Slightly off-topic, but that bloke holding up Lindt's and 30 hostages (he must have his hands full, for 11 hours now) - at the risk of stereotyping - doesn't look all that Arab, or young. Surely he couldn't be some dopey old 'Lefty' thinking he's acting in a Good Cause ? Perhaps a failed Green candidate ?

For what it's worth, my two-bob suggests that Australian police need to develop women's units of crack snipers and assault troops - perhaps they could get some advice from the Kurds. Their brave women terrify ISIS thugs, since, for them, it may be honourable to kill old men and children, and rape women in the name of allah, but it is totally dishonourable to be killed by a woman: you don't get to Paradise and have the chance to root 72 virgins if you are killed by a woman.

Joe

"The information age is actually a media age. We have war by media; censorship by media; demonology by media; retribution by media; diversion by media - a surreal assembly line of obedient clichés and false assumptions."

This sounds to me as a fairly good description of Mr. Pilger's own journalistic production.
His relentless use of his own "surreal assembly line of obedient clichés and false assumptions." irritates me even when I agree with some of his opinions, like those in this article.

Thanks Hermit,

Bilger writes: "The information age is actually a media age. We have war by media; censorship by media; demonology by media; retribution by media; diversion by media - a surreal assembly line of obedient clichés and false assumptions."

Is that pro- or anti-media ? Pro-- or anti-information ? Pro- or anti-censorship ? Pro- or anti-control of the media by some anonymous body, say, a Press Council of Bilgers ?

Most of us are not idiots: we can tell whether or not an article is slanted one way another, even - as you point out - the excesses of people who we usually support. We don't need censorship, and we don't need to - using a contemporary term - demonise the media.

Most of us don't need the Bilgers of this world to tell us whether or not to look askance at US torture tactics, or ISIS beheadings and rapes, or some moronic self-styled sheikh with no definite agenda holding up a café and shooting the manager and a customer. We know Hockey's in a hole, thanks mainly to collapsing commodity prices and that Labour would be in pretty much the same hole if they were still in power, although maybe a bit deeper. Even Bowen must know that.

So, as mature people, with average intelligence, we don't need the BTP (the Bilger Thought Police) to tell us what to think, and more importantly, what not to think. Or to justify restrictions on the media.

Joe

Loudmouth,

"Press Council of Bilgers"

I hold you responsible for giving me nightmares tonight...

Hermit,

I'll take that as a comment. In another month or so, Q & A will be back on, with its 45 % Labor, 43 % very quiet Liberal, 12 % Vocal Greens: a different Bilger Press Council each week, with Madame Defarge knitting away in the back row.

No, Australians on the whole are a bit more clear-headed than that.

Joe

Joe

The media's lies take many forms - outright lies, repetition of unexamined assumptions, claiming the existence of evidence where there is none (and claiming no evidence where evidence DOES exist), bias and one-sidedness, sensationalising, glamourisation of trivia, selective reporting of facts, 'us and them' reporting, demonisation of certain leaders and countries (and its opposite: the whitewashing of certain leaders and countries), false 'objectivity, distraction, cheerleading wars, backing certain sides in disputes between and within countries ... and on it goes.

Your posts, especially on Russia/Ukraine, indicate that you have been completely taken in by all of the above - as have millions of others throughout the West. It's much easier to fool people than to convince them they have been fooled. To claim people are too smart to be fooled by the media is arrogant conceit.

Pilger's premise is simply to remain sceptical of what the media is telling us about our official 'friends' and remain open-minded about what the media is telling us about our official 'enemies'. In these media-saturated times, that's wise advice.