Aby The Liberal

Aby April 24th, 2007

I discussed a few days back about how corporates influence a lot of what is fed to the public using the powerful psychological tool called media. A similar method of control and influence of news is used by governments in some countries. To remove public doubts about the news given to them, the catchphrase ‘Freedom of Press” is used. If you have read the clauses of Freedom of Press laws in USA or Australia and compared them to that of Belgium, France or Sweden you would realise that the “Freedom of Press” laws in US or Australia is mere eyewash aimed at the gullible. China’s CPC government openly restricts press citing national interests and the public are aware of it which makes them search for alternative sources when the official sources are not so easy to digest. In US or Australia there isn’t much initiative by the people to search for facts and truth which makes them easy target for biased reporting. As long as things are in their comfort zone they do not care about how many people die around the world due to wars and conflicts created by a few despot countries.

A US Military press release in Pentagon during the 2003 Gulf War

The methods mentioned below are a few of the ones used to influence and control flow of information and news by the military

• In a war situation by US on enemy countries a process called pooling is used to control the flow of what is given out to public. In this process, a small number of journalists are given military press releases and their version of events with edited tapes which are then reported as ‘exclusive reports’. This method was extensively used in Korean and Vietnam conflicts.




• During the invasion if Iraq in 2003, reporters of US and UK were embedded. This meant they were fed, housed and transported with the coalition forces often preventing them from reporting the other side of the conflict.




• A lot of propaganda photo shoots were generated by distributing relief to a small number of peasants and children for Public Relations image building. This helped keep the public outrage low a la the style of Joseph Stalin of ex-USSR




• Apart from the strife torn West Asia, countries elsewhere in the world which try to be economically self sufficient (viz. Nicaragua or Venezuela) are given a negative light by the media




• The achievemens of the government of Cuba in health service and public support of Fidel Castro are completely ignored and Cuba is shown as an evil communist state because it decided to be self sufficient




• Independent Arabic television stations like Al Jazeera which exposed the Haditha, Abu Gharib and a few other war crimes in Iraq had their offices bombed and reporters sent to torture camps by the CIA

If you wish not to be clouded by such biased and managed media reporting and want be a true global citizen with an open mind and outlook, try to get news from alternative sources like internet, foreign channels, etc. If you live in Arab countries where media access is highly controlled and regulated, you can use proxy services. I will make a post about how to evade governmental internet filters in the near future.

• Internationalism , Media Control , America
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