The UK Independent, Raytheon 9, Mark Steel and media censorship

This week the no-jury trial of the Raytheon 9 began in Belfast. The Raytheon 9 are a group who broke into the offices of arms manufacturers Raytheon in Derry in protest at their manufacture and sale of missile guidance systems one of which was used in the slaughter of 29 civilians in Qana - mostly children - despite undertakings to the people of Northern Ireland that everything being manufactured at the plant would be used for peaceful purposes.

The ongoing saga of the Raytheon 9 has, naturally, seen our supine media largely turning its back on it being as it raises questions of morality and ethics as they ought to apply to arms manufacturers.

Mark Steel of the UK Independent had written about the issue for a column that should have appeared during the last week. But it got spiked when lawyers declared it unusable. This decision has a lot of people wondering if the pro war sympathies of the paper's new editor, Roger Alton, is not beginning to be felt. The Independent under Simon Kelner has been a trenchant critic of the US/UK war on Iraq - thereby thoroughly upsetting and annoying both the UK and US administrations. There is now little fear that the paper will trouble anyone further should, for instance, another illegal war be waged on Iran. At any rate, it's not clear exactlly on what grounds the column is alleged to be illegal but none of the hypocrisy or irony of the situation is lost on Steel who has published it on his blog. :

http://www.marksteelinfo.com/pt/blog/default.aspx?id=10&t=The-evidence-mounts-that-some-things-are

The legal issue may be do they, or do they not fabricate guidance systems at that location. A comment says they do not, but that it is a soft ware development centre for such systems, which the commentator also opposes.

Do you by any chance have some broad figures for the amount of arms industry functioning in Ireland in terms of turnover and employment? It is comfortable to forget or ignore the extent to which "peaceful" economies benefit from arms manufacture. Isn't Sweden such a case?

This is a media editorial issue rather than a war or legal issue is it not?

Does the paper of Robert Fisk and of Andrew and Patrick Cockburn - Cedar Lounge link from last week - have a mission statement?

Can this be moved to Media?

There is no doubt whatsoever that Raytheon in Northern Ireland is involved in the manufacture of arms.

Link

Thanks to the net at least it still gets out there! *(outside of examples such as the legal removal of Craig Murray's blog of course )

*

Quote :

Hmm, I've written this article for this week's Independent, about a case that should have had masses of publicity but
has had hardly any. So there I am feeling smug at redressing the balance and I'm informed this evening that the good people of the law
won't let it be printed. So here it is - my illegal article - oo, it must feel like reading Lady Chatterley's Lover in 1962.....

Aragon wrote:

This decision has a lot of people wondering if the pro war sympathies of the paper's new editor, Roger Alton, is not beginning to be felt. The Independent under Simon Kelner has been a trenchant critic of the US/UK war on Iraq - thereby thoroughly upsetting and annoying both the UK and US administrations. There is now little fear that the paper will trouble anyone further should, for instance, another illegal war be waged on Iran. At any rate, it's not clear exactlly on what grounds the column is alleged to be illegal but none of the hypocrisy or irony of the situation is lost on Steel who has published it on his blog. :

http://www.marksteelinfo.com/pt/blog/default.aspx?id=10&t=The-evidence-mounts-that-some-things-are

I'd say Alton will definitely move it in that direction. But either way I wouldn't say they're really a "trenchant critic" presently.

Within the mainstream media they appear to be, but scratch under the surface and you see a lot of liberal apologia for the war in Iraq, etc- which has been very ably exposed by the medialens media monitoring people.


http://www.medialens.org/

http://www.medialens.org/about/faq.php#liberalmedia

Quote :

The point about our focus on the Guardian, Observer, Independent, the BBC and others (which is far more significant than any focus on individuals) is, therefore, deliberate and not all inspired by any kind of enmity or hatred. After all, one of the big obstacles to a more rational and compassionate society is a media system that suppresses the truth about the destructive consequences of corporate power. This system promotes indifference, greed, selfishness, hatred of enemies, passivity, and so on. At the same time, this system is able to convince people by an intellectual sleight of hand, evolved over decades and even centuries, that it is basically open and free. The key element responsible for convincing people of this mythical press freedom is not the right-wing press – most caring, compassionate people are not fooled by that – but the so-called ‘liberal’ press: the Guardian, the BBC, and so on.

So what we’re trying to show is how the whole corporate media system acts to obscure extraordinary destructiveness, violence and deception. In particular, we wish to expose the role of the ‘liberal’ press in maintaining the illusion that it doesn’t fulfil an establishment propaganda role when, in fact, it does. We’re hoping to help people see through the illusion that we have an awful right-wing press and a pretty good left-leaning liberal press. The bigger picture is that many people imagine, wrongly we believe, that genuinely critical and free-ranging debate is not just tolerated, but encouraged in western society.

In fact I recall some Alton related toussles on their site. Might link it if I can find it.*

* here's two examples from Alton.


http://www.medialens.org/alerts/06/060622_a_superb_demolition.php

Quote :

On June 16, the Observer’s editor Roger Alton made a bold announcement on his newspaper‘s website:

“And to all my many enemies on the Left, and in various organisations like the pernicious MediaLens, I commend a splendid review by our vastly experienced foreign affairs editor, Peter Beaumont, of the new Noam Chomsky book about America, Failed States. I have had many stand-up rows with Peter over US foreign policy, so you can take it from me he is no great
friend of America. But this is a superb demolition of Chomsky.”
(Alton, Observermail, June 16, 2006; http://observer.guardian.co.uk/observermail/story/0,,1799272,00.html)

A “superb demolition of Chomsky”! Was this really destined to happen, finally, in Chomsky’s 78th year? Alton would surely not make such a claim lightly, given, as the Guardian has noted: “academe is crowded with critics who have made twerps of themselves taking him [Chomsky] on". (Birthdays, The Guardian, December 7, 1996)

http://www.medialens.org/alerts/05/050905_burying_the_lancet_part1.php

Quote :

The large gap between the Lancet estimate and that of Iraq Body Count - a constant feature of press coverage - is also not controversial. John Sloboda, a professor of psychology at the University of Keele, and a co-founder of Iraq Body Count, says his team's efforts will inevitably lead to a count smaller than the actual figure because not every death is reported in the
news media.
Dr. Woodruff said, "Les [Roberts] has the most valid estimate."
(Ibid)

Dr. Toole agreed: "If anything, the deaths may have been higher [than the Lancet study's estimate] because what they are unable to do is survey families where everyone has died." (Ibid)

Journalists, however, know better. Roger Alton, editor of the Observer gave us his view of the Lancet report: "I find the methodology a bit doubtful..." (Email to Media Lens, November 1, 2004)

(eta: quote clean-up}

Hi Pax

I entirely agree with you that the Independent could only be regarded as a 'trenchant' critic of the war in a highly relative sense. The Lancet estimates ought to have featured on their front page as a banner headline - they never have. On the other hand, they have had several nauseating 'our brave boys' in Iraq pieces with no mention of Iraqi dead in them. So their criticism of the war needs to be understood in that context. But they have been good in certain ways - which is so much more than any other newspaper, it's easy to get carried away. At any rate, it looks now as if the Kelner years will be looked back on as halcyon days in contrast to the new Alton era.

Alton has referred to the ML editors and their loyal message board posters as 'those c***s at Media Lens', I believe.

(Thread moved to Media)