Distortion, Dogma and Denial

Rowson, Monbiot and the Propaganda of Media Lens 

@georgemonbiot Which part rings true: that we're ' just another leftist groupuscle shilling for tyrants' who 'hate the West'?
— Media Lens (@medialens) October 26, 2012

For those who don't know, Media Lens is an independent website run by two Davids, Cromwell and Edwards, ostensibly dedicated to identifying bias and distortion in reporting by 'The Mainstream Media'. As their use of this now-loaded term suggests, however, the site is less an impartial and fair-minded ombudsman than a crude ideological tool.

Cromwell and Edwards are both proponents of the 'Propaganda Model' of media advanced by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky in their 1988 book, Manufacturing Consent. Their theory - in short - holds that large media organisations are cynical machines which pay lip service to truth and democracy whilst actually manufacturing consent for policies that serve corporate interests. Or as the website's FAQ would have it:

In seeking to understand systematic media distortion, we reject all conspiracy theories. Instead, we point to the inevitably corrupting effects of ‘market forces’ operating on, and through, media corporations seeking profit in a society dominated by corporate power.

So it is with these a priori assumptions in mind that Media Lens attacks British journalists and their reporting, with a view to countering the media's perceived agenda with an anti-corporatist agenda of its own. The extent to which one sympathises with this mission depends almost entirely upon the degree to which one buys into the Chomsky/Herman thesis.

The Tribune article approvingly linked in Monbiot's tweet was the result of another Media Lens twitter spat in which Guardian cartoonist Martin Rowson found himself embroiled earlier this year. On May 27, 2 days after the massacre of 108 civilians in Syria's Houla region by forces loyal to Assad's Ba'athist regime, the Guardian had published the following editorial cartoon beneath the headline "Martin Rowson on the Lastest Syrian Massacre":

Media Lens took exception to the presumption of Assad's guilt and, apparently unaware that they were displaying exactly the kind of wounded schoolboy innocence satirised in the cartoon, leapt to his defence.

. @martinrowson On what actual evidence about the massacre in Houla is your cartoon based?
— Media Lens (@medialens) May 28, 2012

The meaning of the cartoon is pretty clear to me and eminently defensible in its indictment of Assad and his apologists. But Rowson, perhaps a little taken aback by a request for hard facts about a situation immersed in uncertainty, unwisely sought to justify his conclusions with vague references to media reports and a reliance upon his "cartoonist's hunch". (In his subsequent Tribune piece, Rowson acknowledged this mistake before appearing to back-pedal further, claiming that the "Who? Me??" caption was not necessarily attributable to Assad (who, you will notice, is indicating himself) and rather ungenerously blaming the subber for appending an unsuitable headline.)

Scenting blood, Media Lens began a robotic series of requests for conclusive evidence of Assad's guilt that met a standard of reliability they knew full well Rowson could never hope to produce. Understandably, Rowson finally lost his rag, and the exchange more-or-less ground to a halt (although the feud has fitfully spluttered back into life since).

Armed with 140 character confirmation of Rowson's failure to meet their exacting standards of certainty, Media Lens named and shamed him in a blog post (or "Media Alert" as they like to call them) about alleged corporatist bias in the reporting of the Houla massacre. To Media Lens, the accusation was not one of simple inaccuracy, but of collusion in manufacturing a casus belli for an allegedly profit-driven war in the Middle East. Or, as they explained to Rowson:

. @martinrowson Comparable cartoons on Saddam played a part in facilitating an illegal war with horrific consequences? Doesn't that matter?
— Media Lens (@medialens) May 28, 2012

Never mind the fact that Rowson was one of the Iraq war's most strident opponents. And never mind the fact that neither the British nor the American governments display the slightest appetite for miltary intervention in Syria. And never mind whether or not Assad was in fact responsible, as the preponderance of evidence available at the time clearly suggested. Rowson was explicitly accused of acting as a shill for war profiteers.

The Media Lens blog about Houla opened with the following quote from the Independent on Sunday:

‘There is, of course, supposed to be a ceasefire, which the brutal Assad regime simply ignores. And the international community? It just averts its gaze. Will you do the same? Or will the sickening fate of these innocent children make you very, very angry?’ (Independent on Sunday, May 27, 2012)

To which the (unidentified) Media Lens blogger responded:

Readers, then, knew exactly where to direct their anger - the 'brutal' Syrian 'regime' was responsible for the massacre.

Not only are we given to understand that Assad's regime must be considered innocent until proven guilty, but the inverted commas also imply that it has yet to be satisfactorily demonstrated that it is either "brutal" or indeed deserving of the perjorative term "regime". By Media Lens's demanding standards, it seems the only thing we can confidently say about the Syrian government is that it is Syrian.

It is here that we start to enter the murky world of atrocity denial. Media Lens strenuously protest this charge, claiming that they are only interested in accuracy. But, as Oliver Kamm has argued with respect to their defence of Chomsky's views on the Srebrenica massacre (see comment thread here), Media Lens have previous form on this front.

In spite of the pre-emptive denials distancing themselves from conspiracy theorising, the logic with which they seek to exonerate Assad of responsibility for Houla is disturbingly similiar to that used by those seeking to discredit any "Official Line", be it on evolotion, climate change, the events of 9/11 or the historicity of the Holocaust. That is, to introduce enough doubt to allow alternative interpretations of events to be considered on a plane of equal validity.

Historical relativism was an early 20th Century reaction to the unsustainable idea that history was the process of revealing objective truth. Memory, it was conceded, is faulty; writing open to interpretation; people are prone to self-deception; the motivation for actions is often opaque, even to the actors themselves; and historians are all prone to personal and cultural bias. In 1931, Carl Becker addressed the American Historical Association as follows:

Much the greater part of [historical] events we can know nothing about, not even that they occurred; many of them we can know only imperfectly; and even the few events we think we know for sure we can never be absolutely certain of, since we can never revive them, never observe or test them directly.

These problems only multiply when dealing with events obscured by chaos (as in Syria) or the passage of time (as with the Holocaust). Survivors die, testimony conflicts and evidence gets destroyed or lost.

Historical relativism was an attempt to come to terms with these truths. However, followed to its logical conclusion, it revealed itself to be just as unsustainable as the historical objectivity it sought to overthrow. Stranded in nihilism, the historian is thrown into what Rowson described in his Tribune piece as a "phenomenological vortex" in which nobody can be sure about anything, and the concept of truth becomes so elusive as to be virtually meaningless.

But it is the very weaknesses inherent in historical relativism that make it so attractive to conspiracy theorists and ideological revisionists. It is into the gaps in our knowledge that they run in pursuit of their agenda, demanding extravagant proofs of negatives and seizing on every circumstantial scrap they can find in order to sow more doubt. "How do you know it was 6 million? Can you show me their names?" Or "Can you produce the document that conclusively proves Hitler personally ordered the Final Solution? No? Then perhaps you ought to admit he might not have known". Or, as Media Lens wonder aloud in the case of Houla:

Perhaps Syrian government forces, or allied militias were responsible. Would that mean the Syrian government, and Assad himself, ordered, or knew about, the killings? Might the killers be rogue supporters of the government acting independently?

This follows speculation that the attack was in fact a false flag operation by Syrian rebels designed to draw the West into war. One Alastair Crooke, interviewed on that noble paragon of objectivity RT.com, and introduced by Media Lens as a "highly respected Syria analyst", had this to say:

But all this feverish obscurantism is for naught when a modicum of common sense is introduced. The simple answer to the problems presented by historical objectivity and relativism respectively is to abandon the pursuit of absolute certainty and follow the convergence of evidence. History - whether immediate or distant - can never realistically be a record of what happened. It can only be a record of what probably happened, based upon the best interpretation of the best evidence available. 

It is this approach which forms the basis of both scientific inquiry and historical methodology today, and upon which UN investigators relied to reach the wholly unsurprising conclusions published in their August 2012 report:

The continued investigation since its preliminary report of 27 June 2012, has supplemented the commission’s initial understanding of the events in Al-Houla. On the basis of available evidence, the commission has a reasonable basis to believe that the perpetrators of the deliberate killing of civilians, at both the Abdulrazzak and Al-Sayed family locations, were aligned to the Government. It rests this conclusion on its understanding of access to the crime sites, the loyalties of the victims, the security layout in the area including the position of the government’s water authority checkpoint and the consistent testimonies of victims and witnesses with direct knowledge of the events. This conclusion is bolstered by the lack of credible information supporting other possibilities.

So, in summary?

The commission found that Government forces and Shabbiha members were responsible for the killings in Al-Houla.

Furthermore...

The commission confirms its previous finding that violations were committed pursuant to State policy. Large-scale operations conducted in different governorates, their similar modus operandi, their complexity and integrated military-security apparatus indicate the involvement at the highest levels of the armed and security forces and the Government. The Shabbiha were identified as perpetrators of many of the crimes described in the present report. Although the nature, composition and hierarchy of the Shabbiha remains unclear, credible information led to the conclusion that they acted in concert with Government forces.

Pending the emergence of persuasive evidence to the contrary - which, to my knowledge, Media Lens have yet to provide - this is our best understanding of what probably happened.

Let it not be forgotten that Britain, France, the US and ten other nations felt sufficiently certain of the Syrian regime's responsibility to expel their diplomats. Nor that the United Nations Human Rights Council voted to condemn the regime, by 41 votes to 6.

It is also worth noticing the hapharzard incoherence with which Media Lens prosecute their case. Their demand for conclusive proof does not, for a start, extend to their own claim about the Iraq war's alleged illegality.

More damaging still, their own sources are permitted to offer unchallenged, unsubstantiated speculation that comes nowhere near the standard expected of Rowson, and are compromised by serious credibility problems.

I won't waste time going over the abundant evidence of RT.com's flagrant anti-Western bias. But it is worth pointing out that their distinguished guest, Alastair Crooke, tends to share his hosts' dim view of the West, and has developed a corresponding sympathy for some of its most unpleasant enemies. Comparing Western Enlightenment values unfavourably with those of Islamism back in 2009, he indulgently described Hamas and Hezbollah as part of "the intellectual tradition [of Islamism] grounded in philosophy and reasoning and in transforming knowledge". How interesting.

Sharmine Narwani is introduced with the scholarly-sounding title "Senior Associate at St. Antony's College, Oxford University" to speculate about how recommendations found in the 2010 Unconventional Warfare Manual of the US Military’s Special Forces might have been applied in Syria. Predictably, she provides no evidence for her insinuations, and the article ("censored," we are told, "by AOL-HuffPost") was published the day the massacre in Houla occurred, so it's no use to Media Lens there.

This is someone, by the way, who has written that "charges of electoral fraud after [Iran's] June 2009 elections are far from conclusive", and who found it necessary to respond to the news of Christopher Stevens's murder in Benghazi with this:

100s of 1,000s of Arabs & Muslims slaughtered by American troops. Tell me again why I should care about whatshisname-plus-three? #Libya
— Sharmine Narwani (@snarwani) September 12, 2012

A handy quotation from Major General Robert Mood ("What I learned on the ground in Syria...is that I should not jump to conclusions") links to a faintly nauseating piece by Hafez al-Assad's notoriously sympathetic biographer Patrick Seale. When not stooging for the Assad family, Seale, like Narwani, is a defender of the necessity of an "axis of resistance" consisting of Syria, Iran, Hamas and Hezbollah. (For further discussion of Seale's pro-totalitarian apologetics, see Bella Center's excellent post over at MidEastParallelUniverse.)

Quite apart from anything else, the appearance of Seale's article in The Guardian seems rather to undermine the idea that the mainstream media is a homogenous corporatist machine disseminating warmongering falsehood in the pursuit of profit. As does John Bradley's linked article from the Daily Mail, which appears beneath the words: "Yes, Syria is a tragedy but it would be madness for Britain to intervene."

Meanwhile, in seeking to discredit those they attack for their alleged corporatist bias, Media Lens link to the websites of such apparently non-mainstream media organs as The Sunday Telegraph, The Guardian, the AP, Reuters, the BBC and The Daily Mail. Are these exceptions justified with reference to their sources or their supporting evidence? Nope. These particular articles (or, rather, cherry-picked sentences) seem to be validated only by their temporary usefulness to the Media Lens argument.

None of which prevents Media Lens, of course, from discarding the fragile veneer of sober inquiry and dispensing with all nuance in favour of a thunderous, pulpit-pounding conclusion worthy of Lindsey German:

We recognise the bloody ruthlessness of the Syrian Baathists, epitomised by Assad's father and continued now by his son, Bashar. Whatever the truth of Houla, the reaction of the corporate media has, yet again, made a mockery of the claim that it is a 'free press'. Rather, it has propagandised relentlessly in promoting the US-UK view of the conflict. Once again, war in pursuit of regime change is the real goal behind the 'humanitarian' deceit.

War, again war, always war - endless war! But then corporate greed is a form of eternal war in pursuit of profit. We are living, very clearly, in a pathologically violent and structurally insane society. 

That perfunctory condemnation of the Assad regime seems hard to reconcile with their criticism of the Independent on Sunday's nearly identical description. But then, this kind of pro forma declaration is a staple of any defence of the tyranny, reluctantly inserted to provide a semblance of deniability when the accusations of excuse-making for dictatorship inevitably begin. (Even George Galloway would occasionally describe Saddam Hussein as a "brutal dictator".)

Media Lens conclude with what they appear to think is damning evidence of media complicity in a warmongering agenda from the Times:

‘What kind of country would Britain be, and what kind of people would young Syrians take us for, if we allowed the slaughter to continue?’ (Leader, ‘Responsibility to Protect,’ The Times, May 30, 2012)

Good question. And not one to which I have yet heard a satisfactory answer from the anti-war camp. The ideological straightjacket to which Media Lens have confined themselves will not accomodate the possibility of humanitarian intervention to prevent ongoing crimes against humanity. But nor do they appear to feel comfortable arguing that we all sit with our arms folded while Assad slaughters his own people like livestock. So, instead, they try to convince us that he may not be culpable; that reality is not what it seems, so as to stun us into impotent agnosticism.

When confronted with accusations of pro-Assad bias, Media Lens are indignant despite the fact that they are in the business of making similar accusations, often on far less evidence. Monbiot, much to my dismay, immediately clarified that he did not consider Media Lens to be "just another leftist groupuscle shilling for tyrants". A shame since, on the basis of this case, Rowson's words strike me as a pretty unimproveable description.

But that's probably because, broadly speaking, Monbiot shares many of their views. After all, Monbiot is himself a confessed disciple of Chomsky (although unlike Media Lens, he has confronted Chomsky's claims about Srebrenica) and he is still pursuing a noisy, and almost certainly futile campaign to have Tony Blair tried for war crimes. But, as Monbiot pointed out in his own blog post following the twitter exchange, what's most odd about Media Lens is their perverse choice of targets. Rowson and Monbiot have both praised Media Lens in the past and their views Iraq (and, I suspect, Syria) are far closer to those of Cromwell and Edwards than they are, say, to mine.

Presumably Media Lens feel that by attacking anti-war figures and fellow travellers with the missionary zeal usually reserved for neo-conservatives, they are demonstrating their incorruptibility. To me it smacks of fanaticism.

But then again, this self-defeating desire to estrange allies will in time simply consign their site to the dustbin of ultra-leftist paranoid crankery. And that is where, when all's said and done, it correctly belongs.