By Patrice Greanville, TGP
Snowden: Universally reviled by the American media. Coincidence or systemic control?
The constantly denied propaganda content of the American media, the long defended conceit that it is free from both government or corporate interference, that it does not serve their interests slavishly, that it packs no bias, is seen practically everywhere. Yet, even a cursory examination promptly yields a different reality. Thus, while it might be possible to trust a weather or sports report in the US, it’s foolish to step outside those harmless parameters, particularly anything dealing with political, historical or economic matters, and above all the central taboo of American mass communications: direct criticism of the capitalist system, ooops! the “Free Enterprise System.”
In order to hide this pervasive contaminating connection, the American media lose no opportunity to denigrate their counterparts, to remind their audiences of how unfree other media systems are. Quite often they mock as untrue what in effect is true. To the knowledgeable eye the bias is fairly easy to spot. Most people, however, are likely to miss such signs.
[pullquote] American journalists often mock what is undeniably true but threatening to the US elites in order precisely to cast doubt on its credibility. [/pullquote]
A case in point, picked at random. In a piece today on the NYTimes, China Brushes Aside U.S. Warnings on Snowden, by veteran journos Jane Perlez and Chris Buckley, the writers begin by offering a tolerably useful picture of a complex diplomatic situation (we quote in some detail):
According to a Chinese journalist who often talks with Hong Kong government and mainland Chinese officials in Hong Kong, the Chinese authorities organized an ad hoc group, led by Yang Jiechi, a former foreign minister and now a state councilor, to handle the Snowden matter. The group answered to President Xi Jinping, the journalist said.
The Chinese decided to keep a distance from Mr. Snowden personally to ensure that if Mr. Snowden eventually ended up in American hands he would not be able to disclose what Chinese officials said to him, the journalist said.
Beijing determined early on that Mr. Snowden would have to leave Hong Kong, and should not be allowed to stay to go through a protracted legal battle in the Hong Kong courts to resist the United States extradition demand, the journalist said. “That would have lasted years, and then the United States would also wonder what he was telling China,” the journalist said. “What would the United States prefer?”
The Chinese authorities timed Mr. Snowden’s departure for Moscow to match their own interests, he said. Beijing decided not to let him go too quickly, he said, because that would have made China look weak. He believed there were communications between Beijing and Moscow to ensure that Mr. Snowden landed in Moscow without surprising the Russian government.
So far so good, but then suddenly the article turns foul (keep an eye on the bolded parts):
Hong Kong said that the request did not fully meet its legal requirements, and after that China gave the green light for Mr. Snowden to fly to Moscow. The Chinese government decided that he had to leave before Washington made a request that might be acceptable to the Hong Kong courts, the journalist said.
An editorial published Tuesday by the state-run Xinhua news agency reflected the Foreign Ministry position, but went further, saying the Snowden case “might not be a completely bad thing after all.”
“Beijing and Washington can actually use the case to facilitate ongoing efforts to deal with the issue” of cybersecurity, it said. “The two sides can sit down and talk through their mutual suspicions.”
The Chinese state-controlled press continued Tuesday to roll out a barrage of praise for Mr. Snowden.
“The world will remember Edward Snowden,” said People’s Daily, the chief mouthpiece of the ruling Communist Party. “It was his fearlessness that tore off Washington’s sanctimonious image.”
Of course, while the American corporate-controlled press would want us to believe that the People’s Daily, hmmm…because it is a “mouthpiece” of the Communist Party (as if the Washington Post and New York times, were not mouthpieces for the American bourgeoisie, the corporate party), is advancing some absurd or untrue notion with that statement, the opposite is correct. The Daily is simply saying what any fair and decent and knowledgeable person would say under the current circumstances, in fact what is being said in such quarters, even if the corporate & government-controlled media “professionals” will never admit it. Sanctimony, long one of the shields used by the US propaganda system to deflect truth from its captive audiences, deserves to be exposed.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patrice Greanville is editor in chief of The Greanville Post. He founded Cyrano’s Journal, America’s first radical media review, in 1982.
