‘Mainstream’ journalists “become press spokesmen for Boris Johnson” and “passing on smears and lies” instead of “doing the job of a journalist”
Highly-respected journalist and commentator Peter Oborne has appeared on Channel 4 News to accuse Boris Johnson and his advisers of “total unscrupulousness” in putting out fake news and narratives – and “a very large number of very senior journalists” of failing to do “the job of a journalist”.
Oborne – a Conservative supporter – went on to mention the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg and ITV’s Robert Peston as examples of journalists instead simply passing on Number 10’s leaks and briefings so uncritically that they “become effectively press spokesmen for Boris Johnson and… Dominic Cummings”.
This allows Johnson and Cummings to say one thing officially and then convey an entirely different – and often completely untrue – narrative in the public sphere.
Journalists who should know better are “shamelessly” propagating Downing Street “propaganda and fake news” – or even “smears, lies, fake news” – as Oborne describes it in an excellent new article on the Open Democracy site, accompanied by examples.
To the obvious consternation of his Channel 4 interviewer, Oborne didn’t pull any punches – even naming his own employers at the Daily Mail as regular participants:
SKWAWKBOX view:
This carefully-constructed mechanism for misleading the nation has existed for years, worsening significantly when then-PM David Cameron installed many Tories in positions of power in the BBC, and was routinely exploited by previous Tory governments.
But under the even more ‘total unscrupulousness’ of Boris Johnson and his handlers, it has become a cancer sickening and disabling our democracy.
Well done Peter Oborne for a clear and fearless denunciation.
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I doff me proverbial to him (in this instance). And for spewing the torygraph for it’s advertising masqerading as *ahem* ‘journalism’.
But never forget that he said the mail doesn’t tell lies…
Peter Oborne a man with the intellectual integrity and moral strength to admit when that he was wrong.
https://youtu.be/YXyXp-av9OA
Thank you Peter Oborne . The BBC has fallen into a propaganda mouthpiece and we have nearly lost our democracy . None of the mainstream media has kept its impartiality.
I’ve posted a link to Oborne’s original article for ‘Open Democracy’ elsewhere :
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/british-journalists-have-become-part-of-johnsons-fake-news-machine/
Oborne is consistently a member of the dwindling set of ‘proper’ journalists.
It has been so obvious that something dark force has been going on within journalism and journalists. Since, Cameron, I am not surprised. There were many strange things that did not make sense and are so many insidious news againt Corbyn are now almost recognised, is a good news. The source is from Conservative supporter is even better. Thanks Peter Oborne.
It was going on a loooong time before cameron, Kumiko-san.
Even before murdoch, believe it or not. Although they’re a lot more careful not to appear as overtly racist as they were in the 1930’s
For example…
https://wingsoverscotland.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/blackshirts-460×206.jpg
Oborne’s remarks highlight the inexplicable-except in the most sordid factional terms- failure of the Labour Party to set up its own newspaper.
One of the reasons why fake news is so pervasive is that there is no competing narrative except the uncoordinated and often contradictory articles in social media.
Labour having a pool of well briefed and articulate spokespeople available for TV and radio would be a good start.
How about having MP’s that stick to protocol and respecting policy, rather than doing as they please… Which leads to the public understandably getting the notion that the party’s split and has no clear direction?
It is the leavers who are defying the party whip.
And you know full well I was talking about watson and starmer behaving like spoilt little twats, acting as they please and steamrollering their demands into policy by not so veiled coercion (in fatberg slime’s case especially)
The majority of Labour’s members and supporters support a CV and staying in the EU.
… and Lavery?
Just making the point about goose sauce to keep a balance.
But apart from that – who wants robots as representatives? We can argue about their motives and judgement in particular circumstances, but I don’t want ‘follow my leader’ as the only game in parliament – that’s for kids.
The other thing is that the informed electorate don’t want it, either.
steve h – change the fucking record and leave that dead horse alone, you godawful bore.
rh thinks it’ll be clever to mention Lavery.
Don’t see Lavery running to the media every 10 minutes like waldorf & statler; telling the world ‘This is what’s happening/gonna happen’ WITHOUT ANYTHING BEING AGREED BY ANYONE…Thereby throwing the issue and the public’s perception of party policy as split/divided when the policy was quite clear – had the chance to explain it to the media clearly and concisely, without those two kumquats opening their useless, crying mushes, been given.
And I don’t see Lavery making shitkicking veiled threats if he doesn’t get his way, unlike fatberg slime…
Nice try…but another fail.
Toffee – The majority of the Labour Party’s membership and supporters are firmly united behind a CV and staying in the EU.
SteveH 24/10/2019 at 7:04 pm · ·
Toffee – The majority of the Labour Party’s membership and supporters are firmly united behind a CV and staying in the EU.
————————————————————————–
So fucking WHAT? It was thus when the POLICY in the MANIFESTO was to RESPECT the referendum result, too.
That was until the fat useless fucker and the axle-greased barnet started crying to tbe media every 10 seconds because they weren’t gettenig their way, with fatberg making veiled threats and both of them briefing the press with shite that was entirely in conflict with RESPECTING the ref result as in the MANIFESTO, when THAT was the AGREED-UPON POLICY.
It wasn’t the media deliberately getting it wrong then – it was those two knobheads kicking up a right fucking shitstorm and bollocksing the public’s perception of party policy.
And YOU supported them with your complicit passivity.
The Toffee (597) at 7:17 pm
It is a little difficult to ascertain what you are saying amongst all the very childish expletives that you always resort to when you you are desperate but am I to take it that you are opposed to Labour MPs representing the views of the membership.
Ususal bollocks again from the all too predictable steve h.
As soon as I use a few ‘naughty’ words he pretends he doesnt understand me. Led such a sheltered life has steve that he can’t understand ‘industrial language’.
Yes – he’s THAT desperate.
As soon as you’re found out it’s either yawn emojis or this cop-out.
What a spineless sadsack, shithouse, pathetic attempt at a troll you are….If you understand THAT, that is.
Pfft!
Awww didums. it’s not my fault you haven’t anything left to say but expletives.
“rh thinks it’ll be clever to mention Lavery”
No. Nothing ‘clever’. Just keeping a balance in this constant banging on about righteousness.
… and Watson and Starmer are not of the same ilk.
There are 2 journalists working for the Daily Mail that I would give the time of day to; one is Peter Oborne & the other Peter Hitchens, both can construct powerful arguments that often challenge the ‘dominant narrative’.
Oborne has become the champion of Palestinian People’s basic Human Rights & has written powerfully about the slaughter perpetrated by IDF, but I question whether the ‘establishment’ MSM is supportive of Boris Johnson who is not only a ‘Leaver’, but also a misogynistic friend of Donald Trump. MSM will often ridicule Johnson & conflate Boris with the Donald.
There is a serious problem with impartiality in MSM as journalists construct dominant narratives to promote their own bourgeois ideologies, manufacturing consent rather than any form of criticism. Question more?
If cynical/ searching questions are to be expected then I’ll ask oborne: ‘Are you planning on taking the murdoch shilling anytime soon?’
The sceptic in me sees oborne – a reporter that has had high profile columns in ‘high-end’ (For want of a better term) papers, rather than a junior or freelance – as in a postion to install himself as a ‘voice of reason’ or ‘maverick’ within his profession.
I don’t think it’d do his stock any harm. Not when the likes of the utterly fooking useless SNITCH oakeshitt can become a ‘political editor at large’ after GRASSING up a source – THE biggest no-no in the business.
So, oborne…Is it a genuine lament at the quality of the ‘talent’ within your vocation, OR are you bored at the heil and angling for a lucrative contract from the murdoch?
It’s a fair question; asked in the interests of transparency.
Oborne has been a consistent contrarian rather than a poodle.
Remember – it’s ten years since he first raised the issue of the Israel Lobby, and he resigned from the Torygraph over a matter of principle.
I also remember Oborne saying although he didn’t support some of Corbyn’s policies, he respected his honesty and integrity
The fact that a lone MSM journalist’s rare outburst of honesty in a sea of lies is so noteworthy does more than merely shame his profession, the media, the privileged classes, the government, the nation and our species.
Lies passed off as truth are essential to the economic system that we finally see is putting at extreme risk the continued existence of all higher life forms on the only planet available to the only example of intelligent life in the known Universe.
Whilst it’s true that we’ve only recently become aware of the nature and the causes of the threat we haven’t responded to that new understanding with anything approaching intelligence.
… which is actually the thrust of Oborne’s article.
You’re right that this is now a rarity. But the breed of ‘proper’ (i.e. thinkers and analysts rather than mouthpieces) journalists does still exist. Just.
One of the markers of the decline is that local journalism is virtually dead – the training ground for apprentices who did boring stuff such as sitting in council meetings or collecting actual facts about unremarkable local events – and listened. The breed is extinct, long substituted by the sort of local reporter who once asked me whether I’d just given him a ‘bollocking’ over his lazy distortions, and then – with a straight face said :
“Well – you’ve got to make a story”
Note the implications of ‘make’.
I have stopped my Morning Star subs. Looks like it’s just going to be the net. Cheers.
A good article on the same subject by Gary Younge – one of the Groan’s ‘real’ journalists :
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/25/deference-powerful-media
Thanks for sharing link by Younge. Shared to back up Oborne.