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    The mainstream media lied about the Bristol protests Archived Message

    Posted by Gerard on March 30, 2021, 12:31 pm

    ..."This is Patel and the Tory government on top gaslighting form again. As the actual “criminal minority” smash their shields into people’s heads, pepper spray protesters and set dogs on them, the narrative is turned on its head, and it is the victims who are called criminals. The government knows that if it accuses its opposition of the very thing its state-sanctioned thugs are guilty of, it might just get away with fooling the public.

    Too little, too late

    It took days for liberal newspaper the Guardian and its sister publication the Observer to publish accounts from protesters on the ground: long after The Canary had published its reports of what really happened. On 27 March, The Observer printed a piece titled Protest is a human right. Again on 27 March, the Guardian published an article about how journalists were being assaulted by police. But this news was only deemed as important because it was a mainstream media journalist from the Mirror who was assaulted. In the same article, the Guardian finally published information about protesters’ injuries, arguably because they were so well-documented on social media that they couldn’t ignore them any more.

    On 28 March, the Guardian published a brilliant piece by the Bristol Cable‘s Matty Edwards, who has been on the ground in the city. But Edwards’ article was tagged as ‘Opinion’, while the police’s statements were printed in news reports as unquestionable facts.

    This attempt by the Guardian to show that it is still the newspaper of the left has come far too late. The Bristol protests have only emphasised more clearly than ever that the mainstream press, with its concentrated ownership, is there to uphold the status quo, or is too scared to challenge the government or the police for fear of losing its advertising revenue.

    This is all too evident when we see a publication like the Independent publishing police images of people wanted for arrest. Being featured in a police press release doesn’t mean a person has committed a crime, yet it does scare people. Governments of domination rely on fear to keep their populations obedient. By publishing these images, the media is helping the state to control its people by attempting to make them so terrified that they won’t dissent.

    Disinformation is nothing new

    Of course, disinformation and dangerous bias parroted by the mainstream media is nothing new. Back in 1988, Chomsky and Herman wrote about how:

    money and power are able to filter out the news fit to print, marginalize dissent, and allow the government and dominant private interests to get their messages across to the public.

    The organisation Media Lens has been busy documenting the media’s distorted version of the world for over twenty years, holding popular newspapers and broadcasters to account. Meanwhile, it is radical and local media outlets such as The Canary and the Bristol Cable that are brave enough to tell the truth.

    More protests against the Police Bill are planned throughout the country this week. The government wants us to focus our energies on condemning the “criminal minority”, intent on drawing our attention away from the very reason why people are so angry in the first place.

    No matter how distorted the media gets, and no matter how violent the police become, we won’t be silenced. The fight to Kill The Bill is far from over." Go to: https://www.thecanary.co/opinion/2021/03/29/the-mainstream-media-lied-about-the-bristol-protests/ for full article..

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