I was amused by the NY Time's coverage of the alleged "secret" nuclear evidence that the IAEA is supposedly hiding from the world:
The Obama administration and its European allies are pressing the International Atomic Energy Agency to make public evidence that they believe points toward an Iranian drive to gain the ability to build a nuclear weapon...
Not "alleged evidence", no. Just "evidence". The assumption that such evidence exists, which the IAEA has refused to "make public" is built into the reporting.
[As a sidenote: see how the US official is quoted in the NY TImes as saying "What we and all the allies are pressing for is for the full case to be laid out, in public” -- nevermind that the US has thus far refused to make the Laptop of Death and the documents therein available in full for the IAEA and the world to judge its veracity and to allow Iran an opportunity to disprove.]
[Second sidenote: note how Iran is supposedly gaining "the ability" to make a bomb -- not the bomb itself. Not mentioned is that about 40 countries already have "the ability" to make a bomb since any country with any nuclear program is theoretically "able" to one day make a bomb if it so decides. The whole case against Iran is based on deliberately confusing "capabilities" and "intent to acquire abilities" with actual bomb-building. Not that the NY Times would care to explain that little bit of deliberate obfuscation.]
This reminded me of an article I read in the New Statesman back in 2004 entitled "The Myth of the Neutral Reporter":
Last month, the BBC's Washington correspondent, Ian Pannell, reported
that George W Bush was under pressure to ensure he had a policy "to deal
with the threat from Iran". Not the alleged threat, but "the threat".
This kind of subliminal propaganda primed the public to support an
attack on Iraq...To understand why reporters consistently fail to challenge even the most
obvious government deceptions, we need to look at the origins of
"professional journalism." Early last century, the industrialisation of
the press, and the associated high cost of newspaper production, allowed
wealthy capitalists backed by advertisers to achieve dominance in the
mass media. Unable to compete, the previously flourishing radical press
was pushed to the margins.
The notion of "balanced" and "professional" journalism was invented at
the same time. The American media analyst Robert McChesney explains:
"Savvy publishers understood that they needed to have their journalism
appear neutral and unbiased, notions entirely foreign to the journalism
of the era of the Founding Fathers, or their businesses would be far
less profitable." By promoting education in formal "schools of
journalism", owners could claim that autonomous editors and reporters
made decisions based on professional judgement, rather than the needs of
bosses and advertisers. Owners could then sell their media monopoly as a
"neutral" service to the community.
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