I WROTE a column when President Trump was in his first term, which acknowledged what he had said about the mainstream media in the US.
Of course, the question remains as to if President Trump would have condemned the mainstream media if he was not at the receiving end. But he was right to point out how shameless their bias is when they want to get at someone or an organisation.
Our own international economist, Maurice Odle, in his autobiography, had this to say about the Western media: “The mainstream media (and the international distribution outlets such as Reuters and Associated Press) in the West, act not as watch dog but lap-dog. This is particularly the case in the USA, where there are no debates aired relating to USA foreign policy and, when a crisis or important development abroad occurs, the speakers invited to comment are invariably military, national security and other establishment figures, and academics and NGO figures are rarely ever invited.”
This is the Western media for you that we grew up with under colonialism. A picture was painted for us that we subliminally accepted that the Western media are the standard bearer in journalism. Nothing could be further from the truth. Before we move to news blackout on the damage Iran has inflicted on Israel (for God’s Sake, why Iran doesn’t finish the job), let’s look at two cases of murder that the Western painted as suicide.
John Barnett worked for 30 years at one of the world’s richest and powerful corporations, Boeing. Days before his death, Barnett was speaking publicly about safety standards at Boeing. Barnett actually accused Boeing of criminal neglect in production parts. He was found dead in his truck in the hotel compound where he checked in to testify against Boeing the next day. His death was ruled as a suicide and the American press simply ignored his case.
Then there was the death of Jeffery Epstein. He tried to kill himself in his jail cell and was put under 24 hours surveillance. One morning he was found hanging. The night before, his cell mate was removed and after his passing, the cameras were found not to be working. Suicide was the official verdict. Both Barnett and Epstein were murdered and we will never know how (we know why) because the “phenomenal courage” of the Western media that they instilled in us in the colonies to accept, suddenly vanished in the deaths of Barnet and Epstein.
Now consider this. Two critics of a Prime Minister or a President in a country in the Global South are found dead and the official explanation is suicide. Immediately, the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, BBC, Daily Mail, and the entire school of Western media are on a plane to investigate the deaths. This is the Western media for you.
It has been five weeks since Israel and Iran have gone to war. Pick up any mainstream Western newspaper or watch any television news and there is an absolute news blackout of the damage Israel is enduring. And the damage has been extensive. What has happened in that war is that the military might of Israel has been found to be bogus.
Israel’s military might lies in bombing Gaza and Lebanon where there are no armies to engage them. They simply fly over villages where civilians live and kill civilians by the thousands. Armed with their own self-deception, they think they could do the same to Iran. Israel, a mere 8,000 square miles with a mere eight million people, was given a rude awakening.
How do we know that Iran has beaten them badly? We cannot get that information from the Western media. We get it from podcasts that tell the true story of what is happening to Israel. It is important to understand where this military invincibility of Israel came from. It came from over 60 years of reporting from the Western media.
The Western media hyped up the might of Israel and now we see that might lying in rubbles in Tel Aviv. One final point about the subliminal effect of the Western media on people’s mind. Did you ever read where any prime minister or president in any country referred to then elected head of Hungary, Victor Orban as a strong man? None ever did. That was the description the Western media gave him.
Orban just lost power in a national election and read what is being written about him, not by any prime minister or president in any country but by the Western media. They describe him as the fallen poster boy of President Putin. This is the Western media for you.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.
