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I recently heard Jeremy Bowen, the BBC correspondent, claim that the world had failed Syria. The message being that “we” should have been more involved. In fact the world has been involved in Syria, NATO has blown whole towns to pieces and the Russians and Iranians are helping Assad to exterminate people hectare by hectare. There can be absolutely no doubt that the world being involved has exacerbated the problem.
I heard Orla Gerin, the BBC Correspondent, covering the attacks on the EU border by young Afghan, Iranian and Syrian men in such a way that the closure of the border was held to be the cause of the problems. The message was clear from repeated coverage of the irresponsible father who carried his toddler into the water cannon and tear gas zone: “aren’t the Greeks terrible to use water canon and tear gas on these poor toddlers?”.
It is not that these correspondents are actually mad, they are just seeking victims and villains to simplify every event. They have been trained to do this. They are bad not mad. They believe that their popularity ratings and approval rating from management trump all other considerations. They are entertainers who convert every report into fairy tales of “good” versus evil. The only problem is that they have no idea of the “good”.
Media correspondents are deliberately simplifying events. In the case of the Greek border there was almost no mention that EU Border control is the responsibility of Frontex, the EU border force. There is little mention in the reports on migrants of Turkey’s Syrian offensive to protect some remnant of Syria for refugees. There was little if any mention of the EU being proud that arrivals of migrants have been drastically reduced – down 97% in the Eastern Mediterranean and 80% in the Central Mediterranean.” (State of the Union Speech).
The correspondents are bad but the net effect of all the correspondents in the broadcast media is mad. It is devoid of reason.
What can we do about this? The press is supposed to accurately inform the population about events in the world. Nowadays they just spin fairy tales. If nothing is done schools must educate children to regard the news media as the source of fairy tales and entirely ignore it as a reliable source of anything. How the BBC came to be the leading light of media madness is a profound mystery given that the BBC Charter explicitly charges the BBC with providing a balanced, unbiased and truthful approach. The BBC fails entirely on “balance” because it excludes the context of reports so that it can focus on the good vs evil fairy tale.
This post was originally published by the author on his personal blog: https://pol-check.blogspot.com/2020/03/media-madness.html
