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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

#151

Post by genewitch »

coliveira wrote: post #128
genewitch wrote: post #117

how can anyone trust any media report? Even if it is reported from multiple outlets? In the US the sum is around 39 billion dollars for pharma advertising, nevermind our military-industrial complex, as well. How can any media that has underwriting or advertisers actually do genuine reporting? Ask yourself this! The only way to really report on the "news" is to not be supported by advertisers or underwriting. I've kno…

This is the biggest illusion of the media. They portray themselves as informing in an independent way. But any quick analysis will show that they can only report what their clients let them. And in the West their loyalty is to wealthy families and big corporations in the US and Europe.

i used to have a great way to sum this all up but i stopped arguing with people via that medium so i have since forgotten my spiel. It's not that the media will lie, necessarily - although let's not pretend they're above lying - it's the editorial staff get to choose what runs and what doesn't. If there's a new study saying acetaminophen or whatever is actually more dangerous than we thought, it won't get air on normal media for a long time. Hard to get earnest reporting on wars when defense contractors are a major underwriter, hard to report on businesses when most of them are at least partially owned by the same companies that own the media outlets and/or are major advertisers.

I really need to sit down and think for a while to remember how i used to explain this, because it nearly always got a "oh... that kinda makes sense... dang"

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

#152

Post by flumpcakes »

SuddsMcDuff wrote: post #120
flumpcakes wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source? The UK has been extremely vocal about defending Ukraine's sovereign rights and has spent a lot of money supplying it with defensive equipment. Russia despises the UK. The UK does have a few right wing pro Russia people, just like the US does. Just like most of Europe does. It is the fringe view and not reflected in state policy.

> The UK does have a few right wing pro Russia people "Right wing" people like George Galloway? Put your obvious bias aside for a moment and just say "a few pro Russia people".

You are of course correct. I completely forgot about him. Jeremy Corbyn could probably be lumped in as an elected official. There is a pretty virulent form of left wing in the UK who argue that Russia is good because it's imperialism is somehow justified (I think it boils down to anti-NATO sentiment.)

> obvious bias

The rise of a few right parties with sympathy to Russia was on my mind. Although that talk has seemed to have quieted with more national issues taking up breath.

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

#153

Post by JdeBP »

cryo32 wrote: post #82
daveshistory wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Never thought of it from that perspective. They should read multiple sources too. BBC as well, which once the articles have settled, are quite good. (just ignore the breaking stuff which is dubious sometimes)

It's an interesting fact. I have been surprised at how often The Guardian sneaks in to stuff that is otherwise overwhelmingly North American sources only. The Legal Eagle channel on YouTube has cited The Guardian a few times that I have seen, for example. And they even present it seemingly on the assumption that they don't have to explain to their viewership what The Guardian is. They just slap it on screen the same as they do the Washington Post or Politico or some such.

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

#154

Post by einpoklum »

flumpcakes wrote: post #9
einpoklum wrote: post #3

1. Calling it the "defense sector" is already quite biased. Almost all of that sector's activity involves offensive activity. Or just call it the "arms industry" etc. If we were less charitable, we could well call it the "war industry". 2. Reading the article we note there's quite some overlap between arms industry links and links to Israel's fundraising and lobbying circles. I wonder whether UK media discloses those…

The UK doesn't have some imperialist policy of land grabs like Russia, or diplomacy through violence. In the current Iranian war the UK is only allowing it's bases to launch defensive missions, i.e. strike offensive capability or incoming missiles. So no, it is in fact the defense sector. What countries have a defense sector, if the UK doesn't?

> The UK doesn't have some imperialist policy of land grabs

Not directly, mostly; and not through land grabs. The age of land grabs is pretty much over - but imperialism lives on in different form - including massive military interventions and covert operations for manipulating or replacing regimes, more that properly conquering and settling lands.

Today's UK is not an independent empire of this kind. It used to be; but now it is relegated to being a junior partner in its alliance with the US empire, mostly, and with the EU, to a lesser extent. This is reflected in its top 10 arms recipients, e.g. for 2024 [1]:

Saudi Arabia, £14bn United States of America, £8.3bn France, £5.2bn Qatar, £3.5bn Italy, £2.8bn Oman, £2.5bn Turkey, £2.3bn India, £2.3bn Norway, £2.2bn United Arab Emirates, £1.7bn

and there are also arms Israel for about £0.572bn; and the arming of Ukraine, a cooperation with both the US and European powers, as part of NATO's struggle against Russia.

The UK also sends troops as part of US imperial interventions, e.g. in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. There are also UK-dominated or UK-only interventions abroad, but mostly if we go a few decades back [2].

[1] : https://www.thenational.scot/news/24272310.uk-arms-exports--...

[2] : https://www.declassifieduk.org/the-uks-83-military-intervent...

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

#155

Post by flumpcakes »

Surely all experts are employed in some form in their field? Should we have their entire CV read out before their expertise is given on a subject matter?

Unless there is a clear conflict of interest, such as an "expert" urging a particular course of action which aligns to benefit their employers, then the audience should probably just engage their critical thinking a bit more.

The majority of UK experts will probably have opinions that align with UK ethics/morality/society and urge options that benefit the UK state and it's allies. I would assume that would be an absolute given too.

When I watch Chinese citizens give their expertise on matters, I know that it will probably align with the Chinese state and benefit them (as opposed to strictly the UK state). Have people lost all of their critical thinking skills?

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

#156

Post by Devasta »

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.

The Guardians role in modern UK society is to launder right wing talking points through a few layers of progressive sounding rhetoric so that the average person on the street can say "Well if even The Guardian agrees, maybe there is something to it."

A worthless rag of a paper.

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

#157

Post by epolanski »

flumpcakes wrote: post #155

Surely all experts are employed in some form in their field? Should we have their entire CV read out before their expertise is given on a subject matter? Unless there is a clear conflict of interest, such as an "expert" urging a particular course of action which aligns to benefit their employers, then the audience should probably just engage their critical thinking a bit more. The majority of UK experts will probably…

If somebody is discussing about defense in the media the viewers/readers should know that the person works for the defense industry in a commercial role.

Presenting them merely as experts because they are "former X" creates a false impression of impartiality.

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

#158

Post by k1m »

flumpcakes wrote: post #155

Surely all experts are employed in some form in their field? Should we have their entire CV read out before their expertise is given on a subject matter? Unless there is a clear conflict of interest, such as an "expert" urging a particular course of action which aligns to benefit their employers, then the audience should probably just engage their critical thinking a bit more. The majority of UK experts will probably…

> Unless there is a clear conflict of interest, such as an "expert" urging a particular course of action

That's exactly the issue

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

#159

Post by tialaramex »

SanjayMehta wrote: post #122
gib444 wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And The Times and The Sun aren't even British. They're owned by News Corp which is American And The Telegraph is about to become German GB News is quite likely Russian ultimately lol

Why Russian? They're broke. Why not Chinese?

It's just statistically more likely. The UK has a lot of Russians and somehow even those who were notionally sanctioned as Putin's puppets found it easy to obtain special case exemptions or conveniently happened to have transferred key assets to somebody who wasn't sanctioned coincidentally as it happened. Russia being "broke" is a macro-economic idea, the Russians involved are wealthy.

As with the drug trade lawyers are happy to take £££ of your obviously stolen Russian cash to help you argue that you and that money are legitimate. And if you lose? Oops, the payment to the lawyers is magically exempt so they keep that. The incentives to work for people who you know are crooks are very strong, just need to get cash up front because when anything goes wrong they're suddenly penniless and have never met you.

That's the stupidest thing about Trump's lawyers. These guys must have represented crooks before, so he's not different on that score, but why did so many of them not demand cash up front?

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

#160

Post by br121 »

gyanchawdhary wrote: post #129

[flagged]

"our country isn't ready for war" is more difficult to disproof than "solar panels only last for 15 years", so while I agree that disclosures should go for every conflict on interest, it makes sense that the research focused only on this portion of them
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