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UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

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Re: UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

#71

Post by philipallstar »

shevy-java wrote: post #49
philipallstar wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Almost all of that sector's activity involves offensive activity. What do you mean? As in invading other countries?

He is quite correct though. By calling it "defence" industry, it is insinuated that this is always a moral right use of arms. In reality one would have to look on a case by case basis to see which use really qualifies as defence. In many cases I would not call it defence, for instance, if money is used to overthrow other governments and so forth. Or the Falklands War as an example - technically one could claim the UK…

The Falklands weren't colonised by the British in the way you probably mean. They were settled by them - the people of the Falklands are the descendents of British settlers.

Why wouldn't you call a military action to stop Argentina invading them "defence"?

Re: UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

#72

Post by daveshistory »

cryo32 wrote: post #59
echelon_musk wrote: post #50

> How the UK Security Services neutralised ‘The Guardian’ newspaper (2019) (dailymaverick.co.za) > 3 points by indigodaddy on June 2, 2023 | past | 1 comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36170406 https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-09-11-how-the-u...

I'm not sure that the Grauniad has a particularly good global reputation for independent and critical journalism . It publishes the same mix of disguised opinion pieces and rather biased junk articles as the other side of the political spectrum. There isn't a single news source that you can trust as such. You have to compile a lot of them, remove the unverified information and see what is left. Usually not a lot.

I sort of disagree with this. I bet if you asked liberals and progressives in a country like America for a foreign newspaper they read -- if they do read one -- in most cases it is probably the Guardian. So it may be only the best of a bad bunch but it does have that reputation.

Re: UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

#73

Post by philipallstar »

tempfile wrote: post #39
philipallstar wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What informs your "probably"?

When I said "If you have standards" I did not specify what those standards are. So I said "probably", because I have to guess you have similar standards to me. If you do, then you can drop the "probably". As the other commenter correctly guesses, you only have to open the news to find examples. Iran, Palestine, Iraq (way back when). Most "wars" are not really wars these days, they're just exercises in western aggress…

Okay - I see. I thought it was a qualifier of "in a large proportion of their business".

In that case - why do you think it's "in a large proportion of their business"?

Re: UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

#74

Post by ajsnigrutin »

dgroshev wrote: post #58
SturgeonsLaw wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It absolutely is sinister. Everything about the military is, when you decouple the rhetoric from the actions and consider what it is that those organisations actually do.

This is a luxury belief that requires the privilege of being unbombed. I invite you to explain this to Ukrainians.

It's the UK we're talking about here.

To skip the currently political sensitive topics of who is helping who with what, who feels the consequences, what prices are affected because of that, let's go a bit further in the past... for example, UK taxpayers money went for bombing Iraq for the "weapons of mass destruction" when Tony Blair already knew those didn't exist.

At some point you have to ask, is it really for defense, if you're bombing someone a quarter of a planet away? Are you really protecting your people at home by doing that, and are they happy their money is being spent for that instead of eg. healthcare, education, etc.?

Re: UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

#75

Post by piltdownman »

cryo32 wrote: post #59
echelon_musk wrote: post #50

> How the UK Security Services neutralised ‘The Guardian’ newspaper (2019) (dailymaverick.co.za) > 3 points by indigodaddy on June 2, 2023 | past | 1 comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36170406 https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-09-11-how-the-u...

I'm not sure that the Grauniad has a particularly good global reputation for independent and critical journalism . It publishes the same mix of disguised opinion pieces and rather biased junk articles as the other side of the political spectrum. There isn't a single news source that you can trust as such. You have to compile a lot of them, remove the unverified information and see what is left. Usually not a lot.

I mean they operate as a trust and wear their journalistic bias proudly on their sleeve; in terms of intent their altruism is self-evident.

That said, no British media is exempt from adherence to D Notices and tenets of their legal system like the concept of a super-injuction, whereby a court order prevents the reporting of the fact that the injunction exists at all.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-injunctions_in_English_l...

That the term was coined by a Guardian journalist covering the 2006 Ivory Coast toxic waste dump scandal should be context enough as to their motives and constraints.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RJW_v_Guardian_News_and_Media_...

Re: UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

#76

Post by JdeBP »

It is interesting to look at the details and see who the (news) 'media' are in this case. Going through the details, I find 1 instance (under Kemp) of the BBC, and everyone else is the 'usual suspects', the Telegraph, the Mail, GB News, the Sun, the Times, and so forth.

The Guardian is only mentioned in context of exposing these conflicts of interests; and whilst I am surprised to find LBC and Nation Cymru as not being transparent about their experts and commentariat, I don't see The National mentioned at all, nor The Herald, The Scotsman, the Metro, the Financial Times, and The i.

This may tell us that these experts only appear in the 'usual suspect' news media. Or it may tell us that this report didn't look at a wide range of U.K. news media. The latter seems unlikely given the inclusion of some niche publications (I've never even heard of London Loves Business until today.) and things like Nation Cymru, so I am more inclined to suppose the former.

Re: UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

#77

Post by cucumber3732842 »

helsinkiandrew wrote: post #70
JdeBP wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 17 of the 19 detailed instances, it is stated that they are promoting increases in budgets and spending. The two others are reported as speaking with different conflicts of interest.

Does it say that in the full report somewhere else? I can't find that in the text. I think most people would be surprised if ex senior military Personnel didn't think military spending should be increased.

>I think most people would be surprised if ex senior military Personnel didn't think military spending should be increased.

When all you know is a hammer...

Re: UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

#78

Post by cryo32 »

piltdownman wrote: post #75
cryo32 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that the Grauniad has a particularly good global reputation for independent and critical journalism . It publishes the same mix of disguised opinion pieces and rather biased junk articles as the other side of the political spectrum. There isn't a single news source that you can trust as such. You have to compile a lot of them, remove the unverified information and see what is left. Usually not a lot.

I mean they operate as a trust and wear their journalistic bias proudly on their sleeve; in terms of intent their altruism is self-evident. That said, no British media is exempt from adherence to D Notices and tenets of their legal system like the concept of a super-injuction, whereby a court order prevents the reporting of the fact that the injunction exists at all. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-injunctions_in…

Fair points.

The reformed DSMA notice system which replaced the D notice system in 2015 is somewhat more specific on what should not be reported. I think that's fit for purpose now. And it's still not legally binding. It's an agreement. Thus it does not break press freedom should the notice be found unethical or covering something up.

Re: UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

#79

Post by Npovview »

shevy-java wrote: post #46

In other words: institutionalized corruption. It's also a problem because who controls those media? So the taxpayers are at the least two times at a disadvantage here, private interests funding private media, to then set the agenda of reporting very selectively - or not at all in certain areas.

The problem isn't good honest journalism can't be done. Think from the point of view a good critical news story, if that news story is gonna disadvantage a powerful entity, that entity will do everything in its power to discredit and stop that news story from publishing. This is also the reason why I like social media, Game Nexus does so much impactful reporting on hardware.

Re: UK media fails to disclose defence sector links in nearly 60% of cases

#80

Post by dgroshev »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #74
dgroshev wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a luxury belief that requires the privilege of being unbombed. I invite you to explain this to Ukrainians.

It's the UK we're talking about here. To skip the currently political sensitive topics of who is helping who with what, who feels the consequences, what prices are affected because of that, let's go a bit further in the past... for example, UK taxpayers money went for bombing Iraq for the "weapons of mass destruction" when Tony Blair already knew those didn't exist. At some point you have to ask, is it really for def…

You can't just skip the currently present and urgent defence requirements because they're "politically sensitive" and then go twenty years back to support your point.

But even if you want to do that, why don't you go just a couple more years further and argue that Bosnians should've been left to be genocided?

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