During last week’s Tory Cabinet reshuffle, ITV political editor Robert Peston inadvertently summed up the primary function of political journalists:



'I simply pass on'



His tweet was in reference to a ministerial source saying that Priti Patel was ‘not…

A short video introducing our media alert of 22 September 2021, titled:

'Gaslighting The Public: Serial Deceptions By The State-Corporate Media'

https://www.medialens.org/2021/gaslighting-the-public-serial-deceptions-by-the-state-corporate-media/

On one…

In their classic book on the news media, ‘Manufacturing Consent’, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky presented a ‘propaganda model’ of how the major broadcasters and newspapers operate. Whereas the ‘mainstream’ media declare that their aim is to educate, inform…

One of the most damning assessments of COP26, the UN climate conference being held in Glasgow, came from Greta Thunberg, the Swedish climate activist:



‘#COP26 has been named the must excluding COP ever.This is no longer a climate conference.This is a…

A short video introducing our media alert of 22 October 2021, titled:

'Manufacturing Ignorance: Keeping The Public Away From Power'

In their classic book on the news media, ‘Manufacturing Consent’, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky presented a ‘propaganda…

A short video introducing our media alert of 8 November 2021, titled:

‘A Crime Against Humanity’: The ‘Greenwash Festival’ Of COP26

One of the most damning assessments of COP26, the UN climate conference being held in Glasgow, came from Greta Thunberg,…

Huge media coverage has been devoted to allegations, and now serious evidence, that a Christmas party was held at 10 Downing Street on 18 December 2020. London was then in a strict lockdown with social events banned, including parties.



In leaked footage…

If we didn’t have better things to do, it would be a simple matter to produce The Media Lens Book of Obituaries.



The cover might feature grim Death shrouded in tattered newsprint carrying a five-bladed scythe with ‘Ownership’, ‘Advertising’, ‘Sources’…

There has been much gnashing of ‘liberal’ teeth and pulling out of ‘centrist’ hair following the Tory government’s announcement that the BBC licence fee will be abolished in 2027.



Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries declared via Twitter, with a dash of right…

I travelled with my dad – ‘H’, as we called him - in the back seat of the car. It was the same way we’d driven a million times: to Tesco, to drop me off at the station, to drop me off at the airport, to drive up the M25 to my sister’s at Christmas. It was…

‘The American population was bombarded the way the Iraqi population was bombarded. It was a war against us, a war of lies and disinformation and omission of history. That kind of war, overwhelming and devastating, waged here in the US while the Gulf War was…

‘The American population was bombarded the way the Iraqi population was bombarded. It was a war against us, a war of lies and disinformation and omission of history. That kind of war, overwhelming and devastating, waged here in the US while the Gulf War was…

A short video introducing our media alert of 4 March, 2022, titled:

'Doubling Down On Double Standards – The Ukraine Propaganda Blitz'

https://www.medialens.org/2022/doubling-down-on-double-standards-the-ukraine-propaganda-blitz/

Video: Keyvan Minoukadeh…

A short video introducing our media alert of 4 March, 2022, titled:

'Doubling Down On Double Standards – The Ukraine Propaganda Blitz'

https://www.medialens.org/2022/doubling-down-on-double-standards-the-ukraine-propaganda-blitz/

Video: Keyvan Minoukadeh…

As the US economist and media analyst Edward Herman rightly noted in the aftermath of the mass slaughter of the first Gulf War:



‘It is the function of defense intellectuals and other experts, and the mainstream media, to normalize the unthinkable for the…

Humanity’s great Achilles' heel, the flaw that may well determine our fate, was summed up in a couple of lines in the classic Simon & Garfunkel song, ‘The Boxer’:



‘Still a man hears what he wants to hear‘And disregards the rest.’



Women, too! Erich Fromm…

In the terrifying opening to his 2020 novel, ‘The Ministry for the Future’, Kim Stanley Robinson depicts an intense heatwave in India. In an ‘ordinary town’ in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, people are struggling to cope with unbearable heat and humidity.…

In 1990, Tom Cruise, star of the 1986 blockbuster, ‘Top Gun’, said:



‘Some people felt that “Top Gun” was a right-wing film to promote the Navy. And a lot of kids loved it. But I want the kids to know that’s not the way war is - that “Top Gun” was just…

Have you ever ambled back from your favourite watering hole, enjoying the peace of the night, only to have your tranquillity trashed by a shrill call of nature that intensifies the closer you come to your destination? Ten minutes from home, peace prevails;…