The poisonous drip of misinformation

Thursday, December 11, 2008

The poisonous drip of misinformation

One significant difference between this recession and the last (and the ones preceding it) is the way newspapers are being hit – mostly through a devastating fall in the amount of advertising, although there are many other factors. 

Quietly, the big titles are downsizing, reducing the number of journalists they employ. Then, with the burgeoning number of pages and supplements they have to offer, plus podcasts, TV clips and the rest, journalists are actually being asked to do more and more, giving them less time to devote to research and real in-depth reporting.

An important side-effect of this is that, increasingly, the news is not generated by newspapers but by the various agencies. Much of the copy is now simply a "cut and paste" job, with a few tweaks, the less honest of the papers then simply adding their journos' names to the final result.

Where this gets important is that a very few news agencies (and then a very few journalists within those agencies) are essentially controlling the print (and indeed much of the rest of the electronic) media. 

Through this means, one sees insidious distortions and simplifications which completely change the context of the political debate. And, like water flowing through the cracks in the dam, they percolate everywhere, finding their way into thousands of print and online journals, influencing the way people think about the world.

By way of example, today we have today a comment by Declan Ganley and Jens-Peter Bonde on the scandalous behaviour of the Irish government, in forcing through another referendum on the constitutional Lisbon treaty. As to what is put to the Irish people, "Not one word or legal obligation will be changed," they say. "The same content will simply be put in a new envelope, just as Valery Giscard d'Estaing said about the change from the Constitution to the Lisbon." 

The we have AP briefly reporting on the same issue, under the heading, "EU: Ireland will vote again on treaty next year". This will be repeated a thousand-fold across the world, to be read by millions.

The distortions are well evident, but only to those who know. It tells us: "France, which holds the EU presidency, says Ireland would hold a second vote in return for changes in the treaty." Then, of course, we get the bog-standard formula for describing the treaty: "The document is meant to streamline EU decision-making and boost its role on the world stage…".

As the Ganley – Bonde duo rightly point out – the best the Irish can get is a few meaningless "declarations" which have no legal effect. There will be no changes to the treaty … there cannot be. But this is not what AP is projecting. Its idle simplifications are a complete distortion. They project something which is not true.

As for the intent to "streamline EU decision-making …" etc., we could write an essay on how wrong that is … in fact, we have, several times. But the canards survive, because they are convenient, mindless formulae for the agencies to churn out in their bid to supply the endless pap to fill the pages of the world's media.

At the receiving end, you have production-line journalism, concerned only with filling in spaces – not one whit of sentient thought between copying out the agency text and pasting it onto the virgin page. Worse still, this process is not a deliberate attempt to deceive. But that makes it all the more dangerous.

Media bias, in this context, has never been more real and more dangerous, but the source is not in the offices of the media so much as the agencies which supply them. And their poisonous drip of misinformation is endangering the political process.

COMMENT THREAD

Creaking at the seams

There has been a huge amount of media coverage recently about the talks on "climate change", with both the Poznan conference and the EU coming unstuck as the growing recession hits home.

Nevertheless, it seemed best to hold fire until we see the outcome of Poznan and of the European Council (which actually starts today and runs until tomorrow). Offering a blow-by-blow account is rather like reporting on the gibbering of madmen in a lunatic asylum – and about as interesting. The only problem is that these madmen are running the asylum, and many governments as well.

What particularly struck home, however, is just how many of them there are, with a reported 11,600 participants from around the world at the Poznan beano. One wonders – fleetingly – what they can all be doing but, rather like the content of sausages, it is perhaps best not to ask.

Some – witness the picture above - have clearly been entertaining themselves by displaying a banner from the roof of the town's railway station. One hopes they got rather cold in the process.

However, there is some small hope that the lunatics will be shoved back into their padded cells. Recently, we reported that the EU parliament and the Council had agreed a deal on the Renewable Energy Directive, clearing the way for the approval of mandatory biofuel and renewable electricity quotas.

At the eleventh hour, however, up has popped the Austrian government which has questioned the renewables targets and appears to be threatening the whole Directive. The delicious thing about this is that it had done so after the negotiations between the Council and the EP have been finalised.

The significance of this is that, under EU procedure, since there is now an agreed "common position", there is no mechanism for re-opening the negotiations. This could force the EP to end up voting on a position which is different from that which the Council agrees. Under the arcane rules of the game, that would mean the Directive would fall and the "colleagues" would have to start all over again.

As always, there will be frantic, last minute attempts to stitch up the stitch-up, but there is absolutely no room for manoeuvre if Austria really puts its foot down and blocks the deal. The only way out will be to buy off the Austrian government with concessions unrelated to this particular Directive, which may be the prize which is being played for.

Whatever the outcome of that little drama, it does point to the fact that the "consensus" is creaking at the seams. The "colleagues" may just pull it off this time, but it is becoming clearer by the day that they and their fantasies are living on borrowed time.

COMMENT THREAD