21 April 2013 - Iran's 'Nuclear Weapons Programme' Mentioned Again with no Evidence
27 July 2012 - Mitt Romney Doesn't Threaten, He Just 'Woos' Others
4 July 2012 - Misleading Guardian Headline Portrays Iran as the Aggressor
3 November 2011 - Democratic Referendum 'can't happen' with an EU bailout
27 May 2011 - Spanish Protest: who clashed with who?

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Reporting on Syria: How the Media Designates a Role for the UK
The Editors, 20 March 2013

'We believe that a people is in danger today [...] we have to give the Syrian opposition the means finally to gain the upper hand, that is the departure of Bashar al-Assad', announced French president Francois Hollande recently, while David Cameron explained that 'what we want to do is work with...

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Acquiescence and Sycophancy as David Cameron Tours North Africa
The Editors, 4 February 2013

Many of the major UK news reports are routinely shaped by Prime Ministerial speeches and press releases, often including a sense of balance in presenting oppositional views emerging from parliamentary debate and opposition. However on issues such as foreign policy, upon which the main political parties are more or less in...

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UK Reporting on Venezuela Continues to be Clouded by Partiality
The Editors, 17 December 2012

As Hugo Chavez receives further cancer treatment in Cuba, this time seemingly with much higher stakes than before, the UK media has again shown where its interests lie when it comes to reporting on left-wing Latin American governments. The attack has come in many forms, from portraying once again the country...

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Siding with the Powerful: UK Media Coverage of the Assault on Gaza
The Editors, 16 November 2012

The BBC News, and particularly the reports from Diplomatic Correspondent Jonathan Marcus, on the ongoing Israeli military attacks on the Gaza Strip has presented the violence as little more than a defensive policy manoeuvre by Israel, whose government, in Marcus's view, 'clearly wants' another ceasefire. On Wednesday Marcus wrote that the Israeli...

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Luring an Attack: Julian Borger Claims Insight Into Iran's Motives
The Editors, 16 November 2012

Last week news reports emerged that Iranian warplanes had fired on a US Predator surveillance drone over the Gulf waters on the 1st November, 5 days before the US presidential elections. News of the incident was suppressed by the US until after the elections, we were told. As is standard practice in...

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A Roundup of Media Coverage Surrounding the Venezuelan Election
Josh Watts, 24 October 2012

In the run up to the 7 October Venezuelan election, it was reported that President Hugo Chávez would face 'the toughest electoral challenge of his reign' (The Times)1, 'that [would] decide the fate of his socialist revolution and could rearrange the region's balance of power' (Financial Times).2 The election, then,...

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Venezuelan Election Day: Channel 4 Selects Pro-Opposition Viewpoints
The Editors, 7 October 2012

British news is today (07/10/2012) much concerned with the elections underway in Venezuela. The election will be the 'closest since Hugo Chavez took power' (The Guardian), or the 'the country's most tightly contested presidential election in a decade' (BBC). To begin with, it should be noted that the above assertions are themselves...

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Alarm and Hypocrisy: When Retaliation is Unacceptable to the Media
The Editors, 3 October 2012

The Independent's 'legendary pedant', Guy Keleny, recently highlighted the hypocrisy of press reporting on nuclear weapons: 'It is an iron law of journalese usage that every nuclear power in the world has a nuclear weapon - except one. Britain alone occupies a higher moral plane, and deploys not a weapon but...

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Nuclear State: Media not Concerned about UK Weapons Development
The Editors, 18 June 2012

Over the last 7 months, UK journalists have consistently voiced their objection to nuclear weapons proliferation. This opposition appears as the western media holds a magnifying glass to Iran and speculation abounds over Iran's nuclear capabilities; speculation that appears to be more in line with western governments' policy rather than with...

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Nick Cohen's Deceptive Portrayal of Western Intentions in Call for Intervention in Syria
Steve Nutt, 13 June 2012

Nick Cohen, writing in the Observer on 10 June, demands that the 'guilt ridden' leaders of the Liberal West shake off the hangover of the Bush-Blair years and press reset, a reset on the facade of Barack Obama's mission to forge dialogue with Iran, with Russia, to offer a hand instead...

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Iran: Speculation on Parchin Site Propagates through Guardian Reporting
The Editors, 5 June 2012

On the issue of the ongoing 'Iran Crisis' (in BBC speak), the evidence presented to us about the potential development of nuclear weapons by Iran remains heavily based on speculation, and has in recent months focussed on the hypothetical musings of a Washington think-tank, based on satellite images of an Iranian...

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Refusal to Connect the Dots: Analysing Rory Carroll's Portrayal of Latin America
Josh Watts, 11 May 2012

Between 2006 and his recent relocation to the United States, Rory Carroll reported from Caracas, Venezuela as The Guardian's South America correspondent. The selectivity and omissions characteristic of Carroll's work prompted Samuel Grove in Red Pepper to deconstruct in detail the bias of Carroll's reporting on Venezuela, which, he commented,...

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Afghanistan: Maintaining the Facade of the 'Mission'
Steve Nutt, 20 April 2012

In light of recent predictable events in Afghanistan, it is worth taking a long view of the NATO invasion and occupation to see if we can garner some sense of what the "mission" actually entails. The usual rhetoric concerns two related central matters: that NATO's presence is intended to prevent Afghanistan...

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Syria Intervention: Endorsement Masquerading as News in the Guardian
Steve Nutt, 13 April 2012

Media advocacy masquerading as news has a considerable precedent. Whether it be journalists looking for some 'sick action' in Somalia that might 'restore hope [...] in the capacity for governments taking a moral stance', or to provide western audiences with some much needed post-Cold War meaning in the flagrant PR exercise...

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An Attack on Iran Would Be Illegal. What Does the Media Say?
The Editors, 23 March 2012

The 'option' of a military attack on Iran by Israel, the UK and the US has been increasingly discussed in the UK media since 2011. Government threats of military action have come in various forms, with Israel warning of potential air strikes against Iran in the next few months, and Obama and...

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Cameron and Blair: The Media Continues to Dutifully Convey Intelligence 'Warnings'
The Editors, 7 March 2012

For the invasion of Iraq in 2003, 'top secret' intelligence was used to create a media storm concerning weapons of mass destruction which could be deployed in 45 minutes. Now, the media reports on a 'top-secret' briefing by MI6 to UK ministers on the 'Iranian Nuclear Threat'. The routine appears familiar:...

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Sympathy for the Markets: How our Media Forgot the People of Greece
The Editors, 22 February 2012

Last night the BBC reported on its front page that Greece 'averts nightmare outcome'. Naturally, this meant that another bailout package had been agreed upon. The 'Who loses out?' link which appeared below the front page title directed to a page that does not mention Greek people or society. Rather, the article...

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Perspective Lacking as Allegations against Iran are Paraded through the Media
The Editors, 6 February 2012

Last week the Guardian's diplomatic editor, Julian Borger, reported on the 'increasing likelihood that Iran could carry out attacks in America or against US and allied targets around the world.' The claim was not his own of course; he was merely repeating without scrutiny that which was presented by James Clapper, the...

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How the UK Media Legitimise the Idea of a War on Iran
The Editors, 26 January 2012

The UK media has over the last three months obediently towed the line of western leaders in their increasingly hostile posturing towards Iran. Despite their reporting of (to give a few examples) a covert war on Iran, the entry of a US spy drone into Iranian airspace, and the recent assassination of...

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Venezuela in the UK Media, Part 2: Business Interests and the Refining of the Media Campaign
The Editors, 12 January 2012

Business Interests The presidency of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, and those of other Latin American leaders whose policies are at odds with those dominant in Europe and the US, are often labelled as 'controversial' in BBC coverage, regardless of how overwhelming their election victories might be. Defining the news, business leaders or opposition...

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Dan Hodges: 'Keeping the Peace' by Calling for War
The Editors, 8 December 2011

In a low-point for the Telegraph blogosphere earlier this week, Dan Hodges wrote that Britain needs a 'Start the War Coalition' to function as a response to the existing Stop the War Coalition (StW) which has been working to prevent and stop British wars since 2001. Running with the Orwellian logic...

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Language Creep: Iran and the Nuclear 'Threat'
The Editors, 27 November 2011

The IAEA report on the state of Iran's nuclear programme released on 9 November didn't quite present western governments with the doomsday scenario they had hoped for. The run-up to the report's publication became a platform for voices to be raised in the media calling for yet another war, as though...

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The Media Beats the War Drum for an Attack on Iran
Graham Bell, 4 November 2011

“Iran’s nuclear ambitions have already started a war with the west”, reads the headline of Julian Borger’s piece in the Guardian yesterday, in which he discusses operations of espionage and sabotage in Iran started by the Bush government in 2007. The headline would have you believe that Iran brought these acts...

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Guardian 'Investigation' Claims Vindication for Libya War
Amy Woods, 4 October 2011

“How Cameron swept aside Libya sceptics”, read The Guardian’s front page article, written by Patrick Wintour and Nicholas Watt, yesterday (3 October 2011). The paper also contained a “special report” by the two writers looking at “how the Arab spring in Libya transformed him from a reluctant to a passionate interventionist”. Absurdly...

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Shaping Public Opinion: The Media's Response to Iain Duncan Smith's Speech
Graham Bell, 3 July 2011

“Migrants ‘take the jobs from young Britons’”, ran the headline of the Telegraph’s website on 30th June , the night before Iain Duncan Smith’s speech on jobs and immigration. The subheadline elaborates: “Mass immigration poses the biggest threat to attempts to get millions of people off benefits, Iain Duncan Smith...

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The Libyan Baby Girl that Became a Wartime Propaganda Tool for Both Sides
Graham Bell, 8 June 2011

Arthur Ponsonby wrote in 1928 that "when war is declared, truth is the first casualty". Embedded journalists during war time are in some ways tools for the military of the countries they represent. As we saw with the invasion of Iraq, news reports represent one side, often censoring crucial information. Anything...

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How the Media Undermined the Message of the Masses
Helen Dring, 28 March 2011

The TUC dubbed Saturday's march a 'March for the Alternative', an alternative where “rich individuals and big companies have to pay all their tax, that the banks pay a Robin Hood tax and on in which we strain every sinew to create jobs and boost the sustainable economic growth that will...

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Libya Air Strikes: A Picture Paints a Thousand Words
Bob Rainmore, 22 March 2011

For this piece I will briefly compare the make up of two differing photo reels from the BBC and the Guardian’s website. The table below gives the percentage of pictures that a specific item appears in. Note that the percentages do not sum to 100% as some pictures contain more than...

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