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Anti-Empire

Anti-Empire

offsite link North Korea Increases Aid to Russia, Mos... Tue Nov 19, 2024 12:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Trump Assembles a War Cabinet Sat Nov 16, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link Slavgrinder Ramps Up Into Overdrive Tue Nov 12, 2024 10:29 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link ?Existential? Culling to Continue on Com... Mon Nov 11, 2024 10:28 | Marko Marjanovi?

offsite link US to Deploy Military Contractors to Ukr... Sun Nov 10, 2024 02:37 | Field Empty

Anti-Empire >>

The Saker

Indymedia ireland

Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.

offsite link Army Sergeant Travis Decker Murdered His Three Children After Being Denied Mental Health Care at JBL... Sat Jun 07, 2025 04:52 | JBLM Whistleblowers
A corrupt military police force and incompetent Commander who denied emergency mental health care and crisis counseling to an American service member resulted in the murder of the sergeant's three young daughters

offsite link Gaza doctor grieves her nine children killed in Israeli strike Sun May 25, 2025 20:00 | imc
Israeli regime continues it's slaughter
'The children were completely charred'

Paediatrician Alaa al-Najjar was treating victims of Israeli attacks when her children were killed by an Israeli strike on their home

offsite link British doctors working in Gaza describe territory as a ?slaughterhouse? Sat May 24, 2025 00:23 | imc
There?s no food getting in so people are starving,? surgeon Tom Potokar says
British doctors working in Gaza have described the territory as a ?slaughterhouse,? where the patients they are treating are severely malnourished.

Plastic surgeons and orthopedic specialists from the UK are based at the Amal and Nasser hospitals in Khan Younis in the south of the territory.

Dr. Tom Potokar, a plastic surgeon specializing in burn injuries, has worked in Gaza 16 times but said this mission had revealed a level of destruction far greater than his last visit in 2023,

offsite link It is time to talk about the Out of Control Immigration. Mon Mar 31, 2025 22:12 | imc
For the last few years since the CV19 scamdemic undocumented immigration into Ireland has surged. No one is allowed discuss it because they do not want any rational debate about it. If you do you are labelled an extremist. However this out of control immigration is fully facilitated by the Irish government and the EU and the shady figure behind the Neo Con movement pushing for endless war, wokeism and globalist agenda.

offsite link [Dublin] National Demonstration for Palestine: End Israeli Apartheid & Genocide Thu Mar 06, 2025 22:35 | ipsc
Sat, 22 March 2025, 13:00 Assemble at the Garden of Remembrance, Parnell Square, Dublin 1
The Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, supported by over 150 Irish civil society organisations, has called another National Demonstration for Palestine on Saturday 22nd March.

The march will begin at the Garden of Remembrance at 1pm and finish outside the D?il on Molesworth Street/Kildare Street to bring our demands to the Irish government?s doorstep.

The Saker >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link ?Schools of Sanctuary? Brings US Open Borders Ideology into UK Schools Thu Jul 24, 2025 07:00 | Charlotte Gill
Coming to a primary school near you: Schools of Sanctuary. With funding from US open borders fanatics, your unsuspecting child will be thoroughly immersed in pro-immigration ideology, says Charlotte Gill.
The post ‘Schools of Sanctuary’ Brings US Open Borders Ideology into UK Schools appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link News Round-Up Thu Jul 24, 2025 00:32 | Richard Eldred
A summary of the most interesting stories in the past 24 hours that challenge the prevailing orthodoxy about the ?climate emergency?, public health ?crises? and the supposed moral defects of Western civilisation.
The post News Round-Up appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Dragons? Den Entrepreneur Used Covid Business Loans to Buy ?1.8 Million Mansion ? But Avoids Jail Wed Jul 23, 2025 19:00 | Will Jones
A business owner who appeared on BBC?s Dragons? Den illegally pocketed two?COVID-19 business loans?to buy a ?1.8 million mansion ? but has avoided jail despite the ?100,000 fraud.
The post Dragons’ Den Entrepreneur Used Covid Business Loans to Buy ?1.8 Million Mansion ? But Avoids Jail appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Koran-Burner Hamit Coskun?s Appeal to be Decided by Pro-Free Speech Judge Wed Jul 23, 2025 17:25 | Will Jones
A judge who has argued in favour of free speech will rule on the appeal of Hamit Coskun, who was convicted of burning the Koran outside the Turkish consulate on February 13th.
The post Koran-Burner Hamit Coskun’s Appeal to be Decided by Pro-Free Speech Judge appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link James O?Brien ?Should Be Taken Off Air? After Antisemitic Comments Claiming British Jews Are Taught ... Wed Jul 23, 2025 15:18 | Will Jones
LBC presenter James O'Brien should be "taken off air" after repeating false and antisemitic comments claiming that British Jews are taught "Arabs are cockroaches to be crushed" at "Shabbat school?, critics have urged.
The post James O’Brien “Should Be Taken Off Air” After Antisemitic Comments Claiming British Jews Are Taught “Arabs Are Cockroaches to be Crushed” appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

Voltaire Network
Voltaire, international edition

offsite link Will intergovernmental institutions withstand the end of the "American Empire"?,... Sat Apr 05, 2025 07:15 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?127 Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:38 | en

offsite link Disintegration of Western democracy begins in France Sat Apr 05, 2025 06:00 | en

offsite link Voltaire, International Newsletter N?126 Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:39 | en

offsite link The International Conference on Combating Anti-Semitism by Amichai Chikli and Na... Fri Mar 28, 2025 11:31 | en

Voltaire Network >>

Flat Earth News

category national | arts and media | opinion/analysis author Wednesday April 30, 2008 18:46author by Chekov Feeney - WSM Report this post to the editors

From journalism to churnalism

Review of Nick Davies' Flat Earth News

This is an extraordinarily detailed exposition of how the modern media functions. The author, veteran Guardian journalist Nick Davies, along with a team of researchers from Cardiff University, spent several years monitoring the British media and tracing the sources of the stories that they carried. The results were pretty shocking, even for somebody who already has a very low opinion of the corporate and state media.

Davies describes how an increasingly single-minded focus on profit has caused the media industry to outsource much of the primary production of stories and content to PR agencies and state press offices. The role of journalists has been reduced to what he calls “churnalism”, copying and pasting from press releases or government briefings.

Amazingly, his analysis showed that, of a sample of 2000 articles from the ‘quality’ press, only 12% were based on original research and only 12% of the “facts” copied from the hopelessly unreliable PR sources showed any evidence of having been checked. The end result is that the media is increasingly nothing more than a propaganda vehicle for those with the best PR – the rich and the powerful.

American anarchist Noam Chomsky, in works like Manufacturing Consent, has developed a compelling socio-political analysis of the media’s function in self-declared democratic society. However, he generally focuses on the “what,” rather than the “how”, demonstrating that the media operates as a system which, taken as a whole, produces propaganda in support of the powerful.

Chomsky has, however, relatively little to say about the mechanisms by which this propaganda is produced. Flat Earth News fills in the gaps. It provides a wealth of detail which explains exactly how the profit-motive of the industry operates within newsrooms to limit the amount of time and resources available to journalists to establish the truth of what they are reporting. As a result, lots of things that simply aren’t true become the subject of global news coverage.

In addition to the meticulous statistical analysis of the media’s output, Davies presents a series of case studies which draw on his long journalistic experience and network of contacts in the industry to trace exactly how particular issues have been systematically distorted by the media. This is grim reading.

The ease with which the security services were able to plant totally fictional material about Iraq in the run up to the invasion; the appalling and illegal activities of the press in gathering personal details about their targets; the culture of virulent racism and xenophobia in the Daily Mail: depressing snapshots of an industry that seems beyond saving.

author by IFJpublication date Wed Apr 30, 2008 23:44author address author phone Report this post to the editors

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) says global battles for safety, decent work and quality journalism can only be won if journalists stand together in defence of their rights.

In a statement marking World Press Freedom Day 2008, the IFJ has called for a renewal of global solidarity among journalists to combat the threats facing media.

“The future of journalism depends upon building fresh solidarity,” said IFJ President Jim Boumelha. “Our work is at the heart of the struggle for democracy and human rights.”

The IFJ says the future of journalism will not be guaranteed by politically-inspired publicity stunts or by dumbing down media and cutting editorial budgets.

“In recent days we have taken our message of solidarity to China, Pakistan, Russia, Mexico and Iraq,” said Boumelha. “In all of these places journalists are under pressure. Our colleagues will succeed in defending their rights if they work together, reach out to everyone in journalism old and new, and build bridges that will make journalism strong. Wherever there is division and discord it is only the enemies of press freedom who prosper.”

Across the globe, unions belonging to the IFJ, the world’s largest journalists’ group, are marking World Press Freedom Day with national events and activities to highlight the crisis facing people working in journalism.

In Europe, Arne Konig the Chair of the EFJ said: “World Press Freedom Day gives us an opportunity showcase how quality journalism is vital for democracy and can only be achieved when journalists have access to decent working conditions and respect for their role”.

The EFJ says that pressure on journalists to reveal sources of information and residual political interference are key challenges facing journalists and media.

“But we cannot ignore the impact of the economic crisis that has overtaken much of Europe’s media. Quality journalism is suffering as media owners impose devastating cuts in editorial budgets,” said Konig.

For more information contact the IFJ at +32 2 235 2207
The IFJ represents over 600,000 journalists in 120 countries worldwide

 
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