Synopses & Reviews
For almost 10 years, Media Lens has encouraged thousands of readers to email senior editors and journalists, challenging them to account for their distorted reporting on climate change, the Palestine-Israel conflict, the Iraq war and much more. The responses -- often surprising, sometimes outrageous -- reveal the arrogance, unaccountability and servility to power of even our most respected media.
Review
"Regular critical analysis of the media, filling crucial gaps and correcting the distortions of ideological prisms, has never been more important. Media Lens has performed a major public service by carrying out this task with energy, insight, and care." --Noam Chomsky "In telling us the unvarnished truth, Media Lens is the best thing to happen to the British media for as long as I can remember." --John Pilger "Media Lens is doing an outstanding job of pressing the mainstream media to at least follow their own stated principles and meet their public service obligations. It is fun as well as enlightening to watch their representatives, while sometimes giving straightforward answers to queries, often getting flustered, angry, evasive, and sometimes mistating the facts. This won't change the media very much, but it will make them a bit more careful and honest, and it will help educate the public, which will have its own useful spinoff." --Edward S. Herman
Synopsis
Since 2001, Media Lens has encouraged thousands of readers to challenge the filtered and distorted version of the world provided by major newspapers and broadcasters. The media responses, collected in Newspeak, are an expose of the arrogance and servility to power of our leading journalists and editors, starring Andrew Marr, Alan Rusbridger, Roger Alton, Jon Snow, Jeremy Bowen and even George Monbiot.
Picking up where the highly acclaimed and successful Guardians of Power (2006) left off, Newspeak is packed with forensic media analysis, revealing the lethal bias in "balanced" reporting. Even the "best" UK media -- the Guardian, the Independent, Channel 4 News and the BBC -- turn out to be cheerleaders for government, business and war.
Alongside an A-Z of BBC propaganda and chapters on Iraq and climate change, Newspeak focuses on the demonisation of Iran and Venezuela, the Israel-Palestine conflict, the myth of impartial reporting and the dark art of smearing dissidents.
Synopsis
Media Lens' mission is to correct the distorted vision of the liberal media. A thorn in the side of the Guardian, Independent, Channel 4 and the BBC, among many others, it is constantly under counterfire by those it attacks. These responses are collected in Newspeak. They expose the arrogance and servility to power of our leading journalists and editors, starring Andrew Marr, Alan Rusbridger, Roger Alton, Jon Snow, Jeremy Bowen and even George Monbiot. Packed with forensic media analysis, revealing the lethal bias in 'balanced' reporting. Even the 'best' UK media turn out to be cheerleaders for government, business and war. Alongside an A-Z of BBC propaganda and chapters on Iraq and climate change, Newspeak focuses on the demonisation of Iran and Venezuela, the Israel-Palestine conflict, the myth of impartial reporting and the dark art of smearing dissidents.
Synopsis
Expose of pro-establishment bias in the news, including the so-called liberal media.
About the Author
David Edwards is co-founder/co-editor of Media Lens (www.medialens.org) for which he works full-time. He is author of Free to be Human (1995), The Compassionate Revolution (1998) and co-author of Guardians of Power: The Myth of the Liberal Media (Pluto, 2006). David Cromwell is co-founder / co-editor of Media Lens (www.medialens.org) and a researcher at the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton. He is author of Private Planet (2001) and co-author of Guardians of Power: The Myth of the Liberal Media (Pluto, 2006). In 2002, he co-founded the Crisis Forum (www.crisis-forum.org.uk) with fellow Southampton academic Mark Levene. Surviving Climate Change: The Struggle to Avert Global Catastrophe, edited by Cromwell and Levene, was published in 2007 by Pluto.