Looking for an ethical media policy

OXFAM has complained that the negative image of Africa painted in the British media is damaging campaigns to combat hunger in this continent and here we have it in a nutshell: create an identity called "them" to justify the "us" and lo and behold lots of dark and dangerous places pop up so that fear can be manipulated but don't worry, we'll make sure you're safe.

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"The relentless focus on ongoing problems at the expense of a more nuanced portrait of the continent, is obscuring the progress that is being made towards a more secure and prosperous future," states Oxfam, quoting opinion polls which predictably reflect a negative image of Africa among those questioned. This is hardly surprising because it serves the interests of the Establishment to have dark and dangerous places which create "wow!" and "ah!" stories.

A "wow!" story creates impact and so it is often placed on the left-hand side of a web page or newspaper because it will register with the right side of the brain, which registers emotion. Therefore the type of "story" presented as a "wow!" does not need to be a story at all. Suffice it to present a headline, such as "Libya dictator bombs own people" complete with a pic of some rubble, somewhere.

The message is transmitted, the lie is broadcast, mission accomplished. It does not matter whether the information was totally false (how many media outlets showed Saif al-Islam al-Qadhafi travelling around the "bombed" areas with SKY News asking them where the bombs that they themselves had repoted were?). A classic example was the connection of 9/11 to Saddam Hussein: a year after the illegal invasion of Iraq, an educated British citizen, after receiving tens of thousands of pounds of private education, told me, face to face: "Yes well he deserved it didn't he? I mean after 9/11". The message, in this case to a female lawyer, was registered.

On the right-hand side of the page you will see in-depth analyses from "experts", often from NATO*, columns of pseudo-sophisticated drivel, verbose verborrhoea, pig-faced blatant lies, connecting with the left, analytical side of the brain and again, it matters not the content, but rather what is communicated. On this side you will find interviews with "Libyan experts", very often criminals from the margins of society huddled together in some London hotel basement before being told that they are to be installed as the next government of the country, on condition that... For "Libyan", read "Syrian"

But it really is not about African countries or Libya or, needless to say, Syria, now is it? It is also about Russia. One could ask since when does a cabal of criminals and co-legionaries in crime get to label those who follow international law, deriding them and creating negative images, the same as they do with Africa? And we are not only speaking about the British media, we are speaking also about the media controlled by the United Nations Organization, which recently spoke about the Global Fund, praising particularly the USA and UK (where was the other member of the FUKUS Axis France?) without mentioning quite how much the Russian Federation has contributed to this Fund.

The Russian Federation has pledged and contributed fully, over two hundred and fifty million dollars (more precisely 256, 999, 996 USD) to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, TB and Malaria but where has this sum appeared in media reports, including a synopsis provided by the UNO itself?

Nowhere.

It is time the media started leading the way, informing people as to what is in fact going on, not suppressing one side and highlighting another, pandering to the whims of those who control it and pull its strings. If the controlled and bought media cannot do this, then the alternative media will and sooner or later, sponsors will start to realize that there is no point in flogging a dead horse.

While the entire package around the media is staged and managed to protect those who toe the line of the Establishment, these days the Internet provides plenty of opportunities for the word to get out. When sponsors start to realize that these alternative venues garner more traffic than the media Establishment, then the obvious choice is to finance the alternative media in a new approach to tell the truth rather than spreading corporate lies. Ethics before Economics.

For the record, I have been offered tidbits about the private lives of many public figures which could have made me rich, on several occasions. Did I use the material? No, and thankfully I can look myself in the mirror, morningwise, with a smile, a wink and a spring in my step. And I still have enough money to pay my bills.

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey

Pravda.Ru

*(it always makes me laugh when they join these two together; it is like matching "intellectual" and "soccer person", yes there are people who describe themselves as such, or "moral high ground" with some demented monster who has just raped an 88-year-old in her bed, bludgeoned her to death with a hammer and then claimed it wasn't his fault because a voice told him to do so. Being an anti-Constitutional organization, a criminal organism and harbouring murderers, rapists, torturers and war criminals, "NATO" and "expert" do not go together).