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    linked article quotes ML, Chomsky, Ahmed! Archived Message

    Posted by Ian M on September 6, 2020, 6:25 pm, in reply to "XR Rebel Daily #4"

    Have to partially take back my comment, as this is a pretty excellent analysis of the state of the UK media by Ed Jones (anybody heard of him before?) from last April (hyperlink from 'disgraceful true colours of our ‘free’ press'):

    https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/opendemocracyuk/five-reasons-why-we-don-t-have-free-and-independent-press-in-uk-and-what-we-can-do-about/

    XR's direct critique is still pretty shallow, going with the 'billionaire owners line' and blaming the govt for allowing our 'free press' to be monopolised like it has:

    https://extinctionrebellion.uk/2020/09/05/update-we-do-not-have-a-free-press/

    'Priti Patel has accused us of making an “attack on free press, society and democracy”. That’s hyperbolic for sure. But let’s not get distracted. Our free press, society and democracy is under attack – from a failing government that lies to us consistently, is becoming increasingly authoritarian, and is leading us towards 4 degrees of warming.

    Priti Patel and her government are part of a political system that does not want and does not benefit from a free press. Instead our leaders have allowed the majority of our media to be amassed in the hands of five people with powerful vested interests and deep connections to fossil fuel industries. [1] Powerful vested interest has led to the appointment of Tony Abbott – a friend of Rupert Murdochs, a climate change denier, misogynist and homophobe – as a UK Trade Envoy. Our leaders are allowing these powerful few to deny the young the information they need to plan for their futures and defend themselves.

    We need a free press but we do not have it. They have failed us.

    Last night’s action has brought us one day with far less misinformation, division and hate. For one night ordinary people – terrified by the climate and ecological emergency that so much of our media is failing to report sufficiently – made these powerful and undemocratic corporations feel the vulnerability ordinary people live with everyday.[2]

    But this is not the story. We are in an emergency of unprecedented scale and the papers we have targeted are not reflecting the scale and urgency of what is happening to our planet. Even as we in the UK are experiencing the impacts of our warming world, the Murdoch press remains silent.[3] We – and the free press – have so much more work to do.

    A free press does not push the agenda of its billionaire owners. Freedom of the press to these corporations means a completely unregulated fanfare with no threat of accountability for the harm and division they cause.' [continues...]

    I

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