PLEASE FAST-FORWARD to end of blogpost (for necessary disclaimer)...that is, if at all troubled in the meantime by anything you happen to read herein...
So if Donald Trump, 'Bojo' (and 'anti-vaccers', 1080 opponents, anti-fluoridationists et al) are the
only, the chief purveyors of so-called fake news...
...then prithee tell me...why don't/how come...
ye mainstream media
#give hardly a brass razoo of notice/publicity/acknowledgement to the recent passing/death of one of the world's foremost environmentalists - and certainly most memorable and eloquent communicators thereof, the indomitable, indefatigable, and genuinely 'unique' (& yes, 'old-style' and 'old-fashioned') Brit David Bellamy...unless it's because he happens to come down upon the 'wrong' side of arguably the defining issue of our times...?
#have effectively ignored the extremely disturbing recently-publicized accusations of rape by the political icon, longtime Aussie Prime Minister Sir Robert ('Bob') Hawke against one of his daughters?
the alternative, Left-wing media
#Have, amidst their rather endless diatribes against and vitriol towards British-P.M.-elect Boris Johnson, incidentally just returned in a generation-defining, historic and *well-nigh unprecedented stonking landslide win, which has pretty well upended and reset the United Kingdom's electoral map and political landscape for years and even decades to come, barely if at all mentioned/covered/ detailed (let alone footnoted) the controversy surrounding/UK-wide condemnation of Labour's now caretaker leader Jeremy Corbyn's extremely problematic, unpalatable and **offensive fraternizing with anti-semitism and some of its most reprehensible acolytes in a way and on a scale unheard of since WW11...in one of its most blatant, in-your-face manifestations (as in the United States of America in the Trump era) since the ***European-wide fascist movements of the 1930s...?
Both such 'wings' of the western media...
#hardly ever devote any, much less 'prime' time - over a fairly long period now (so, no, I'm not 'manufacturing offence' as so many seem to have a proclivity/penchant for these days - just to reassure ya!) to the ****ghastly, horrifying genocide - no, not only of ******China's Uighur and Burma's/Myanmar's Rohinga Muslims, and even (of recent days) India's understandably alarmed (globally, third largest) Muslim population (post recent parliamentary law changes which have sparked nationwide protests and street marches etc)...
...but the ongoing genocide of the ancient Christian peoples of the Middle East...which has apparently effectively reduced their proportion of the population there from 10-20% in centuries gone by to around 1-2% now (and rapidly declining further)...
*Especially for a (now) fourth-term administration...
**So offensive in fact that the United Kingdom's 'chief rabbi' not only denounced the same, and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, but - in what was probably an unprecedented move (certainly post-the 1930s and 1940s) - advised Jews throughout the nation not to vote for JC and the Labour Party...
***As personally studied in detail way back when in 1986 (in my first attempt at a Bachelor of Arts degree) in a Political Studies paper upon 'Totalitarian States' (of the fascist and/or Nazi variety) at my local University of Otago.
****Though, yes, I'll readily grant/concede that *****any and every genocide could be thus described...
...and considering such, what, pray tell me, are we in God's Own/Godzone to make of the palpable - arguably complicit! - silence of not only said media but such 'left-wingers' as those constituting the NZ Green Party itself over the presence in its very midst (and in the House of Representatives, moreover) of a person well-known to have participated in the public defence of some of those implicated in the awful tragedy of civil war-wracked and decimated 1990s' Rwanda!?!?!
Whilst you can bet your bottom dollar that the selfsame helped hound out of the unhallowed halls of said chamber an M.P. who had the perversity of nature to steal a dead child's identity...sickening, I'll readily concede...but are you suggesting it's tantamount to effectively condoning ethnic cleansing (as indeed said aforementioned MP herself did by her actions defending perpetrators of genocide)?!?!?
That is, if we're really, truly, objective and dispassionate in our political views and perspective, as opposed to being in the grip of unthinking, intractable, even irrational ideology and the slave of petty party political partisanship!
******Excepting the Rohinjas (generally reported upon) and the BBC (and New York-based radio show 'Democracy Now') re both Rohinjas and Uighurs; and admittedly increasing elements of the mainstream media are reporting upon these Muslim victims of ethnic cleansing etcetera...
! !ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY/CRUCIAL/CRITICAL DISCLAIMER
(In fact, PLEASE READ without further ado.)
Upon due reflection, with the benefit of five days' hindsight, I now well realize that said fake news (in my title) is itself a misnomer - perhaps an (however unintended) species of the selfsame?!?! That is, at least insofar as the specific illustrations included in my blogpost are concerned...
So, yes, some - serious - reworking of the aforementioned will have to be carried out ASAP, time permitting - which, unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be at the present or for the foreseeable...
So let me simply and briefly include these observations/remarks as I am now doing to 'cover off' said 'questionable' subject-matter, or rather the slant I've happened to take thereupon...
Instead of fake news I doubtless should have posited slanted, unbalanced 'news' (reportage/coverage). Effectively leaving out/omitting the stuff they'd rather not inform you about - for whatever reason.
Further reflections thereupon moreover convince me that my primary beef is not with left-wing media generally, let alone (necessarily) Western mainstream media...but with the so-called media of Aotearoa-New Zealand as such, the broadcasting division - and especially the TV component thereof - which has left much to be desired over recent years and decades...and that's putting matters mildly!
So if Donald Trump, 'Bojo' (and 'anti-vaccers', 1080 opponents, anti-fluoridationists et al) are the
only, the chief purveyors of so-called fake news...
...then prithee tell me...why don't/how come...
ye mainstream media
#give hardly a brass razoo of notice/publicity/acknowledgement to the recent passing/death of one of the world's foremost environmentalists - and certainly most memorable and eloquent communicators thereof, the indomitable, indefatigable, and genuinely 'unique' (& yes, 'old-style' and 'old-fashioned') Brit David Bellamy...unless it's because he happens to come down upon the 'wrong' side of arguably the defining issue of our times...?
#have effectively ignored the extremely disturbing recently-publicized accusations of rape by the political icon, longtime Aussie Prime Minister Sir Robert ('Bob') Hawke against one of his daughters?
the alternative, Left-wing media
#Have, amidst their rather endless diatribes against and vitriol towards British-P.M.-elect Boris Johnson, incidentally just returned in a generation-defining, historic and *well-nigh unprecedented stonking landslide win, which has pretty well upended and reset the United Kingdom's electoral map and political landscape for years and even decades to come, barely if at all mentioned/covered/ detailed (let alone footnoted) the controversy surrounding/UK-wide condemnation of Labour's now caretaker leader Jeremy Corbyn's extremely problematic, unpalatable and **offensive fraternizing with anti-semitism and some of its most reprehensible acolytes in a way and on a scale unheard of since WW11...in one of its most blatant, in-your-face manifestations (as in the United States of America in the Trump era) since the ***European-wide fascist movements of the 1930s...?
Both such 'wings' of the western media...
#hardly ever devote any, much less 'prime' time - over a fairly long period now (so, no, I'm not 'manufacturing offence' as so many seem to have a proclivity/penchant for these days - just to reassure ya!) to the ****ghastly, horrifying genocide - no, not only of ******China's Uighur and Burma's/Myanmar's Rohinga Muslims, and even (of recent days) India's understandably alarmed (globally, third largest) Muslim population (post recent parliamentary law changes which have sparked nationwide protests and street marches etc)...
...but the ongoing genocide of the ancient Christian peoples of the Middle East...which has apparently effectively reduced their proportion of the population there from 10-20% in centuries gone by to around 1-2% now (and rapidly declining further)...
*Especially for a (now) fourth-term administration...
**So offensive in fact that the United Kingdom's 'chief rabbi' not only denounced the same, and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, but - in what was probably an unprecedented move (certainly post-the 1930s and 1940s) - advised Jews throughout the nation not to vote for JC and the Labour Party...
***As personally studied in detail way back when in 1986 (in my first attempt at a Bachelor of Arts degree) in a Political Studies paper upon 'Totalitarian States' (of the fascist and/or Nazi variety) at my local University of Otago.
****Though, yes, I'll readily grant/concede that *****any and every genocide could be thus described...
...and considering such, what, pray tell me, are we in God's Own/Godzone to make of the palpable - arguably complicit! - silence of not only said media but such 'left-wingers' as those constituting the NZ Green Party itself over the presence in its very midst (and in the House of Representatives, moreover) of a person well-known to have participated in the public defence of some of those implicated in the awful tragedy of civil war-wracked and decimated 1990s' Rwanda!?!?!
Whilst you can bet your bottom dollar that the selfsame helped hound out of the unhallowed halls of said chamber an M.P. who had the perversity of nature to steal a dead child's identity...sickening, I'll readily concede...but are you suggesting it's tantamount to effectively condoning ethnic cleansing (as indeed said aforementioned MP herself did by her actions defending perpetrators of genocide)?!?!?
That is, if we're really, truly, objective and dispassionate in our political views and perspective, as opposed to being in the grip of unthinking, intractable, even irrational ideology and the slave of petty party political partisanship!
******Excepting the Rohinjas (generally reported upon) and the BBC (and New York-based radio show 'Democracy Now') re both Rohinjas and Uighurs; and admittedly increasing elements of the mainstream media are reporting upon these Muslim victims of ethnic cleansing etcetera...
! !ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY/CRUCIAL/CRITICAL DISCLAIMER
(In fact, PLEASE READ without further ado.)
Upon due reflection, with the benefit of five days' hindsight, I now well realize that said fake news (in my title) is itself a misnomer - perhaps an (however unintended) species of the selfsame?!?! That is, at least insofar as the specific illustrations included in my blogpost are concerned...
So, yes, some - serious - reworking of the aforementioned will have to be carried out ASAP, time permitting - which, unfortunately, it doesn't appear to be at the present or for the foreseeable...
So let me simply and briefly include these observations/remarks as I am now doing to 'cover off' said 'questionable' subject-matter, or rather the slant I've happened to take thereupon...
Instead of fake news I doubtless should have posited slanted, unbalanced 'news' (reportage/coverage). Effectively leaving out/omitting the stuff they'd rather not inform you about - for whatever reason.
Further reflections thereupon moreover convince me that my primary beef is not with left-wing media generally, let alone (necessarily) Western mainstream media...but with the so-called media of Aotearoa-New Zealand as such, the broadcasting division - and especially the TV component thereof - which has left much to be desired over recent years and decades...and that's putting matters mildly!
No comments:
Post a Comment