Category Archives: Media

In the 1970s, I met one of Hitler’s leading propagandists, Leni Riefenstahl, whose epic films glorified the Nazis. We happened to be staying at the same lodge in Kenya, where she was on a photography assignment, having escaped the fate of other friends of the Führer. Continue reading →

While US and western mainstream and corporate media remain biased in favor of Israel, they often behave as if they are a third, neutral party. This is simply not the case. Continue reading →

In the weeks since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the corporate media has been saturated with analyses and reports about the implications of the ruling for women’s lives and health. Legal observers have weighed in on the conservative majority’s reasoning in the case. The impact of the ruling on the 2022 midterm elections has been discussed endlessly. The state-by-state battles over legislation and state-level constitutional amendments banning abortion have been covered exhaustively, as have efforts by women’s rights groups and medical providers to ensure that women get the reproductive health services they need. Continue reading →

In August 2022, a Texas jury ruled that internet personality Alex Jones pay $49 million for defaming the parents of the victims of the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary school massacre. Starting a decade earlier, Jones had claimed that the shooting was a hoax. He argued that crisis actors played the victims and the children never existed. The decision was met with relief from the loved ones of the victims and ideological opponents of Jones. Continue reading →

Violence is the most basic and blunt form of press censorship. To kill or imprison a journalist is to silence the public’s source of news. To date, 33 journalists around the world have been killed this year and another 494 are currently imprisoned, according to Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Put another way, thus far in 2022, on average, once per week somewhere in the world a journalist is killed for reporting the news. Continue reading →

The return of Chris Cuomo to television is the latest reminder that there is little accountability to speak of in corporate news media. Chris was ousted at CNN in late 2021 amidst an ethics investigation that claimed he utilized his position at the cable news juggernaut to consult his brother, then governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo. At the time, the governor was facing a series of sexual misconduct allegations. Chris was using his professional connections to identify what reporters knew about the allegations, and then using that information to consult Andrew on how to respond, all while hosting Andrew on his daily CNN program. In July 2022, Cuomo returned to television to promote his podcast The Chris Cuomo Project. Cuomo appeared on Dan Abrams show on NewsNation (where Cuomo recently secured a position and I have served as an expert guest) and Real Time with Bill Maher. Continue reading →

Alan MacLeod has a new article out with Mintpress News showing how most of the supposedly independent “fact-checking” organizations which Facebook has partnered with to police the information people are allowed to see on the platform about the war in Ukraine are, in fact, funded by the United States government. Continue reading →

In 1980 we produced a report titled How to Appraise and Improve Your Daily Newspaper: A Manual for Readers, authored by David Bollier, one of our precocious interns, who had just graduated from Amherst and went on to become an expert on the Commons (See, bollier.org). I thought about this past initiative to empower readers/consumers while contemplating what is happening in recent months to the print edition of the New York Times. Continue reading →

The announcement by UK Home Secretary, Priti Patel, that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange would be extradited to the US to face espionage charges may be news that many consider to be of lesser importance. We are, after all, in the midst of both a war inside of European borders and an economic crisis. The seemingly endless Assange saga has been going on for 12 years, and there is undoubtedly fatigue on the part of news consumers who have lost interest in the story. Continue reading →

Is Julian Assange a journalist or a publisher? It’s a divisive question which usually draws the wrath of an entire legion of on-line haters, mainly in Australia, who assume the author is attacking the founder of WikiLeaks and so rationale is lost to nationalistic vitriol and score settling. The so-called supporters usually fail to see how if that energy was put into campaigning rather than just letting off steam on Twitter against total strangers, then Assange might have a chance of attaining something akin to justice. Continue reading →

It’s ironic that on the 50th anniversary of the break-in of the Watergate that two journalists who were involved in covering the incident and the subsequent scandal that drove Richard Nixon from the White House have passed on. Continue reading →

The ghost of Kiev pilot is dead, Putin is dead, Ukrainian soldiers were slaughtered on Snake Island and 300 Ukrainians perished in the Mariupol theatre attack. Which of these four news stories coming from western media is true? In fact, they are all entirely false but have been put out as entirely Bonafede news stories and not even corrected when the evidence is overwhelmingly to the contrary. Continue reading →

Journalism’s best days are long gone. And, unless NATO’s journalists have a collective Damascene moment, they too will deservedly go the way of the dodo. Continue reading →

Whether you love or loathe Julian Assange, the decision by a British court to allow a U.S. extradition process is morally repugnant and wrong on so many levels. Assange will now have approximately four weeks to wait and see whether the British government itself signs off on his extradition or not – at which point he can decide to appeal. Continue reading →

The corrupt US & British governments, greatly aided and abetted by Western presstitutes, have destroyed the First Amendment protection of journalism. Julian Assange’s extradition to the US to stand trial for espionage signals the termination of a free press as a method of holding government accountable. Henceforth, any journalist who publishes a leaked story unfavorable to the government can be prosecuted as a spy. Continue reading →

Once again, the programming has changed. Continue reading →

There is a growing psychosis sweeping the U.S. around the Russian bombardment of Ukraine, and it is being triggered by the legacy news media. The steady stream of biased, often erroneous or incomplete information spewing from the establishment press is leading people to quickly choose sides in a complicated international conflict, waving flags in support of “their side,” fawning over global leaders, and even holding peaceful car parades in efforts to do what they think they can to prevent World War III. In the process, the context and details of the conflict, as well as its historic roots, are being pushed aside in favor of a kind of binary knee-jerk activism that is far too common in American political culture. Speaking out against Russian attacks on Ukraine and in support of the people there should not be difficult to understand or do. However, demanding that the U.S. take aggressive action, such as swiftly implementing a no-fly zone, displays a waning level of sophistication regarding international relations. Continue reading →

War is never inevitable, despite what the masters of war say. But what is inevitable are the relentless propaganda, censorship and disinformation disseminated by the mainstream media, politicians and pundits in the ongoing coverage of the war in Ukraine. In the last few months, the corporate-owned MSM and social networks have been working overtime to spread Cold War propaganda against Russia, while restoring the US, rising from the ashes of its retreat in Afghanistan, as the re-emergent champion of Good and Democracy against Russian aggression. Continue reading →

We can all agree that a free and independent press, such as we believe we have in the United States, must do more than simply question government narratives that are handed to it daily. It must, on a continual basis, show how corporate-driven propaganda for war can force us into making false choices. Continue reading →

Big Lies take on a life of their own by ad nauseam repetition. Continue reading →

The Washington Post has always been a CIA asset. The CIA used the Washington Post to orchestrate the Watergate narrative used to drive President Nixon out of office. Continue reading →