The extremism and growing fascism inside Israel is largely ignored by the mainstream media and political elites (though it’s something Max Blumenthal’s new book Goliath covers brilliantly). A case in point (via The Times of Israel): A right-wing, anti-assimilation organization that campaigns to prevent Arab men from dating Jewish women has opened a hotline enabling…
Showing all posts tagged mainstream media
Stop drinking the think-tank kool-aid
My weekly column for the Guardian appears today: The ABC TV Lateline interview with Kurt Campbell, former US assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, was… cordial, even reverential. It was conducted in the middle of March this year, more than a month after Campbell had left the state department. Interviewer Emma Alberici…
Glenn Greenwald challenges puerile pro-government BBC questioning
The Guardian reporter shows how it’s done. Note how virtually every BBC “question” could have been written by the British government in relation to intelligence and Edward Snowden. Welcome to mainstream journalism (just as bad as this infamous interview with Julian Assange in 2012):
How do we know right from wrong
My recent book, For God’s Sake, continues to generate interest in debates over the ethics and actions of daily life.… Here’s an extract published in ABC Religion and Ethics: Jane Caro, Antony Loewenstein, Simon Smart and Rachel Woodlock wrestle with their own traditions and each other over the question of how to determine what is…
What asylum seekers are facing on the ground and why support is desperately needed
My weekly Guardian column is published today (here’s my archive): Blind compassion is killing the asylum seeker debate. While Tony Abbott entangles his new government in megaphone diplomacy with Indonesia,upsetting our biggest neighbour… in the process,… refugees… are struggling to survive closer to home. Vast swaths of the Australian public remain hostile towards asylum seekers, and the advocacy…
Seymour Hersh; journalism isn't propaganda
Far too many reporters see themselves as extensions of power instead of checks on it. One of the finest journalists in the world, Seymour Hersh, unloads on this trend. I couldn’t have put it better myself (via Guardian): Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism – close down the news…
Guardian editor on how Orwell would be turning in his grave over NSA spying
A sad state of affairs that a serious media (which most of the corporate press is not, too keen to wine and dine with the powerful) would vehemently oppose (via the Guardian): The potential of the… surveillance… state goes way beyond anything in George Orwell‘s 1984,… Alan Rusbridger,… the Guardian‘s editor-in-chief, told an audience in New York on Monday.…
In conversation with indy journo and Manning trial stalwart Alexa O'Brien
The wonderful US independent journalist Alexa O’Brien is currently in Australia (she appeared this week at the Sydney Opera House with Julian Assange, Glenn Greenwald and others). I spoke to her at a public event in Sydney about her coverage of the Chelsea Manning trial, dissent in America, Barack Obama’s war on whistle-blowers and threats…
Earth to New York Times; you don't have a monopoly on stories
The Guardian recently published a stunning story, via Edward Snowden, of overly close intelligence sharing between America and Israel. The New York Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan reveals a shocking lack of news judgement by the paper and a sense that unless big stories are found and broken by them, well, don’t bother looking to…
