‘All I want is some truth, just gimme some truth’ J. Lennon
We do not suffer media proliferation in 2015 so much as multivariate lies and obfuscation. This is not an original thought, but spare a thought tonight if you can for the poor amateur blogger wading through a cesspit of assertion and counter-assertion in search of something even vaguely consonant with the Truth.
Let’s start with this ‘Israel shoots defenceless woman’ story doing the rounds today. This is my annotated version of the photo in question:
Four things: first, the woman is said to be the dead Islamic lady. Said by whom? Second, note the provenance – Youth Against Settlements Group: so then, impeccably objective. Third, when did you ever see a person (from the back only) have a gun pointed at them and stand still? Fourth, when did you last see an Israeli soldier pose without blur for a shot condemning him as a murderer? As a piece of ‘journalism’, this doesn’t meet any test known to Man. NB The ‘journalist’ concerned did not invite any comments. Funny that.
Now let’s move on to Nikita Korbynovich, scourge of thinking democrats everywhere: I couldn’t resist leaving this comment on the thread at a Telegraph hack’s ‘disgust’ at finding herself in the presence of a Radio 4 outside broadcast audience who thought the new Labour leader might have a point. The piece was littered with unsubstantiated accusations of BBC bias:
Finally, onto footie, and the ejection of Eva Carneiro from Chelsea…which (says Oliver Brown) means that ‘the drive to combat sexism in sport has suffered a grievous set-back following the former Chelsea doctor’s exit’. My two pennorth on this one:
The leaden pc prose I refer to there includes passages like ‘it is the precedent set by Carneiro’s sad exit that is genuinely alarming. As the Women in Football group acknowledged, in a strong statement: “She had already been the target of frequent sexist abuse from opposition supporters. We believe that Dr Carneiro’s treatment and ultimate departure from Chelsea sends out a worrying and alienating message to the already small numbers of female medical staff working in the national game.”
I wonder how many women feel grievously set back from their burning ambition to tend to the injuries of overpaid ham actors who can’t even dive convincingly. Mr Brown calls the number of such females ‘already small’ – as if it had at one point been near-ubiquitous.
I loathe undeserved inequality and unearned privilege as much as anyone. But this kind of line-toeing drivel is beyond the pail. Like all three things I’ve highlighted tonight, it is neither news nor analysis: it is just more agendered robots broadcasting how worthy of our respect they are.
Grrrr.
Earlier at The Slog: The yawning canyon between financial markets & economic reality
The Slog 