[R-G] Pilger: Exposing The Guardians Of Power

[Anthony Fenton]

ZNet Commentary
Exposing The Guardians Of Power December 01, 2007
By John Pilger

What has changed in the way we see the world? For as long as I can  
remember, the relationship of journalists with power has been hidden  
behind a bogus objectivity and notions of an "apathetic public" that  
justify a mantra of "giving the public what they want". What has  
changed is the public's perception and knowledge. No longer trusting  
what they read and see and hear, people in western democracies are  
questioning as never before, particularly via the internet. Why, they  
ask, is the great majority of news sourced to authority and its  
vested interests? Why are many journalists the agents of power, not  
people?

Much of this bracing new thinking can be traced to a remarkable UK  
website, www.medialens.org. The creators of Media Lens, David Edwards  
and David Cromwell, assisted by their webmaster, Olly Maw, have had  
such an extraordinary influence since they set up the site in 2001  
that, without their meticulous and humane analysis, the full gravity  
of the debacles of Iraq and Afghanistan might have been consigned to  
bad journalism's first draft of bad history. Peter Wilby put it well  
in his review of Guardians of Power: the Myth of the Liberal Media, a  
drawing-together of Media Lens essays published by Pluto Press, which  
he described as "mercifully free of academic or political jargon and  
awesomely well researched. All journalists should read it, because  
the Davids make a case that demands to be answered."

That appeared in the New Statesman. Not a single major newspaper  
reviewed the most important book about journalism I can remember.  
Take the latest Media Lens essay, "Invasion - a Comparison of Soviet  
and Western Media Performance". Written with Nikolai Lanine, who  
served in the Soviet army during its 1979-89 occupation of  
Afghanistan, it draws on Soviet-era newspaper archives, comparing the  
propaganda of that time with current western media performance. They  
are revealed as almost identical.

Like the reported "success" of the US "surge" in Iraq, the Soviet  
equivalent allowed "poor peasants [to work] the land peacefully".  
Like the Americans and British in Iraq and Afghanistan, Soviet troops  
were liberators who became peacekeepers and always acted in "self- 
defence". The BBC's Mark Urban's revelation of the "first real  
evidence that President Bush's grand design of toppling a dictator  
and forcing a democracy into the heart of the Middle East could  
work" (Newsnight, 12 April 2005) is almost word for word that of  
Soviet commentators claiming benign and noble intent behind Moscow's  
actions in Afghanistan. The BBC's Paul Wood, in thrall to the 101st  
Airborne, reported that the Americans "must win here if they are to  
leave Iraq . . . There is much still to do." That precisely was the  
Soviet line.

The tone of Media Lens's questions to journalists is so respectful  
that personal honesty is never questioned. Perhaps that explains a  
reaction that can be both outraged and comic. The BBC presenter Gavin  
Esler, champion of Princess Diana and Ronald Reagan, ranted at Media  
Lens emailers as "fascistic" and "beyond redemption". Roger Alton,  
editor of the London Observer and champion of the invasion of Iraq,  
replied to one ultra-polite member of the public: "Have you been told  
to write in by those cunts at Media Lens?" When questioned about her  
environmental reporting, Fiona Harvey, of the Financial Times,  
replied: "You're pathetic . . . Who are you?"

The message is: how dare you challenge us in such a way that might  
expose us? How dare you do the job of true journalism and keep the  
record straight? Peter Barron, the editor of the BBC's Newsnight,  
took a different approach. "I rather like them. David Edwards and  
David Cromwell are unfailingly polite, their points are well argued  
and sometimes they're plain right."

David Edwards believes that "reason and honesty are enhanced by  
compassion and compromised by greed and hatred. A journalist who is  
sincerely motivated by concern for the suffering of others is more  
likely to report honestly . . ." Some might call this an exotic view.  
I don't. Neither does the Gandhi Foundation, which on 2 December will  
present Media Lens with the prestigious Gandhi International Peace  
Award. I salute them.