Media: When watchdogs become lapdogs

Rupert Murdoch feels that he and the Washington Post are the embattled ones in the quest to deliver us from the propaganda of lies and hate.

In a speech yesterday at the Milken event he complained about the monolithic attacks on George Bush every day of the year claiming that "the atmosphere is absolutely toxic."

He went on to say that "alleged climate changes" and other problems are far more manageable than is the threat of Islamic terror, which will worsen significantly if Iran is allowed to develop nuclear weapons.

The mantra "Iran must not get nuclear weapons" has been repeated so often now that most people have come to believe that Iran has them, or is getting them. This implication is completely unproven. The tragedy would be that in the end the Bush Administration may goad Iran into a real nuclear-weapons program ably assisted by modern day media Goebels like Murdoch et al.

Rupert also "lamented the difficulties he has had in doing business with China, where, "the fact is, media is pretty much closed." I imagine the Chinese have similar concerns that Chavez had in Venezuela where he canceled Radio Caracas Television's license because of their failure to report accurately on the events of the two-day coup in 2002.

Perhaps the lesson for Rupert is that wearing your politics on your sleeve is not always good for business.

Andrew Bolt's Inconvenient Truth

Journalist, blogger and self styled media watch pundit Andrew Bolt in his recent post titled Media conscript thousands to anti-American protest in Iraq over at the Herald Sun accuses both the Associated Press and the New York Times of lying about the number of protesters present at the recent Al Sadr Anti-US-occupation protest in Najaf. He writes:

"Both the Associated Press and New York Times reported that 'tens of thousands' attended the protest. [and that] This picture of the small Najaf protest confirms that once again the bad news from Iraq is never bad enough for the media:"

As I helpfully pointed out to Andrew in a comment he never posted, the cropped photo fails to show the true numbers of protesters as detailed in ThinkProgress' article titled Right Wing Uses Cropped Photo To Downplay Size Of Iraq Protest where they accurately report:

Conservatives are denying reality. Protesters were not restricted to the square seen in the military’s photo; in fact, they choked the 7-kilometer road between Najaf and neighboring Kufa and clogged streets leading to Sadrein Square, the main rallying point.”

Frankly Andrew, as a journalist you're starting to give blogging a bad name.

Debka Iran Rhetoric

Caught-up on a "Special Report" titled Tehran’s Provocations top US Military Build-up to Ratchet up War Tensions over at DEBKA and had to chuckle for two reasons.

Firstly, due to their erroneous claims of inside intelligence which miraculously are unsupported by actual circumstances and secondly, because of the following piece of DEBKA propaganda:

"...Iran is expanding its enrichment program at a pace much faster than U.S. intelligence experts had predicted [and] ... may indeed have a bomb by 2009."

Well I guess someone should rush and tell the IAEA which have been maintaining inspections at all Iranian Nuclear facilities including the new centrifuge plant at Natanz. In fact they are due to make their report public any day now.

For the record again only one centrifuge out of thousands has been found to contain the presence of HEU at around 36% and Iran has given a full explanation to the IAEA. ALL of the other components have had average readings under 5%.

How about letting the IAEA in at Dimona? Thought not :)

Joe Klein drops a clanger at Time

Man! When are journalists going to learn to read! Seriously, I'm sick and tired of every Tom Dick and now Joe writing about the Baker Hamilton report without ever having read the bloody thing.

Joe writes in his article An Administration's Epic Collapse:

"...never was Bush's adolescent petulance more obvious than in his decision to ignore the Baker-Hamilton report and move in the exact opposite direction: adding troops..."

Joe, the Baker-Hamilton report reports states:

"...a short-term ...surge of American combat forces to stabilize Baghdad ...if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would be effective."

Whilst he may not have made a song and dance about it, The POTUS has actually implemented a raft of the BHR recommendations and you can read what I wrote about this months ago in my post Bush may have been listening after-all.

The British sailor hostage crisis and a gullible media

I think much of the confusion surrounding the whole British sailor fiasco is due to muddying by an attention deficit media. Specifically, the lack of attention to the fact that both sides, Iranians and British are arguing around two separate territorial incidents which the COW-centric media have haplessly merged as one.

Firstly, there is the catalyst incident commencing with the British inspection of the Iranian Dhow inside of the Shatt al-Arab, something even the British Navy acknowledges occurred even if they refuse point blank to disclose the precise location in the Shatt al_Arab.

Secondly, there is the apprehension of the British Sailors by the Iranian's some 20 kilometers outside of the Shatt al_Arab as they were disembarking an Indian vessel. We know this location because ironically, the British Navy have been only too willing to reveal the lat/long coordinates of this second incident.

Consequently, the media have seized the British Navy personnel's apprehension as the whole story by-passing the original territorial breech claims central to the Iranian justification for apprehending them in the first place. The British Navy then argues much like a burglar before the court that the case against him should be dismissed because he can prove that he wasn't arrested at the scene but after he had left it.

I can understand the burglar or the British Navy for that matter trying to put something stupid like this over the media but I confess I cannot understand why large sections of the media would be fooled by it.

Have the media become just as gullible as the public?

On the ground reportage: where's the point?

I see Michael Thurston's news story in The Australian from Tehran of Iran holding 15 British sailors. For a Journalist based on the ground in Tehran it's interesting to see that his report at no stage quotes Iranian officials about their side of the story. Makes you wonder what the point is in having him there when getting Iran's perspective was as easy as reading Iran's Press TV coverage on the web?

The Shatt al_Arab has been a disputed waterway between Iran and Iraq since before Saddam was a small boy. For the most part, since the 1975 Algiers Agreement and excluding the Iran/Iraq war, it has been a shared waterway and for good reason--it's very shallow and very narrow.

Michael's article disingenuously ignores that the inspection was of an Iranian flagged vessel most likely on the Iranian side of the Shatt (assuming of course that one can ever truly be on one side over the course of traversing the Shatt).

UN Security Council resolution 1723, which is what the British are operating under, gives them the right as afforded by the Iraqi government to inspect any and all vessels in Iraq's waterways but NOT in Iran's.

The Shatt then provides ideal opportunity for confusion about territoriality which I imagine is the reason why the Brits think they can get away with the odd--"my mistake" infraction of Iran's sovereignty in their quest to uncover a nuclear smoking gun.

Interesting also that this happens just in the lead-up to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's impending visit to New York to address the UN Security Council. One cannot help but think that the COW is looking to avoid another Chavez style outburst at the U.N. probably the reason why they delayed in getting the Iranian visas processed in time as well as I read now that Ahmadinejad has canceled his visit.