The Schnews.

Written By: - Date published: 1:16 pm, April 28th, 2018 - 7 comments
Categories: Media, news, Propaganda, radio, the praiseworthy and the pitiful - Tags: ,

Israeli troops have shot dead three protesters along the Gaza border, hours after the United Nations human rights chief criticised Israel for using “excessive force” against demonstrators.

I don’t know how many Palestinians have been shot dead or wounded by live ammunition on preceding Fridays. I haven’t kept count. Last week a Guardian editorial made mention of “a few dozen people” dead and some 1700 injured. That’s become 41 dead and 5000 wounded in today’s reporting.

Maybe the numbers don’t matter.

Maybe all that matters is that things change.

But what are the chances of that when today’s news, just like every day’s news, prefers “big man” reporting?  Today the focus (at least on Radio NZ) is on talks between the leaders of  North Korea and South Korea – and the opinion of US leaders on those talks.

I’m not suggesting that the possibility of a nuclear free Korean peninsula isn’t news and shouldn’t be reported. But I don’t think the opinion of a “big man” is weightier than the deliberate killing of ordinary people by state forces, especially when those state forces aren’t even under any kind of serious threat. And the former certainly shouldn’t be headlined in lieu of reporting the latter.

But in a world when “newsworthy” and “not newsworthy” is determined by the political bias of media whose agenda is shared by state and/or corporate interests, that’s exactly what happens.

Palestinians are politically irrelevant. Israel is not politically irrelevant. Israel is a “friend” and so where possible, news on Israel should be upbeat and positive or failing that, neutral. The words of Donald (Nobel Peace Prize?!) Trump are more important than the words of Moon Jae-in (who?) and Kim Jong-un put together, and any of those voices are more important than all the voices of all the thousands of Palestinians being shot at by Israeli soldiers. Israel’s silence needs no comment if “upbeat” or “neutral” is the aim. Israel’s silence then becomes “our” media’s silence. Job done.

See. Nothing is happening that we need bother ourselves about, or do anything about. Everything that’s important is being taken care of by our “betters”. And everything that our “betters” have in hand, or have concern about is important. So everything’s covered. Meaning that, at  One O’Clock…Two O’Clock…and Three O’Clock…we’ll get our regular 24/7 doze of schnews.

7 comments on “The Schnews. ”

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  1. Draco T Bastard 1
    28 April 2018 at 4:24 pm

    Sound about right Bill. Important matters are distracted from by reporting on ‘important’ people.

  2. One Two 2
    28 April 2018 at 5:42 pm

    https://www.globalresearch.ca/anti-syrian-propaganda-based-on-false-images-of-torture-danish-state-tv/5637801

    And how falsehoods are used to sell a pretext…

    Perhaps a little off topic, Bill…not intended as a derail or similar…

  3. reason 3
    28 April 2018 at 7:01 pm

    The myths of civilized plucky little Israel is maintained through under-reporting …. and misrepresentation by language and context … of their crimes and atrocity s.

    Extreme racist ideology among hard-line Zionists allows them to see Palestinians, or other Arabs whose land they covet … as untermensch to them.

    Stealing land, maiming and killing becomes easy, …. when ‘ the other’ is subhuman.

    Extreme Zionism through its very actions can be seen continually acting in bad faith …..

    Its racist apartheid thug actions are probably the biggest cause of antisemitism in the world.

    And although its still generally softly softly by our media reporting Israel…..

    Lorde and the aggressive Zionist response to her conscientious decision …. has heightened awareness of Palestinians among New Zealand citizens

    ‘The Generals Son’, Mike Peled, … is a inspiring wealth of information https://mikopeled.com/to-book-miko-peled-for-a-lecture/about/

  4. Bill 4
    28 April 2018 at 7:11 pm

    Good podcast with transcript on Gaza at the Intercept

    On episode 6 of Deconstructed, B’Tselem’s executive director, Hagai El Ad, joins Mehdi Hasan to discuss the border violence and the broader situation in Palestine. And Avner Gvaryahu, former Israeli paratrooper and executive director of Breaking the Silence, a group which documents the stories of IDF soldiers about their activities in the occupied territories, talks about his own time as a soldier in the West Bank.

  7. spikeyboy 7
    29 April 2018 at 5:08 pm

    Thanks Bill for keeping the plight of Gaza in the light on the Standard

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