BBC playing fake news just like us?

Post by **R00k** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 1:25 am

Didn't expect to hear that...
http://www.counterpunch.org/miller03142005.html

Post by **Canidae** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 3:44 am

Have you ever vetted the source of this story, or do you just believe it because its what you want to hear?

That reads more like a slanted editorial from the desk of the likes of Dan Rather than a convincing piece of unbiased journalism.
But then I'm Canadian so I guess I never heard " Washington has been rocked by the scandal of fake journalists. The Bush administration has been paying actors to produce news, paying journalists to write propaganda, and paying Republican party members to pose as journalists. In the UK this has been reported with our customary shake of the head at the bizarre nature of US politics and media."
I did hear that one gentleman (Mr. Gannon) was pecked to death in the "liberals only allowed" hen house that is the Whitehouse press corp but that was it. I guess these hordes of fake,non liberal journalist stories have not made it north of the border yet.
Can you point out to me some of these other fake journalists for me?
I'm also wondering if these British Forces Broadcasting Service journalists are considered journalist only when "sufficiently liberal" governments are voted into office in the UK to restrain them or does the "liberal media" simply keep quiet in their criticisms during those periods.

There sure is a lot of fake news out there.

Post by **HM-PuFFNSTuFF** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 4:01 am

lol ph wtf

you obviously haven't been keeping up with the news have yee

http://www.reuters.com/printerFriendlyP ... ID=7923729

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/16/opini ... &position=
more than 20 federal agencies, including the State Department and the Defense Department, now create fake news clips. The Bush administration spent $254 million in its first four years on contracts with public relations firms, more than double the amount spent by the Clinton administration.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/031505X.shtml

http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/ ... 72391.html

http://www.nytimes.com/video/html/2005/ ... VIDEO.html

So do a bit more reading and then let us know what you think.

Post by **Canidae** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 4:09 am

Do you have any links to the said "fake news releases"?
I'd like to judge them myself as to their deceptiveness.
Afterall I wasn't aware that the existing media has a monopoly on how governments present themselves.
I don't have time to look at all those links right now. I'll get back to them tomorrow.

Post by **HM-PuFFNSTuFF** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 4:12 am

Click the above the links first. Try the the second NYT's one for a graphic understanding of what is happening. Text from page: This video news release features a "reporter" who is a public-relations professional working under a false name for the Transportation Security Administration.

Watch it and judge for yourself.

Post by **HM-PuFFNSTuFF** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 4:21 am

It's not like Bush has to do this. The mainstream media bends over and takes it hard everytime this guy speaks. He's had a free pass since 9/11.

Post by **HM-PuFFNSTuFF** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 8:06 am

just never made it back to this thread eh canadeeI

Post by **Massive Quasars** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 8:53 am

PostHaste? That you?

Post by **4days** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 9:52 am

the beeb air the odd propaganda story (it's all they did for a while), they're usually pretty good about saying so if that's the case - but things could have changed quite a lot since the whole david kelly/iraq/fabricating reasons to go to war/management swapover thing - don't think it's as bad as that spinwatch guy says it is though, he uses the word 'fake' pretty liberally.

i wonder if there's government prodding to the editors over regular news coverage sometimes - it's like when the government were stacking tanks up around heathrow and saying johhny jihad was standing around in hyde park with a rocket launcher waiting for planes to pass overhead - all the stations reported it as a bit of a joke, but within a couple of hours the coverage was deadly serious, if a little confused. another example is any of the big protests - i've been at 3 i can think of where the numbers were in the 100s of 1000s but you get home and watch the news and it has a police estimate of less than 100,000 and they only show footage from some empty side street late in the day.

Post by **seremtan** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 10:13 am

Canidae wrote:Do you have any links to the said "fake news releases"?
I'd like to judge them myself as to their deceptiveness.
Afterall I wasn't aware that the existing media has a monopoly on how governments present themselves.
I don't have time to look at all those links right now. I'll get back to them tomorrow.

I think you're missing the point here. The question isn't "how accurate are the govt's fake news stories?" but "why is govt issuing fake news stories in the first place?"

There's nothing wrong with govt selling itself to people via the media - that's that party political broadcasts are for. However they are clearly labelled as such so there can be no misunderstanding and blurring of the distinction between the media and the govt. When that line IS blurred, it's detrimental to democracy (which is meaningful only where there is publicly-accessible and INDEPENDENT information about what govt is doing). If people can be conned into thinking govt agitprop is 'news' (which they have been, judging from that Reuters story), then democracy suffers.

Post by **Nightshade** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 1:52 pm

Canidae wrote:Have you ever vetted the source of this story, or do you just believe it because its what you want to hear?

That reads more like a slanted editorial from the desk of the likes of Dan Rather than a convincing piece of unbiased journalism.
But then I'm Canadian so I guess I never heard " Washington has been rocked by the scandal of fake journalists. The Bush administration has been paying actors to produce news, paying journalists to write propaganda, and paying Republican party members to pose as journalists. In the UK this has been reported with our customary shake of the head at the bizarre nature of US politics and media."
I did hear that one gentleman (Mr. Gannon) was pecked to death in the "liberals only allowed" hen house that is the Whitehouse press corp but that was it. I guess these hordes of fake,non liberal journalist stories have not made it north of the border yet.
Can you point out to me some of these other fake journalists for me?
I'm also wondering if these British Forces Broadcasting Service journalists are considered journalist only when "sufficiently liberal" governments are voted into office in the UK to restrain them or does the "liberal media" simply keep quiet in their criticisms during those periods.

There sure is a lot of fake news out there.

What color is the sky in your world? It's funny that people like yo make comments about Dan Rather after he broadcast a single story that turned out to be erroneous, a story that he had NO INVOLVEMENT with prior to it being handed to him. There was an entire staff supposedly responsible for vetting that story.
You pompous, ignorant prick, do you know ANYTHING about Dan Rather? He was an outstanding old-school reporter for his entire career prior to becoming an anchor. He gained a good bit of notoriety by SHREDDING Bush Sr. in an interview. Don't you dare lump him in with the gang of fucking pussies that inhabit the White House press room now.

Post by **MKJ** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 1:56 pm

you tell 'm, NS

Post by **Nightshade** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 1:58 pm

Grrrr

Post by **blood.angel** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 2:05 pm

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q= ... orts&meta=

Teh medicare thing the US govt scammed its citizens into is an excellent example of propoganda posing as news.
The US is a joke nation now.

Post by **blood.angel** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 2:14 pm

And as for the BBC, after the David Kelly affair (sexed up documents used to goto war leading to his suicide and Blair being found not guilty by a friend he selected to head the investigation) the BBC toned down any anti-govt anti-war news.
But nowadays most of the UK can see Iraq was a major corrupt fuck up without the need the propoganda, and with an election coming up here the BBC have gone back to normal reporting.

Post by **R00k** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 2:31 pm

Yes, the article is more of an investigative op-ed, but I wasn't aware of the fact that a lot of the programs aired are made by the SSVC, which is run and controlled by the Ministry of Defence, and I imagine a lot of Brits didn't know that either.

I've always thought it a little strange that the BBC was funded and run by the UK government (or you could say 'outsourced' I guess), and that there are no laws against it over there, but it has always seemed to work well, and the BBC is a pretty solid news source, which has been extrememly critical of the government on many issues.

But part of the SSVC's mission statement is 'Our work makes a considerable contribution to the maintenance of the efficiency and morale of the three Services. Our activities are carried out directly for the Ministry of Defence.' -- and over here, that alone would be troubling to me. Even if they were not playing up propaganda for Defence, the potential for that type of abuse seems pretty obvious, possibly only requiring one or two well-placed people to determine how the stories might be slanted one way or the other.

Post by **R00k** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 2:38 pm

BTW, Dan Rather got fucked, and I don't think he even fits in a conversation like this. He reported a story which was given to him by his office - it wasn't his story, he was just a reporter, a talking head at that point. It almost seems like Rather was too popular and too trusted by the public, so he lost his career just to let the public know that the one story he reported contained one piece of information that wasn't vetted properly.

Which is beside the point anyway, because everybody with a brain knows that Bush skipped out on his Guard duty. None of his records can be found, and the ones that can, only highlight the conspicuous time that he was missing. But if anybody should have been fired for airing those forged documents as some kind of proof, it should be the people who vetted and approved the story, not Dan Rather.

Post by **Freakaloin** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 2:46 pm

what happened to Canidae? did he own himself away with his misdirected smugness?

Post by **shadd_.** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 6:12 pm

Nightshade wrote:
Canidae wrote:Have you ever vetted the source of this story, or do you just believe it because its what you want to hear?

That reads more like a slanted editorial from the desk of the likes of Dan Rather than a convincing piece of unbiased journalism.
But then I'm Canadian so I guess I never heard " Washington has been rocked by the scandal of fake journalists. The Bush administration has been paying actors to produce news, paying journalists to write propaganda, and paying Republican party members to pose as journalists. In the UK this has been reported with our customary shake of the head at the bizarre nature of US politics and media."
I did hear that one gentleman (Mr. Gannon) was pecked to death in the "liberals only allowed" hen house that is the Whitehouse press corp but that was it. I guess these hordes of fake,non liberal journalist stories have not made it north of the border yet.
Can you point out to me some of these other fake journalists for me?
I'm also wondering if these British Forces Broadcasting Service journalists are considered journalist only when "sufficiently liberal" governments are voted into office in the UK to restrain them or does the "liberal media" simply keep quiet in their criticisms during those periods.

There sure is a lot of fake news out there.
What color is the sky in your world? It's funny that people like yo make comments about Dan Rather after he broadcast a single story that turned out to be erroneous, a story that he had NO INVOLVEMENT with prior to it being handed to him. There was an entire staff supposedly responsible for vetting that story.
You pompous, ignorant prick, do you know ANYTHING about Dan Rather? He was an outstanding old-school reporter for his entire career prior to becoming an anchor. He gained a good bit of notoriety by SHREDDING Bush Sr. in an interview. Don't you dare lump him in with the gang of fucking pussies that inhabit the White House press room now.

fuck yeah, we need more like dan rather. guys that atually get to the bottom of the fucking story regardless. the guy genuinely gave a shit, thats what set him apart from most.