“Our [Western] media’s role is not to be a check on power, it’s to regurgitate their lies.” This system of reporting is “mood music to get their genocide done” says Journalist Matt Kennard from the Middle East Eye. 

Today was a bit of a last straw moment when scanning over the day’s misleading mainstream media headlines. The biggest worry (frustration?) is that the average reader has little time to investigate the veracity or falsity of headlines. They probably absorb what they see in the bold print and glaze over to the next misleading headline. Editors know this. It’s a worry that Australians are being corralled to take the side of a genocide or to believe Trump and his ilk care about spreading democracy or to think Ukraine are going it alone in war. Too many believe such headlines because that is what they are fed and because they have little to no knowledge of the history of the Palestinian Occupation and injustice, proxy wars or nefarious hegemony for profit. Or perhaps they simply brush it aside as they pick up their weekend sausage sizzle at Bunnings – as tempting as that ostrich position is on many a day of world injustices.

Yet this is a hazardous position to take because we simply don’t know who will be next in the firing line of injustice and oppression. Australia is but a speck on the radar of the U.S., a nobody at the end of the world, a mere afterthought of what a paltry 26 million people can do for America. (Ask not what the U.S. can do for Australia but what Australia can do for the U.S.). We have important U.S. military bases on our land and we are currently expected to follow U.S. foreign policy. But should we decide that we no longer wish to follow the path of America’s greed, war mentality and hate fuelled hegemony, we could be next in line to feel the wrath of U.S. thuggery. As John Mearsheimer explained to an Australian audience, “When we [the U.S. government] are not happy, you don’t want to underestimate how nasty we can be.” Therefore, headlines matter. Mainstream media need to tell the truth so that populations can make informed decisions when heading to the polling booth.

Headlines matter. Stuart Littlemore (barrister, journalist and inaugural compere of Media Watch) was one of the first to point out misleading or downright wrong headlines and misinformation. He called out many a headline on Media Watch and didn’t let them get away with flagrant inaccuracies or bare faced bias. Mainstream media wilfully employ hooking the reader with a provocative headline or writing crooked facts and details. Journalist Matt Kennard for Middle East Eye says, “Our [Western] media’s role is not to be a check on power, it’s to regurgitate their lies.” He calls this system of reporting, “mood music to get their genocide done.” How sad is that.

There was an article regarding a murdered rabbi in the UAE. There was a picture, bold print headline and concomitant “antisemitic” inclusion. Below this, a small print (no picture) article on the “Dozens killed” in Beirut, Lebanon. Hmmm. One murdered rabbi (of course, a heinous act by any standard) but dozens only “killed” in an Israeli strike on Beirut – not murdered, mind you. Netanyahu bellowed that Israel, “would use all means at its disposal” to bring the murderers of the rabbi to justice. His metaphorical fist thumping is fooling few these days. He has become a joke; albeit a deadly one. One of his own Knesset members referred to him as a “serial killer of peace”. He was escorted out, tout de suite. Netanyahu knows damn well he’s murdering innocents’ day after day but unless they’re Jewish, he remains adamant they are all terrorists – newborn day-old twins in a humidicrib in Gaza included. You can’t be sure those newborns aren’t hiding an AK47 under their blankets.

The headlines regarding Russia are another case in point. The truth behind the provocation of the U.S. to commence a proxy war in Ukraine are rarely mentioned in mainstream media. Instead it is dastardly Russia and Putin vs innocent and peace loving Zelensky and Ukraine. Dig a little into what Jeffrey Sachs, John Mearsheimer and Mehdi Hasan have to say on this conflict and you may come away with a very different perspective on how the U.S. got Russia to the point of invasion, conflict and war.

I fail to comprehend how more money and power for those at the helm of media giants sleep well at night knowing their authorised headlines have assisted in the justification of the killing of thousands upon thousands of innocent women and children in Gaza, not to mention the 17,000 children who are now orphans. Is this what our time on earth is all about? I thought we were supposed to leave the place a little better than we found it. Why are media moguls and corporations, at the top of their game with wealth and power, willing to sacrifice their reputation by misleading citizens through headlines that foment injustice and war. These kinds of things don’t go unnoticed.

I often think of the lines in The Crucible when John Proctor beseeches those who accuse him of witchcraft and that his integrity is only saved by his good name. “How may I live without my name?” Surely that is all we have when we are stripped of everything else. It is our good nature and character that stand testament to our time on earth. Money and power are not a fair exchange for one’s reputation.

Assal Rad is an historian of the modern Middle East and makes it her business to “correct” glaringly misleading, downplayed or blatantly false headlines. She is worth reading and listening to.  Rad takes to task all the major news outlets and crosses out falsehoods and rewrites what she knows to be true. Spread the word, Assal Rad is a champion on the cause of misleading headlines.

https://johnmenadue.com/australians-are-being-corralled-to-take-the-side-of-a-genocide/

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