Swiss Propaganda Research — The Propaganda Multiplier: How Global News Agencies and Western Media Report on Geopolitics

It is one of the most important aspects of our media system, and yet hardly known to the public: most of the international news coverage in Western media is provided by only three global news agencies based in New York [AP], London [Reuters] and Paris [AFP]....

Why you can't always (ever?) believe what you see and hear on "the news," which is actually an echo chamber.The obvious question is, echoing whose voices? The article attempts to answer this but the subject is purposefully oblique and amorphous.

At the same time, actual news is dismissed as fake and investigative reporting is dismissed as conspiracy theory, while whistleblowers are persecuted and if possible prosecuted, while "anonymous sources" are treated as authoritative.

This would all remain unknown if it were not for the Internet, and the powers that be are now seeking to regain control of the narrative by introduction censorship, either directly or indirectly by "de-platforming."

This is incompatible with a functioning democracy, whether direct or representative.

True Publica
The Propaganda Multiplier: How Global News Agencies and Western Media Report on Geopolitics
Swiss Propaganda Research

See also

Russia Insider
The Oligarch Takeover of US media

John Hellevig

Zero Hedge — Ten Bombshell Revelations From Seymour Hersh's New Autobiography

The cream of Sy Hersh's autobiography.

From a recent The Intercept interview and book review — If Hersh were a superhero, this would be his origin story. Two hundred and seventy-four pages after the Chicago anecdote, he describes his coverage of a massive slaughter of Iraqi troops and civilians by the U.S. in 1991 after a ceasefire had ended the Persian Gulf War. America’s indifference to this massacre was, Hersh writes, “a reminder of the Vietnam War’s MGR, for Mere Gook Rule: If it’s a murdered or raped gook, there is no crime.” It was also, he adds, a reminder of something else: “I had learned a domestic version of that rule decades earlier” in Chicago.
“Reporter” demonstrates that Hersh has derived three simple lessons from that rule:

• The powerful prey mercilessly upon the powerless, up to and including mass murder.
• The powerful lie constantly about their predations.
• The natural instinct of the media is to let the powerful get away with it....

Morons, or psychopaths and sociopaths, or a combination of both?

Zero Hedge
Ten Bombshell Revelations From Seymour Hersh's New Autobiography

Tyler Durden

Mainstream Media and Imperial Power — Dennis Bernstein and Randy Credico interview John Pilger

Noted journalist and filmmaker John Pilger’s collection of work has been archived by the British Library, but deep-rooted problems of Western media create an increasingly difficult landscape for ethical journalism, as Pilger explained in an interview with Dennis Bernstein and Randy Credico....

Consortium News
Mainstream Media and Imperial Power

Dennis Bernstein and Randy Credico interview John Pilger

Betsy Reed — Naomi Klein to Cover Shocks of Trump Era for The Intercept

I AM EXTREMELY happy to announce that Naomi Klein has joined The Intercept as senior correspondent.

The Intercept
Naomi Klein to Cover Shocks of Trump Era for The Intercept
Betsy Reed