Britannia Radio

EUREFERENDUM  Blog         3.3.09
By their omissions …

There seems to be some interest in the news that a prime minister of  
a minor country today visited the president of the United States.

But the biggest news by far in Washington comprises two stories –  
firstly that Washington was to be the venue of "the largest mass  
civil disobedience for the climate in US history" and the second,  
that "global warming"  dumped over six inches of snow on the city,  
paralysing movement and reducing the demonstration to a rump of about  
200 cold and disheartened warmists.

The hilarity of the situation was captured by Fox News(*), having  
been flagged up, well in advance by Watts up with that. It was the  
butt of satire from one site, and sombrely noted by National Review.

In the UK, therefore, it is of more than passing interest to note  
that the warmist Daily Telegraph was quick to report, "Snow storm  
carpets US east coast," telling us that, "A snow storm has carpeted  
the eastern United States, forcing the cancellation of thousands of  
flights."

But did it tells us that the event billed as "the largest mass civil  
disobedience for the climate in US history" was effectively cancelled  
by an unseasonable snowfall in what has been the coldest winter for  
at least a decade? Of course not. Despite the obvious news value of  
the juxtaposition, the Telegraph judged that this is something that  
its readers should not know. And if anyone really thinks the omission  
is anything other than deliberate, then they are in the land of the  
fairies.

This brings me to the substantive point of this post, which is to  
remind readers – if they needed it – of quite how much the news  
agenda is skewed by the MSM. The Telegraph should not be singled out  
in this respect. The BBC also failed to mention the cancelled demo,  
although you can guarantee that, had the attendance been as billed,  
it would have been all over the news and the website.

This rather reinforces the point we made earlier - that the control  
of the agenda is exercised as much by what they don't tell you as  
what they do. The former is, of course, much more insidious as it is  
far more difficult to be aware of what you are not being told.

But there is another equally insidious form of indoctrination which  
we highlight in the current post on Defence of the Realm. This is  
where an apparently plausible case is presented but which is based on  
little more than ignorance and dogma, which completely misrepresents  
the issues.

This is a common occurrence in defence issues and, while I write  
frequently on defence, I am very bad at drawing the wider conclusions  
about how the poor quality of reporting is merely an illustration of  
the widespread malaise.

Another issue – not commonly rehearsed – is how the media insults our  
intelligence. We are not more stupid (or intelligent) than we were in  
the 1920s and 30s, or any less interested in issues that affect us.  
Yet it was in that period that The Telegraph and then The Times  
appointed Basil Lidell-Hart as their defence correspondent.

In that capacity, Lidell-Hart wrote long and detailed appraisals of  
military issues, to a general audience, which was not only able to  
absorb the points he was making but was highly appreciative of them.  
He attracted a huge and knowledgeable correspondence, much of which  
was also published.

The way we are treated with contempt by our media is, therefore, of  
some concern. There are serious issues to hand, across a wide range  
of subjects, which need public debate. But we are being treated as if  
we were children, spoon-fed that which editors and journalist  
consider we should be told, without any attempt at informing us or  
promoting intelligent debate.

One can only say this so often before the message gets tedious, even  
to those who agree with it, but the repetition does not make it any  
less true. The act of lying encompasses act, default or omission. By  
their omissions, and by their default – in misrepresenting complex  
issues – does our media lie to us all.
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Posted by Richard North
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
(*) Out With A Shiver: Global Warming Protest Frozen Out by Massive  
Snowfall
It was snowing irony in Washington on Monday when global warming  
activists descended on the District like a storm -- but got beaten to  
the punch by a blast of wintry weather that incapacitated the city.    
(Fox News)