Media

In 1883 P. J. Reuter, head of the news agency carrying his name, wrote the following memorandum: To: Agents and CorrespondentsFrom: P. J. ReuterDate: 1883 Re: Please cover the following: “…fires, explosions, floods, inundations, railway accidents, destructive storms, earthquakes, shipwrecks attended with loss of life, accidents to war vessels and to mail steamers, street riots of a grave character, disturbances arising from strikes, duels between and suicides of persons of note, social or political, and murders of a sensational or atrocious character.” (*) Sounds familiar?  Yes, it is called “news”. It is all about action, nothing about structures generating them. It is about persons high up, “of note, social or political”. (People low down generate street riots and strike disturbances.) It is all negative. There is not a single positive thing to “cover”. (To the contrary: a simple murder is not enough, it has to be preferably “sensational or atrocious” to merit cover.) Of...

Photo: Shutterstock By Jim Lobe March 6, 2019 The ongoing war in Yemen, called the world’s “worst humanitarian disaster” by the United Nations and independent aid agencies since early last year, received a grand combined total of 20 minutes of coverage on the ABC, NBC, and CBS weekday evening news programs in 2018. That compared to a total of 71 minutes that the three major networks devoted to the British royal wedding and a combined total of 100 minutes dedicated to the rescue of a dozen young cave explorers from flooding in Thailand, according to the latest annual compilation by the authoritative Tyndall Report. Originally published at lobelog.com By contrast, the brutal murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in September received a total of 116 minutes of coverage by the three networks, making it one of the very few foreign-based stories to make...

By Pía Figueroa February 26, 2018 I recently returned from my first trip to China and I am still thinking about everything I saw, which undoubtedly made me realize – once again – how much distortion comes from the press, manipulated by Western interests, on a daily basis. We construct our picture of the world on the basis of information given to us by the news and we blindly believe their interpretation of the facts from their point of view.   These are narratives are at the service of the economic and geopolitical positioning of the major European and North American powers, which take for granted that the world is the way it is and built from there. Originally posted on December 22, 2018, by Pressenza International News Agency here But have we ever been told, for example, how 740 million people, according to official figures, have been able to...

Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif and the EU Foreign Policy chief Frederica Mogherini UPI writes that the European Union issues sanctions on Iran over assassination plots on January 8, 2019. And US Secretary of State, Pompeo, fully supports them. The move puts the Iranian individuals and intelligence unit on the EU terrorist list – freezing their financial assets. It’s a brilliant example of Matthew 7:3-6: “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?” Which, it seems, is now a standard operating policy by the Western world. Or, one may say, an example of psycho-political projection of the West’s own dark sides onto this enemy today and that enemy tomorrow. Here some arguments in support of that – perhaps to some – provocative statement: 1) It should be clear from contemporary history’s records that countries...

Dr Jake Lynch, former BBC newsreader, political correspondent for Sky News and Sydney correspondent for the Independent, is the director of the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney and one of the most published authors in the field of Peace Journalism. His debut novel, Blood on the Stone: An Oxford Detective Story of the 17th Century, is published by Unbound Books. Jake has spent 20 years developing and researching Peace Journalism, in theory and practice. He is the author of seven books and over 50 refereed articles and book chapters. His work in this field was recognised with the award of the 2017 Luxembourg Peace Prize, by the Schengen Peace Foundation. He served for two years as Secretary General of the International Peace Research Association, having organised its biennial global conference in Sydney, in 2010. Before taking up an academic post, Jake enjoyed a 17-year...

TFF has been on Medium for years, the blogging platform started in 2012 Twitter co-founders Ev Williams and Biz Stone. More about it on Wikipedia here. It’s not that TFF or I have sat down and written for this platform. What we post on other social media is shot out to Medium via the social media management tool Sendible. But here is our latest – and last – post and below it, are the reasons. • For more than 12 months, actually, since we got on Medium, we have had 262 followers. Never 261, never 263. You see it in the screenshot. That means either that that figure is somehow manipulated or that there is no activity whatsoever. No such place with daily new posts can have exactly the same number of followers over such a long period of time. Interesting! Well, yes, if it wasn’t for this fact: If...

Den 18. december bringer Altinget en nyhed med overskriften ”Russisk statsmedie gav den falske historie luft”. Jeg vil i denne artikel foretage en analyse af Altingets artikel, som jeg mener, har kastet almindelige journalistiske principper om kildekritik og bestræbelser på objektivitet over bord, fordi historien omhandler den gamle sovjetiske fjende fra øst. Det danske politiske medie Altinget er et udmærket kritisk journalistisk medie, som behandler dansk politik og den offentlige debat på mangfoldig vis. Nu har Altinget rettet sin kritiske journalistik mod det store russiske statsmedie Sputnik, som Altinget kan dokumentere bringer en falsk nyhed den 4. november. Altingets nyhed om Sputniks falske nyhed kommer i forlængelse af deres tidligere afsløring den 13. december af, at Jyllands-Posten den 7. november havde skrevet den samme historie som Sputnik. Begge medier skriver, at 20.000 migranter i Bosnien stod ved grænsen til EU. Det viste sig at være 5000 migranter i stedet, da...

I have to admit that the most unforgiving relationship I hold is the one with the media. This may not come as a surprise as one doesn’t need to look further than a front page of any media platform to see that the media has become an increasingly hostile and contradictory arena. We seem to be living in times of linguistic austerity and compassion depravity. We are faced with more and more undeniable evidence that the media is creating an increasing social divide and psychological crisis in our society today. Sadly, this is not something new. If one learns from history and observes the present carefully, it is evident that the media has a critical role in perpetuating and exaggerating conflict. For example, the media has had a single role as a dividing factor and driving force in triggering and perpetuating the Yugoslav wars in the Balkans, by using ethnic...

”Den iranske efterretningstjeneste har haft planlagt et attentat i Danmark. Det oplyser PET.” Den sms-besked tikkede ind fra DR Nyheder i går d. 30 oktober kl. 13:09. PET havde indkaldt til en halv times pressemøde og deres foruroligende meddelelse fik naturligvis alarmklokkerne til ringe hos enhver dansker og ikke mindst de folkevalgte, som i løbet af få timer trykkede på de traditionelle panikknapper. Søren Espersen ville have den danske ambassadør i Iran hjem til Danmark, omgående! Skal ske, meddelte udenrigsminister Anders Samuelsen på et pressemøde kl. 18:30. Statsminister Lars Løkke Rasmussen skrev på Twitter få timer efter PET’s pressemøde på, at han vil sørge for at yderligere handlinger mod Iran vil blive diskuteret i EU med henvisning til yderligere sanktioner. PET meddeler altså, at Irans efterretningstjeneste har planlagt et attentat i Danmark. En person er derfor anholdt i forbindelse med, at en person fra den iranske gruppe ASMLA i Danmark...

  By Gareth Porter TFF Associate October 25, 2018 The idea promoted by the NYT’s Shane & Mazzetti that the Russian government seriously threatened to determine the 2016 election does not hold up when the larger social media context is examined more closely, reports Gareth Porter.   In their long recapitulation of the case that Russia subverted the 2016 election, Scott Shane and Mark Mazzetti of The New York Times painted a picture of highly effective Russian government exploitation of social media for that purpose. Shane and Mazzetti asserted that “anti-Clinton, pro-Trump messages shared with millions of voters by Russia could have made the difference” in the election. “What we now know with certainty: The Russians carried out a landmark intervention that will be examined for decades to come,” they write elsewhere in the 10,000-word article. Originally published at consortiumnews.com But an investigation of the data they cite to show that the...

Et forkert klik på ”del” ikonet på Facebook skal fremover give en staf på op til 12 års fængsel, hvis det står til den danske regering, fremgår det i et nyt lovforslag. Det afhænger selvfølgelig af omstændighederne. Eller rettere af en bestemt omstændighed. Den hedder Rusland. Forestil dig, at du har en kritisk holdning til NATO, og du læser en nyhed på Facebook eller Twitter, som du synes er værd at dele med dit netværk. Du deler nyheden. Det viser sig, at nyheden er fabrikeret af den russiske efterretningstjeneste, der har haft til hensigt at påvirke den offentlige debat i Danmark. Nu skal du forklare retten, at du ikke bevidst ifølge lovforslaget har forsøgt at påvirke ifølge ”den almene opfattelse af NATO-samarbejdet negativt”. Lykkedes du ikke med det, kan du se frem til op til 12 års fængsel, hvis du delte nyheden det under et valg. Ovenstående er desværre ikke...

(May 11- 24 November). Oberg’s project is called SPAR – Silk Peace Art Road. It focuses on the new China-initiated Silk Road BRI – culture, people, ways of living and high-tech. (BRI = Belt and Road Initiative). He will take pictures at different places, gather objects and utilize his archive photos from Shanghai to Venice – China, Myanmar, Kazakhstan, Iran, Somalia, Syria, Venice, etc. And he will seek cooperation with local artists and art institutions as part of a peace cultural dialogue along the road. This will result in three-dimensional installation of 4-5 meters in Venice which – with multimedia but mostly photography – will focus on the progress of the Orient and the decline of the Occident – a vision about a possible, better and more peaceful future. – ”In times of fake, negativity and fear, the Silk Road project (Belt and Road Initiative, BRI), is the most constructive...