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“The gap between public perception and scientific reality is now enormous. While some of the public is just becoming aware of the existence of global warming, the relevant scientists – those who know what they are talking about – realize that the climate system is on the verge of tipping points. If the world does not make a dramatic shift in energy policies over the next few years, we may well pass the point of no return.”

George Monbiot got it right: mainstream journalists, quite simply, are “hired hands defending a corporate or institutional position”.

We do not live in a totalitarian society – the public potentially has enormous power to interfere. The goal, then, is to persuade the public that corporate-sponsored political choice is meaningful, that it makes a difference. The task of politicians at all points of the supposed ’spectrum’ is to appear passionately principled while participating in what is essentially a charade

It is a mistake to imagine that media corporations are impervious to all complaints and criticism. In fact, senior editors and managers are only too happy to accept that their journalists tend to be ‘anti-American,’ ‘anti-Israel,’ ‘anti-Western,’ indeed utterly rotten with left-wing bias

David Edwards parses Obama’s words on Iraq, and the slavish media reaction.

The recent student protests at New York University were greeted with ridicule and abuse from much of the media. The backlash to the backlash has now taken off, but the fake-righteousness of the cynics shows their warped world-view.

Israel doesn’t want peace and has worked studiously to avoid it coming about. The Western media needs to realize this before it’s too late.

The media in the U.S. set a narrow range of political debate, which makes real change impossible. Obama rode on this media wave and he must be criticized by the very people who elected him to make sure he doesn’t turn into another Tony Blair.

Business journalist, Andrew Crook, says his colleagues in the financial media should stop leaving the status-quo unquestioned in the mad scramble for the next story.

The U.S. election 2008 is seriously important, but the mainstream media have treated it like a game show to be won or lost without any real issues getting a look-in.