Tag: bias

White Terrorists White Washed

So, a BNP election candidate has been accused of possessing the largest amount of chemical explosives of its type ever found in Britain. The government held a press conference. I read it on the BBC.

The guy was charged under the Explosives Substances Act 1883 last Monday. Another guy has been charged with similar offences. Yeah, I read it in the Guardian.

It has been reported that police discovered a rocket launcher, a nuclear biological suit, chemicals and BNP literature. It was right there in the Independent.

I’m glad to see that our government and corporate media treat all acts of terrorism equally, be they committed by brown people or be they committed by white people.

9/10/2006 4 Comments

News Sniffer: Revisionista

The latest News Sniffer project went live today: Revisionista. It tracks changes in corporate news articles and marks the differences. So you can choose a BBC news article and see how it’s changed since it was first created. Most changes are on breaking new articles which get updated as more information becomes available, but some changes are rather telling of policy.

Currently only the BBC is monitored, but it’s pretty easy for me to add support for any site with an RSS feed.

Some examples:
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10/9/2006 6 Comments

Self-defence. Israelly?

“Israel has been pursuing a campaign in Gaza for almost three weeks, since Cpl Gilad Shalit was captured by militants on 25 June.”

–BBC News

“Gaza, itself, the latest phase, began on June 24. It was when Israel abducted two Gaza civilians, a doctor and his brother. We don’t know their names. You don’t know the names of victims.”

–Noam Chomsky interviewed on Democracy Now

“Nor have the press suggested that the one-sided nature of the killing in the weeks leading up to the capture of the Israeli soldier might have “sparked” Palestinian actions.

On June 8, the Israeli army assassinated the recently appointed Palestinian head of the security forces of the Interior Ministry, Jamal Abu Samhadana, and three others. On June 9, Israeli shells killed seven members of the same family picnicking on Beit Lahiya beach. Some 32 others were wounded, including 13 children.

On June 13, an Israeli plane fired a missile into a busy Gaza City street, killing 11 people, including two children and two medics. On June 20, the Israeli army killed three Palestinian children and injured 15 others in Gaza with a missile attack. On June 21, the Israelis killed a 35-year old pregnant woman, her brother, and injured 11 others, including 6 children. Then came the Israeli capture of two Palestinians, followed by the Palestinian capture of the Israeli soldier and the killing of the two other soldiers.”

–David Edwards in a Medialens alert

Research project of the day: Try and find mention of any of this relevant information in the mainstream media. Unlikely that you will. Try and find mention of it in relation to the current attacks by Israel.

I’ll get us started: BBC news do mention the capture (it’s only kidnapping when official enemies do it) of the two Gaza civilians in this article, which I had to dig around to find. I’ve not seen it mentioned being possibly related to the capture of the Israeli solders the next day.

17/7/2006 Add Comment

Guardian Warming

This article on the Guardian website is amusing. They tell the tale of Al Gore’s new Documentary about global warming, named An Inconvenient Truth.

The Guardian, as most mainstream media, make the vast majority of their income from advertising. And the majority of advertising revenue comes from the automotive industry. So, obviously, the Guardian cannot afford to discourage automotive advertising in its newspaper and on its website by taking global warming seriously.

The article reduces the film to “wooden vice-president and failed presidential candidate, wheeling his suitcases from town to town and presenting a slideshow about climate change”. It goes on to suggest that it’s only popular because it was produced by the same guy as Pulp Fiction (huh?).
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7/6/2006 3 Comments

BBC ignored weapons claims

The BBC has been accused of failing to investigate claims that the US used banned weapons in Iraq. Is it ignoring the story or has it done its best to seek out the truth?

Well, they’ve:

  • not mentioned that the US have already admitted to using modified napalm
  • stated (falsely) that Human Rights Watch investigated these claims and found nothing (something HRW deny, as they do not have the freedom to conduct investigations in Fallujah)
  • Ignored multiple media reports (rebroadcast on the BBCs very own worldwide monitoring service) stating that “the occupation forces used poisonous gas”
  • Ignored investigations and reports made by Iraqi medical staff and officials at Iraq’s health ministry
  • Stated, falsely, that their reporters had full access to all military documents and briefings and heard nothing of banned weapons

And it’s clear that they’ve only published this Newswatch article because they’ve been repeatedly pressed by Medialens.

18/4/2005 Add Comment