MediaLens
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MediaLens is a media analysis website based in the United Kingdom. It was established in 2001 to highlight "serious examples of bias, omission or deception in British mainstream media", with a strong focus on media generally thought of as objective or liberal (BBC, Channel 4 News, The Guardian, et al.), and to encourage members of the public to challenge the relevant journalist, editor, newspaper or broadcaster. It is run by editors David Cromwell and David Edwards.
The website is maintained by webmaster Oliver Maw, and is financed through voluntary subscription and donations from grant-funding bodies. The Media Lens editors have just published their first joint book: Guardians of Power: The Myth of the Liberal Media (Pluto Books, London, 2006) (see [1]).
The editors of MediaLens believe that "mainstream newspapers and broadcasters provide a profoundly distorted picture of our world" and act as a "de facto propaganda system for corporate and other establishment interests". However, they strongly reject the idea that this might be the result of a conspiracy, or that mainstream journalists may be guilty of self-censorship and conscious lying. Instead, they base their media analyses on Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky´s Propaganda Model which seeks to explain systemic bias in the media in terms of structural economic causes, and which proposes that news passes through five conceptual filters before publication. In the words of the MediaLens editors, "We all have a tendency to believe what best suits our purpose; highly paid, highly privileged editors and journalists are no exception. In any case, professionals whose attitudes and opinions most closely serve the needs of corporate power, whether in media institutions or elsewhere, are more likely to be filtered through to positions of authority within such institutions."
The two editors regularly produce "Media Alerts" and frequently engage in dialogue with some of Britain's most respected journalists. MediaLens hosts a 'chat' message board and a discussion forum, used for dissection of political and media issues. Media Alerts, which are free, are distributed worldwide to around 6,000 people.
They share the view that "much modern suffering is rooted in the unlimited greed of corporate profit-maximising". They add:
"We accept the Buddhist assertion that while greed and hatred distort reason, compassion empowers it. Our aim is to increase rational awareness, critical thought and compassion, and to decrease greed, hatred and ignorance. Our goal is not at all to attack, insult or anger individual editors or journalists but to highlight significant examples of the systemic distortion that is facilitating appalling crimes against humanity: the failure to communicate the truth of exactly who is responsible for the slaughter of 500,000 Iraqi children under five; the silence surrounding the motives and devastating consequences of corporate obstruction of action on climate change; the true nature, motives and consequences of 'globalisation'; the corporate degradation and distortion of democratic society and culture. Our hope is that by so doing we can help all of us to free ourselves from delusions. In the age of global warming and globalised exploitation these delusions threaten an extraordinary, and perhaps terminal, disaster - they should not be allowed to go unchallenged."
[edit] Criticisms of MediaLens
The MediaLens editors have been criticised by writers such as Johann Hari and Nick Cohen, who were both pro-Iraq war journalists. Hari criticised MediaLens for what he saw as their failure to engage with critics. This followed a MediaLens article focusing on the work of journalist Mary Riddell. Riddell wrote in The Observer Newspaper that playwright Harold Pinter "was disgraceful in his misreading of Slobodan Milosevic"[2]. MediaLens argued that Riddell had only added this because she did not want to give the "wrong impression" to her colleagues and employers[3].
The editors dispute the claim that they do not respond to critics, pointing out the replies they have given in their 'media alerts' and replies on the website message board to various journalistic responses. They deny the claim that they should post their critics' replies in the same prominent part of their website as the original MediaLens analyses, pointing out that MediaLens only receive a small space in the letters page of the corporate press, if that, to put their responses when they are criticised.
In January 2006, MediaLens launched what became a four-part series of "Media Alerts" against what it saw as the "massive bias and gaps" in the Iraq Body Count project, a group that compiles press reports of civilian casualties resulting from the US/UK invasion and occupation of Iraq. Iraq Body Count wrote a lengthy response disputing the MediaLens pieces, which it described as a "misdirected campaign against IBC".[4]
Critics include Oliver Kamm, who in a letter to film critic David Thomson published in his blog, contested Cromwell's opinions about the atomic bombing of Japan, and accused MediaLens of being "unversed in the conventions of civilised let alone scholarly discussion". [5]
The foreign affairs editor of The Observer, Peter Beaumont, claims MediaLens is a "good example" of groups which "through the increasing presence of print and broadcast media on the internet … exploit their 'critical relationship' with the media to create a virtual soap box for their views". [6]
