyn the symbol is.
Yes of course, but I fear if Corbyn goes so will what he stands for. The simple fact is he or his politics has little to NO chance of seeing #10, not with half of the labour party working so hard to prevent a labour government under him.
I agree,except that you should have put,and no doubt meant, the Parliamentary LP
Nope, I at first thought of saying PLP, but thought again, even previous corbyn supporters & key members of the shadow cabinet are undermining him now. After the panorama program it even seems to be labour party employees.
The Blairite friends of Israel are slowly eradicating corbyns most loyal allies. It appears the ruling liberal regime are determined to prevent a labour government from the inside.
The lies, distortions, smears and lying-by-omission engaged in by the MSM (including the state broadcasters) constitute the biggest threat to democracy in the English-speaking countries. The recent mendacious BBC “documentary” on ‘antisemitism’ in the UK Labour Party is a classic example of this. So, too, is the “Australian” Broadcasting Corporation’s worshiping reporting on the smear campaign against Corbyn and the Labour left.
One evening last year, there was a mass audience boycott of BBC services (hatch tag BBC switchoff). Time for more boycotts of offending corporate media wherever they are, surely?
If anyone wants to understand the “Lies, distortions, smears, and Lying by omission by the MSM”….Just look at the “Financial Success” of that ‘evil American’, Rupert Murdoch…..Our Australian politicians bow down before him, and grovel for his approval……..He is also the son of the founding member of Australia’s “Institute of Public affairs”, a Political Think Tank, which is currently the MAJOR DONOR, of Australia’s Liberal/National/Government…….
The idea of disinformation is of untruth.
Untruth can be easily corrected by truth.
Give a true witness and reveal the lack of substance to the false.
The idea of countering untruth is using ‘untruth’ as a false flag against which to identify in ‘righteousness’ of socially engineered conformity and compliance.
A lack of substance can only hide in deceits and denials.
Accusing its own sins in the other is the nature of their denial and evasion in attempt to escape them without accepting correction of a realignment in genuine relational honesty.
The attempt and intent of post truth politics is of manipulation by deceits to undermine and bypass a conscious process of communication.The mind of such intent has lost its capacity to communicate and can only operate as a tool of secrets and lies. Looking within is not self-judgement – but self recognition.
Even looking within to recognise who we are NOT serves the restoring awareness of who we are.
Framing in lies MUST fear truth and deny and distort it for its own notional security.
Fear is pervasive and fragmenting to consciousness. Responsibility for thought is NOT a matter of mind control, but the natural quality of real relationships. Honesty is the basis for and the result of a fundamental trust in Life, oneself and others – in the extension of a genuine willingness to relate, to listen and to speak as we are truly moved as an honesty and congruency of being.
Under fear of pain of loss, freedom is redefined as compliance that seeks approval under loveless dictate.
But all such coded choreography broadcasts ‘slavery is freedom’ to a blind and hateful ‘god’ working through guilted or shamed sense of self-lack. Fear calls on guilt when HIDDEN and protected against truth. Bt owning our fears uncovers them as NEED for truth – from outside the fragmented entanglement of narrative control.
NEED for truth is uncovering the true desire from the masking of the false.
Without true foundation ALL else is inherently and automatically corrupted.
We don’t need to MAKE or DETERMINE truth so much as open willingness FOR true relation and communication. To make truth a weapon is the ‘war’ to which truth is the first casualty.
Truth CORRECTS illusions – it does not destroy them but investment in illusion MUST fear its own destruction and seek to protect its investment.
The corporate and reputational investment in a loveless and destructive technologism reduces all life to a systemic control without any real or shared significance. ‘Uniting’ under threat of fear of pain or loss is NOT a true joining NOR addressing the true nature of the situation. But if enough energy of attention and allegiance is give to a false sense of power and protection then it will become real in the minds of those who promote and propagate fear and guilt in complex packages or instruments of deceit so as to ‘get rid of it’ onto the unwary or ungrounded and vulnerable. And indeed incentivise people to self sacrifice themselves and others so that the racketeering can be ‘sustained’ under ever diminishing returns.
‘Even looking within to recognise who we are NOT serves the restoring awareness of who we are’ cheers for the reminder. 🙂
This panel has all the poisonous air of a religious cult. I’m glad Kit Knightly managed to walk out alive.
“they don’t know, they don’t care, they’re true believers, terrifyingly dead inside”. Like Daleks? Yet again, a searing take down on these…. people. The global march towards full blown fascism continues. I found it it quite enlightening that 2 of the panellists were from Ukraine and Latvia. And Christiane Amanpour herself was there? Wanting everyone to ‘tell the truth’? Wow, Super impressed with that sentiment. This is the outcome of nearly 40 years of Neoliberalism and the rise of the Anglo Zionist Empire. The media are now merely mouthpieces for this cancerous regime that has taken over the planet. Along with demonising any country and anyone that gets in the way of their nefarious schemes. I would love to see a full list of those who attended. Any chance of digging one up Kit? Thanks for this indictment on Global Media Freedom.
On a tangential note:
After 40 years, deputy editor Paul Johnson has announced his retirement from the Guardian. Only recently OffG featured a great article highlighting his membership in the Defence Press and Broadcasting Advisory Committee (a.k.a. “the D-Notice Committee”). Anyone dare to speculate who the next representative for the Guardian will be ? I don’t know if OffG does requests, but I’d love to read some follow-up on the goings-on of this committee.
What? Magic Johnson, the guardian of NATO’s Propaganda Observatory, on the back foot, playing defensive, on the run ? … somebody hit mid-wicket & cripple the runner & messenger of murderous war-lord’s & politician’s immoral deeds. Could this be the end of Tony Blair & Alistair Campbell, as we know it?
Never to be mentioned again in the Guardian hall of infamy? Naaa, surely not, but …
A new Logo maybe with a new “Do”over ? give over…
One could be forgiven for feeling sure that it would require real Magic, for Paul Johnson to be wholly unaware of Ghislaine & Robert Maxwells historic Zionic roots and rise to fame and their dealings with Tech. Drugs Money-Laundering and Arms & Comms & MEDIA dealings, & pension funds ! 40 years long from Czechoslovakia to Bulgaria onto Hong Kong & Japan: Magic Johnson is either very good at his job for British Military intelligence propaganda @theguardian and an associate of Jeffrey Epstein, perhaps even, or Magic Johnson was wholly ignorant of The Lobby and the media world in which he’s been naively participating for Forty firkin’ years … ?
Another Binary Matter of ‘D’ notices, that incebloodydentally was what the Guardian refused to print my comments on: they are especially sensitive and try to avoid any news from Bulgaria, like Dilyana Gaytan’D’zhieva’s , scrubbed news on NATO’s Bulgarian Armaments deliveries to Aleppo and other Terrorist factions, via Silkway Airlines 747’s, over Transit Hub Azerbaijan with Arms in & Heroin out shipments: she bravely observed on the ground in Aleppo tracking shipments to & from the BG. Factory, as well as seeing the decapitated bodies of mother & child from Bulgarian shrapnels in Cyrillic, for herself in Aleppo.
Gaytandzhieva should have got a ‘Pulitzer’ prize for her due diligence & fearless reporting, were it not all perfect evidence against NATO’s Terror campaign and drugs businesses,
she would have. Her editor was so enthusiastic with her reporting that he’d decided to send her back to Syria, when they both got a visit from NATO Secret Services and she lost her job, on the spot … not that Magic Johnson was interested in NATO supply lines to ISIS and Terrorists, nor the deaths of Jackie Sutton or Serena Shim, who also recorded NATO NGO actions and supply lines to feed the terrorist supply lines and destabilise Syria & Assad.
The Guardian should be prosecuted for all their WILFUL glaring omissions under Magic Johnson … and Leveson 2:0 could have a field day in court, with media machinations, based on omission$ alone !
I look at RT because its become a more useful source of information than the BBC. Sure, there’s quite a bit of pro-Russia material in there but then it doesn’t try to hide it, what’s inside is what’s written on the label. I think the problem that the ‘western media’ is having is credibility; their need to push an agenda has morphed them from news sources into propaganda organs. Its an easy enough trap to fall into since they’ve been doing this for years — since well before RT was invented — by running unattributed wire service reports or ‘special correspondent’ pieces that often strayed over the line from mere ‘PR puff piece’ to ‘outright propaganda’.
(BTW — Although its normal for people to associate propaganda with totalitarian governments we should never forget that the original masters of the art, the ones that people like Hitler learned from, were British. It gets an ‘honorable mention’ in Mein Kampf.)
It reminded me of a marketing meeting with a bunch of product managers figuring out how to dupe the punters into buying their gear.
And in an age of much touted “austerity” with so many vital services being throttled, how much money is being thrown on this Himalayan mountain range of think-tanks, NGOs, “non-partisan” groups etc. – all of them relentlessly assembling a mirror image Himalayan mountain range of excrement?
For those unaware, Chrystia Freeland’s grandfather was a Ukrainian Nazi propagandist who resided in an apartment provided to him by the Reich, after it was stolen from its Jewish occupants who were shipped off to die in a concentration camp.
When confronted, her immediate response to the revelation was that that it was entirely untrue and nothing more than Russian disinformation.
Subsequently, when the stubborn facts refused to go away, she stated, “I am proud of my grandfather”.
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/observer.com/2017/03/chrystia-freeland-foreign-minister-canada-nazi-grandfather/amp/
The free wild West will soon have their own Ministry of Truth everywhere….the rest (of 1984) will follow….sorry guys….
Excellent analysis by the way! What’s disturbing or frightening, or even creepy about this conference and the ideas being expressed, is how close they are to using quasi-religious language like the members of a form of religious cult. ‘False moral equivalence’ can be translated as simply, ‘bad thoughts’ or ‘wrong thoughts.’ Only this would give the game away. The West, is the best. Therefore, we get to define and decide what’s ‘moral’, which means ‘good’ or ‘bad’ and no one is allowed to criticise or question our use and control of these terms. We, in the West, are the fountain of ‘Good’ in the world.
Despite their use of language, to disguise what they are actually talking about, which is their control of what is good or bad information and its presentation to a captive audience, most of what they are saying here is frighteningly primative statist dogma. We want to increase our power and control over what people are allowed to see, read and hear, and we’re fed up of people criticising and questioning us about it!
The conference is an example of the trend towards a form of ‘totalitatian liberalism’ which aims to ‘push back’, create a ‘counter-reformation’ against the rise of critical social media and alternative sources of information that aren’t under state control as much as they’ed like them to be.
‘Truth’, the Guardian and the BBC see themselves as virtual Churches of the Truth and the journalists increasingly preach to everyone from their pulpits about ‘good’ and ‘bad’ and the ‘Truth.’ Like a priesthood the journalists have a special role to play standing between the public and the ‘Truth’ which can also be translated as ‘western democracy.’
An interesting aspect of this gathering of the next generation of Nazis is that in Canada Freeland’s government has given the Intelligence agency-CSIS- carte blanche to ‘prevent’ ‘foreign interference’ in the coming federal election.
There isn’t an intelligence agency on the planet which could do that-US interference in Canadian elections is hard wired into the system- and CSIS won’t be trying. What they will be doing is attempting to prevent critics of Canadian Foreign Policy from taking part in the election, and smearing them as agents of Russia or China.
What is interesting is the reaction of the media, and the Press in particular, to government actions which are clearly breaches of the Charter of Rights- it has been absent. There has been none.
In other news, the matter of making massive financial subsidies to the Press is under consideration in Ottawa.
When I mention just how many nazis went to settle in deepest Canada postwar, it is ignored. Alberta i think?
I expect they have been active ever since and their 3rd generation brats are happily persuing their 1000 year fantasy.
”Next Freeland turns to Edgars Rinkēvičs, her Latvian colleague, and jokes about always meeting at NATO functions. The Latvians know “more than most” about disinformation, she says.”
”Latvians know ‘know more than most’ about disinformation …” They sure do. Like allowing Waffen SS Marches in Riga in this day and age.
A prime example of the sort of double standards and doublethink we can expect from the MSM is their campaign against “homophobia” in Russia, with all the useful idiots like Elton John and Stephen Fry leaping aboard the bandwagon.
Homosexuality is legal in Russia, and has been for years. But they aren’t particularly keen on big public gay parade jamborees with full frontal nudity and people having gay sex in public for all the world to see. And they have a law against promoting homosexuality to children, like the old Clause 28. This carries an ever-so-draconian penalty of a maximum $50 fine.
Meanwhile, homosexuality is illegal in over 70 countries. In Saudi Arabia, our great friend and Chair of the UN Human Rights Commission, it carries the death penalty. In neighbouring World Cup host Qatar things are far more liberal. It just carries 5 years’ imprisonment. Some of our Commonwealth friends like Uganda are discussing whether to impose the death penalty on homosexuals.
But of course all concern about gay rights must focus on Putin and Russia.
Completely correct. Bloated buffoons like Elton John and Fry are soaked in (neo) liberal ‘values’ and are just more celebrity mouthpieces defending this regime. Others that come to mind are Richard Branson, Meryl Streep, Bono, etc etc. The whole lot of them are drowning in hypocrisy. Funny how I’ve never heard either Fry or John screeching about Saudi Arabia or Oman or Malaysia. Putin is the West’s arch bogeyman. Its blatantly obvious why they do this grandstanding.
So strange that the celebrities lending their voices to the call of critiquing Russia on gay rights don’t seem to notice that the Western bombs and the U.S. drones illegally and amorally slaughtering people across the Middle East non-stop since 2001 have no way to determine if their “target” is gay or straight or transgender. Our bombs simply kill them all – demonstrating I suppose the almost perfect amoral symmetry at the heart of Western “identity politics” – we proudly proclaim that – “our bombs are color blind and don’t discriminate based on gender identification or sexual orientation.”
I have no doubt that these esteemed celebrities have lost many nights sleep contemplating the willful murders of a half-a-million Iraqi children in the 1990’s by Western power – though they quite likely agree with Madeline Albright that those deaths were in the end – “worth it.”
Correct GMW. You noticed how quiet they all were when Hopey Changey was President, and they were literally fawning at his feet. The first Black President, etc, while he bombed 7 countries, droned weddings and funerals, and sort of forgot to close Guantanamo. But hey, he was the darling of the liberal glitterati set, or as John Pilger called them Obama’s luvvie’s. As a gay man, all I can say is …. fuck identity politics to hell. It has completely neutered and defanged the Left, and caused much division and fragmentation, while the 0.01℅ continue plundering and raping the Planet. These ‘celebrities’ like Elton John, Stephen Fry, Meryl Streep, Bono, etc make my skin crawl.
“…identity politics…has completely neutered and defanged the left…”
Completely true, GP, and nowhere more so than in Australia where much of the left seems to have forgotten what the very term ‘working class’ means. It’s part of why the left nearly always loses.
Recently had a young lady who belongs to a ‘revolutionary socialist’ organisation here, came up to me, and instead of talking about the impact of Neoliberalism on working class people, and the ever increasing inequality, or the destruction of the environment, she enthusiastically exclaimed they had been discussing ‘transgender politics and theory which is really exciting’….!! Planet Earth. Hello? Hello? You’re right, the concept of working class has been jettisoned. And who benefits from all this? In Aussie, can’t think of any left wing group that hasn’t succumbed to the warped identity politics dogma.
Sounds depressingly familiar, GP. In 2016, I gave a talk to a ‘revolutionary socialist’ group for the centenary of the Dublin Easter Rising. At question time, a young woman activist asked what possible interest that event could have for a young person entering the socialist movement. An uprising against a colonial occupier of no interest to a ‘socialist’? You couldn’t make it up…
I know… I know. Also very noticeable the blatant silence about; and deliberate boycotting of rallies for Julian Assange by almost all the ‘revolutionary socialist’ groups in Australia for 6-7 years. They ditched him purely because of their adherence to identity politics. After his arrest a few of them finally broke their total silence to make half hearted pledges of support, then resumed their silence. Its a complete farce and an indictment on so called ‘socialist organisations’. And the elites are rolling round laughing while raking in $$$. One Anarchist group here came out and called for Assange to be extradited to Sweden to face rape allegations. You’re right, you couldn’t make it up…
Is because the Putin-man, he be cock-blocking. And the PTB are adamant on this:
there will be no more cock-blocking. For this be the global gay disco, and that is
how it is and shall be. Even you and me are somewhere on the spectrum,
the fabulous LGBT…XYZ. Full spectrum dominance indeed! Tops & bottoms!
And everything inbetween, like a sweaty sandwich!
Chrystia Freeland knows all about “Navigating Disinformation”. She tried very hard to hide the fact of her grandfather’s Nazi collaboration by calling it “Russian disinformation.” The Canadian government even went so far as to expel a Russian diplomat who dared to publicize the truth about her Nazi lineage. Canada is now a ‘subject state’ and Freeland’s job is to implement American foreign policy.
the media’s double standards < = its not double standards and its not the media. The media are the distributors of content and the in charge persons establishing the timing of the delivery, which in part constitutes the context. in which the content is to be experienced by the audience..
When a prosecutor refuses to indite and prosecute someone for a violation of the law..there currently is no way for the citizens to force the law to be enforced. The problem is the monopoly power of government to make laws and to selectively enforce them.
When the media delivers a false content or a content in a misleading context, what then?
The problem is the one sided power of government.. and content providers. Until that one sidedness, monopoly power, is fixed, (that is until the people who are the governed have equal say in what is to be the law, and in prosecuting the laws that government makes, and in t he prosecution of those laws and in recovery for damage in those contents and contexts of speech and publication that cause damage or that produce untruths, no one is safe ..