piercing the propaganda: a pure play for primate primacy?

MediaLens | What would it take for journalists to seriously challenge government propaganda? A war with over one million dead, four million refugees, a country’s infrastructure shattered, and the increased threat of retail ‘terror’ in response to the West’s wholesale ‘terror’? How horrifying do even very recent experiences have to be, how great the war crimes, before media professionals begin to exhibit scepticism towards Western governments’ hyping of yet another ‘threat’. Why is warmongering the default mode for the corporate media?

On Channel 4 News, the famed ‘pinko-liberal’ news presenter Jon ‘Six Pilgers’ Snow intoned ominously:

‘It is still not a nuclear weapon, but an upgrading of Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium ostensibly for its nuclear power plant.’ (C4 News headlines, February 15, 2012)

‘Still’ not a nuclear weapon - not yet? - but the primary focus is absolutely on an alleged military threat that does not actually exist. Foreign correspondent Jonathan Miller added:

‘This development does not bring Iran any closer to building a bomb… But if Tehran is trying to convince the world that its purpose is peaceful, no-one’s buying it...' (C4 News, ‘Iran reveals its latest step in nuclear arms’, February 15, 2012)

That is not quite true, as we will see below. Miller added:

'This may look like the set of a 70s Bond movie, but this is the Natanz reactor…’

The reference is telling - much media reporting does seem to be inspired by a Bond movie vision of the world. Token balance was provided:

‘There’s no evidence that Iran is intending to construct a nuclear weapon.’

This put Snow’s opening comment in perspective. A more accurate version would have been: ‘It is still not evidence that Iran has plans to build a nuclear weapon.’

Instead, the required propaganda pitch was clear. Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was defiantly sticking ‘two fingers up to the UN and a hostile world’. As ever, it is 'us' (the 'world') versus 'them'. Miller continued:

‘The 74 million people of the Islamic republic are paying a high price for their leader’s defiance.’

As in Iraq, the Bad Guys, not the West, are responsible for any suffering caused. No question that Israel, the US and its allies bear any responsibility for the tension, or the lethal effects of sanctions.