Diarmuid Breatnach
(Reading time: 2 mins.)
The image of freedom of the press in Western society has been undermined by the biased reporting of the corporate media and yet further by the wave of censorship of social media in recent years, including blocking media platforms.
Time and again readers have seen that the version of events reported is that which favours the western powers and if and when the latter’s enemies are reported it is done perfunctorily and often with an air of doubt.
In war zones, the reporters for western media tend to be embedded among western military and rarely among their opponents.
Media censorship was already rife on reporting the war in Ukraine but has spread higher and wider during the current ‘Israeli’ genocide in Palestine, causing increasing numbers of people to resort to social media news and commentary platforms. But these alternatives too are targeted in turn.
The Western powers have attacked social media platforms such as Telegram, arresting its founder a few days ago1 and this week blocking to subscribers throughout the European Union the Resistance News Network, which reported throughout the day on events in the ‘Israeli’ genocide on Telegram.
Earlier this month the FBI raided the homes of two US citizens, Scott Ritter and Dimitri K. Simes, journalists whose broadcasting has been hosted by Russian media,2 in alleged concern over possible Russian interference in the Presidential elections (!).
Both men have been critical of US foreign policy, which is likely the reason for intimidation through house searches, the same going for the UK police ‘welcome home’ upon Heathrow arrival of Richard Medhurst, an independent journalist and his arrest under ‘Anti-Terrorism’ law.3
Censorship in Reporting the War in Ukraine
Ukraine war news censorship has been running since 2014 but it really ramped up when Russia invaded in 2022. Any prominent individual or site, whether pro-Russia or just NATO-critical that challenged or did not follow the western imperialist line, was soon subjected to censorship.
Pablo González, a dual-nationality Basque reporter, was threatened by Ukrainian intelligence agents and then arrested and jailed in Poland, allegedly for spying for Russia. No evidence was produced during the 886 days he was jailed but now he’s released4 they claim they have a lot.
The Russia-based site RT America was closed down in the USA in 2022,5 as was RT UK in the UK.6
Oliver Stone’s documentary Ukraine On Fire was removed from YouTube7 and veteran conflict reporter and author Christopher Hedges, who left his post as Middle East reporter for the New York Times because of the paper’s censorship, was censored again by YouTube.8
The Grayzone electronic media outlet was characterised as a ‘pro-Russia’ site and veteran anti-imperialist and celebrated linguist Naom Chomsky was accused of being naive or also biased towards Russia.
To what would be their shame if they were capable of such a saving grace, much of the western Left and liberals, both reformist and revolutionary-claiming sections, rowed in behind the censors and labelled all who didn’t swallow their line, including Chomsky9 as “Putinistas”.
The reporting of the western mass media was accepted uncritically while any alternative reporting was attacked, some being characterised as Russian-backed media (in contrast with the corporate media, which of course is free of bias!).
Challenging journalists have also disappeared in Ukraine, where regime-critical journalist Gonzalo Lira died in Ukrainian jail,10 whereas in Palestine, the Israeli Occupation Force had killed at least 116 journalists as August drew to a close.11
In their acceptance of western censorship, those sections of the Left helped to ideologically prepare the ground for the wide-scale censorship around Palestine about which some of them complain bitterly now.
End.
Footnotes
1https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/telegram-messaging-app-ceo-pavel-durov-arrested-france-tf1-tv-says-2024-08-24/ Update: Durov’s arrest in custody had been extended (see References & Sources).
2https://www.reuters.com/world/us/fbi-searched-homes-two-americans-with-ties-russian-state-media-2024-08-22/
3Medhurst is currently out on bail.
4In a prisoner exchange https://elpais.com/espana/2024-08-01/el-periodista-espanol-pablo-gonzalez-liberado-en-un-intercambio-de-presos-entre-ee-uu-y-rusia.html
5https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202204/1258996.shtml
6‘The UK media regulator Ofcom has repeatedly found RT to have breached its rules on impartiality and on one occasion found it had broadcast “materially misleading” content.[3][4][5] On 18 March 2022, Ofcom cancelled RT’s UK broadcasting licence “with immediate effect” after concluding the outlet was not “fit and proper” or a “responsible broadcaster”’(Wikipedia). The unconscious irony is staggering.
7https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2022/03/13/678482/Video-sharing-giants-delete-documentary-Ukrainian-revolution
8Six years of his broadcasts for On Contact and Russia Today were removed from Youtube, prompting him to set up on Substack.
9For many years the darling of the western Left.
10https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/world-int/24744-the-tragic-end-of-gonzalo-lira-a-voice-silenced-in-ukraine.html
11https://cpj.org/2024/08/journalist-casualties-in-the-israel-gaza-conflict
References & Sources
59 news organisations protest ‘Israeli’ slaughter of journalists in Palestine: https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/media-groups-urge-eu-to-sanction–israel—suspend-treaty
Thoughtful piece on bias in reporting the Ukraine War: https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2022/8/4/western-media-and-the-war-on-truth-in
Ukrainian state censorship on war reporting: https://theintercept.com/2023/06/22/ukraine-war-journalists-press-credentials/
French authorities’ arrest of Telegram founder: https://www.breakingnews.ie/world/french-police-custody-extended-after-arrest-of-telegram-chief-executive-durov-1665708.html
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