AND FINALLY

So Wikileaks published a new shed-load of documents evidencing the extent of systematic torture perpetrated in Iraq, and the official policy of tolerating it (see SchNEWS 728). A damning indictment that even the mainstream media couldn’t quite afford to ignore. Here at last is cast-iron proof of the horrors committed in ‘our’ name (i.e. the masses who consume and pay for mass media). The fourth estate rising up and holding the elites to account? Outrage, calls for heads to roll, a vote of no confidence in the powers-that-be and the launch of national campaigns demanding complete reform?

Er, no. With a sprinkling of exceptions, the loyal lackeys working for Murdoch and other assorted media moguls and corporate paymasters zeroed in instead on the public frontman of Wikileaks, Justin Assange. They immediately ‘honed in’ on the most newsworthy angle of the whole story: analysing the attire and personal appearance of Assange.

Cue a rash of articles condoning the release of the inconvenient truth as ‘morally irresponsible’, mixed with smear-tastic attempts to infer Assange’s appearance meant the whole thing was somehow shadowy, creepy or slightly sinister. I mean, compared to pointy winklepickers, what’s a bit of torture?

This has all conveniently acted as fodder for a PR damage limitation exercise by the military, attempting to steer the masses into a collective shrug of a shoulder rather than a violent retch of outright disgust.

Yet more proof, as if we needed it, of how the elites control the masses, setting the dominant discourses and frames of acceptable political thought. Luckily for us, an award-worthy group of disaffected journos and unabashed Chomsky fans are out there everyday trawling through all this mass propaganda and documenting the most obvious hypocrisies and mass distortions - in this story and many others. It saves us from having to read any of it. See www.medialens.org