The Guardian hit a new low in Amelia Hill’s report on Julian Assange’s appearance at the Oxford Union. Hill moved beyond propaganda to downright lies.
This is easy to show. Read through Hill’s “report”. Then zip to 20 minutes and 55 seconds of the recording of Assange speaking at the event Hill misreports, and simply listen to the applause from the Oxford Union after Assange stops speaking.
Just that hearty applause is sufficient to show that the entire thrust and argument of Amelia Hill’s article moves beyong distortion or misreprentation – in themselves dreadful sins in a journalist – and into the field of outright lies. Her entire piece is intended to give the impression that the event was a failure and the audience were hostile to Assange. That is completely untrue.
Much of what Hill wrote is not journalism at all. What does this actually mean?
“His critics were reasoned, those who queued for over an hour in the snow to hear him speak were thoughtful. It was Julian Assange – the man at the centre of controversy – who refused to be gracious.”
Hill manages to quote five full sentences of the organiser of the anti-Assange demonstration (which I counted at 37 people) while giving us not one single sentence of Assange’s twenty minute address. Nor a single sentence of Tom Fingar, the senior US security official who was receiving the Sam Adams award. Even more remarkably, all three students Hill could find to interview were hostile to Assange. In a hall of 450 students who applauded Assange enthusiastically and many of whom crowded round to shake my hand after the event, Hill was apparently unable to find a single person who did not share the Rusbridger line on Julian Assange.
Hill is not a journalist – she is a pathetic grovelling lickspittle who should be deeply, deeply ashamed.
Here is the answer to the question about cyber-terrorism of which Amelia Hill writes:
“A question about cyber-terrorism was greeted with verbose warmth”
As you can see, Assange’s answer is serious, detailed, thoughtful and not patronising to the student. Hill’s characterisation – again without giving a word of Assange’s actual answer – is not one that could genuinely be maintained. Can anybody – and I mean this as a real question – can anybody look at that answer and believe that “Verbose warmth” is a fair and reasonable way to communicate what had been said to an audience who had not seen it? Or is it just an appalling piece of hostile propaganda by Hill?
The night before Assange’s contribution at the union, John Bolton had been there as guest speaker. John Bolton is a war criminal whose actions deliberately and directly contributed to the launching of an illegal war which killed hundreds of thousands of people. Yet there had not been one single Oxford student picketing the hosting of John Bolton, and Amelia Hill did not turn up to vilify him. My main contribution to the Sam Adams event was to point to this as an example of the way people are manipulated by the mainstream media into adopting seriously warped moral values.
Amelia Hill is one of the warpers, the distorters of reality. The Guardian calls her a “Special Investigative Correspondent.” She is actually a degraded purveyor of lies on behalf of the establishment. Sickening.
CE, Mary neither requires nor uses any mask. “Restrained righteous anger” seems an appropriate description to me. Your aggression, however, I find inexplicable. I’ve already determined to my own satisfaction that it has nothing to do with protecting women associated with the Assange matter; you’ve shown, on an earlier thread, that you will exploit them, and that you’ll insult and denigrate female anti-rape campaigners. Your concern appears to be directed against Assange himself, and not towards anything positive.
The actions against Assange trivialise laws for sexual protection. You seem utterly unconcerned about this, too.
I did not show anything of the sort thank you very much Clark.
Although I am entirely unsurprised to see personal attacks for those criticising Brand JA, it’s par for the course.
CE, that was impressively fast. It seemed faster than humanly possible. Must be a cut-and-paste. Anyway, thanks, but it’s not what I asked for. Is my requested material linked from that site?
And if you want to talk about, denigrating female anti-rape campaigners we can talk about this blogs treatment of THE LESBIAN Ms Krans.
I linked at the bottom Clark.
CE, 7 Feb, 1:26 pm; yes, yes, yes, it’s obvious that in your mind, “criticising Brand JA” is far more important than ensuring that sex laws are not diluted by their misuse for political persecution.
Clark,
Yes, best to ignore CE’s cut and paste – he “forgot” provisions such as Section 58 of the UK’s 2003 Extradition Act which allows the UK Home Secretary (and her alone) to waive “specialty” – the rule whereby people cannot be onward-extradited from a second country to a third for any offence other than the one they were extradited from Britain for. The Home Secretary’s waiver (stroke of a pen stylee) is NOT subject to judicial review in the courts. Well, at least he admits that “temporary surrender” is indeed possible from Sweden to the US as long as the Swedish government agrees to it. So, Assange is PERFECTLY safe then (hollow laugh)
More fun from the New Stateman – shrill demands “Leader: Time’s up for Assange: He should leave the Ecuadorean embassy without delay”, no less. Someone’s having a tantrum at not getting their way, eh? I wonder who?
http://www.newstatesman.com/media/media/2013/02/leader-times-assange
Seriously though, two is a row – and did you see the way the rest of the UK MSM leapt on Jemima’s article last night? – something’s afoot, f’sure.
I put a few guesses as to what that might be in my comment on the article:
CE, you’re conversing with ME, Clark Killick; I am not “this blog” or some cult, or anyone else. And calling a lesbian a lesbian is not an insult. My lesbian friends sometimes call themselves “dykes”. One, a keen cyclist, finds it amusing to refer to “dykes on bikes”. So please stick to the point.
I recognise your link. It points to the UK Crown Prosecution Service. I asked for the text of the extradition treaty between the US and Sweden. I have so far failed to find it on the UN site. You claim to know its implications, so you presumably know where to find it. Or are you taking someone else’s word for what it says?
Really, you talk of “tired old ground”, but you really could speed matters up.
CE, my mistake. You didn’t link to the Crown Prosecution Service, but to the Centre for Policy Studies:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_for_policy_studies
Set up by Thatcher (& Co.), who famously refused to extradite Pinochet, who had women raped by dogs.
And you accuse me of “chutzpah”!
Apologies for the earlier disruption of the thread. I should know better by now not to let them get to me.
This is an e-mail to Jemima Khan posted on medialens by Joe Emersberger, a Canadian trades unionist and supporter of the democracies in South America especially Venezuela.
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1360243725.html
Mary, your comment didn’t disrupt anything as far as I’m concerned and the response to it is not your responsibility. It did give CE a chance to demonstrate his/her respect for women.
Clark,
Would you kindly stop attempting to smear me because I am critical of JA. If you disagree with something I say, fine. You say you dislike the Cult label, but then you proceed to launch unfounded personal attacks against people who are critical of JA. Thanks.
My response to Mary was nothing to with women, but with the homophobic slur she deployed when attempting to insult Peter Mandelson.
The corporate media probably just can’t keep up with the volume of Wikileaks releases. From that point of view, there is enough material to trawl through for years. Look at the tendency of corporate media to report on between one and a few facts, and to spin out the article with opinion and interpretation to many “column inches”. There are hundreds of thousands of documents in Wikileaks’ Cablegate release alone.
Remember that this is all happening as increasing numbers of readers turn to the Internet for their news, where annoying and intrusive advertising is easily blocked with extensions such as Firefox’s AdBlock Plus. In desperation at falling income from reduced sales of paper media, the more respected “newspapers” compound their own problem by introducing “paywalls”, causing yet more of their readership to defect elsewhere.
From the corporate media’s position, which prefers not to oppose the constant push for war and is happy therefore to report “old news”, Wikileaks have already given them enough material for the foreseeable future. Competing with each other in the short term, they have no further need of Wikileaks, but Assange is useful as a “manufactured enemy”, where they can play their age-old game of getting everyone hot under the collar about other people’s sexual behaviour.
The corporate media is behaving just as it always has.
If you don’t want it back, CE, don’t hand it out. Deal?
And CE, it’s not just your opinion of Assange that gets me mad. It’s your whole approach, and your treatment of everyone who disagrees with you.
Deal. But as far as I can remember, I haven’t attacked you personally, but I will try extra hard to refrain! 😉
And apologies if I caused a disruption, but I find it unacceptable to use terms like ‘men like him’ when discussing a homosexual.
CE :but I find it unacceptable to use terms like ‘men like him’ when discussing a homosexual.
Ce, don’t be a prissy. Move along if you find it ‘unacceptable’–after all it wasn’t directed at you…
Arbed; That follow-up article looked like a ‘themed’ series, with an agenda.
Tony Blair keeps coming up…….It appears they are Globalists.
Contemporary Fabianism; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fabian_Society
“Through the course of the 20th century the group has always been influential in Labour Party circles, with members including Ramsay MacDonald, Clement Attlee, Anthony Crosland, Richard Crossman, Tony Benn, Harold Wilson and more recently Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Gordon Marsden and Ed Balls. The late Ben Pimlott served as its Chairman in the 1990s. (A Pimlott Prize for Political Writing was organised in his memory by the Fabian Society and The Guardian in 2005 and continues annually). The Society is affiliated to the Party as a socialist society. In recent years the Young Fabian group, founded in 1960, has become an important networking and discussion organisation for younger (under 31) Labour Party activists and played a role in the 1994 election of Tony Blair as Labour Leader. Following a period of inactivity, the Scottish Young Fabians were reformed in 2005.”
http://www.worldviewweekend.com/worldview-tube/play.php?id=cwnVideo-4459
sorry. forgot the Wiki which led me to ‘Fabianism’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Statesman
Tony Blair, Tony Blair. His name keeps coming up..
http://centurean2.wordpress.com/2009/05/02/fabian-society-literally-control-the-european-union-plus-the-british-government/
“I’d like to start with a quote from a New Statesman profile of Clement Attlee in 1954………” Tony Blair speech to Fabian Conference 2003.
full text here….http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2003/jun/17/publicservices.speeches1
BTW; All this claptrap about JA and the lack of extradition filings by U.S. is too cute by one-half.
Everything, and I mean, everything is being ‘classified’ by the US govt. Do you really think they would spill their candy in the Lobby with a public outing of their intent(ion)? Every day groups are seeking their legal right to FOIA docs which are summarily refused or redacted beyond redemption.
People are being naive, or disingenuous?
From the medialens thread on the NS article.
Re: Email to Jemima Khan
Posted by gloriousrevolution on February 7, 2013, 6:19 pm, in reply to “Email to Jemima Khan”
Joe, I wrote what I thought was a calm, rational, informative, and interesting comment about Khan’s article on the New Statesman’s website, dealing with one of The central premises, which so much else is based on. Did two Swedish women really accused Assange of raping them and sexually abusing them? If they didn’t make those kinds of statements to the police or use the terms ‘rape’ and ‘sexual abuse’ when complaining to the police, where did the allegations come from? And one can check the leaked police ‘interviews’ if one can be bothered. It’s not that difficult. There are english translations if one’s swedish isn’t all that hot.
To my astonishment my comment, (which wasn’t abusive or angry, compared to some of the other comments aimed at Assange, which are deranged, and were allowed to stand), was deleted after only a couple of hours. What had I done wrong? Sure, if my analysis and version of what the leaked police interviews contain is accurate, then both Khan and the New Statesman’s ‘legal expert’ David Allen Greene, would look rather foolish as they haven’t bothered to check their sources properly, and a lot of what they are arguing becomes invalid, or at the least highly debatable.
If the source of the rape allegations, which Khan mentions, aren’t the two women at all, but start with a remark, a judgement, from a female policewoman who knew one of the women involved, and was therefore clearly partial and emotionally charged, then this puts a different perspective on the affair, and makes the role of the media who haven’t checked their facts, even more contentious and dubious. But to be deleted for pointing this out seems outrageous to me. One almost feels like one is living in some kind of police state.
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1360188185.html
Yawn – nothing new here.
Much as i dislike the CPS I don’t think you can discount what is clearly a fairly detailed analysis (although it is nothing new and has been out there for a long time) just because the author has an incredibly tenuous association with Pinochet’s nasty dogs. Even Tories and Republicans can have views that should be respected. If Arbed were to bother to read the link then you will see it very clearly addresses her point about section 58.
Ben seems to have a bee in his bonnet about Fabians and even links to a rather nasty Protocol of Zion influenced posting by Centurion2. Well Ben let me declare an interest here I have been a Fabian for over 30 years and can speak with some knowledge about the organisation – and quite frankly you and your friends haven’t got a clue if you think it is some form of organised conspiracy. First of all it isn’t very organised – and people mainly join it to read the pamphlets – which come from a range of political perspectives within the Labour Party – and that is about it.
Someone else makes a rather nasty slur, about me hating all Muslims – patently not true I just hate those like who like to blow up bombs among civilians by promising gullible idiots virgins in heaven (when the proper translation is wsweet raisins), fly airplanes into skyscapers, want an all encompassing Caliphate, issue fatwas against writers who use their freedom of speech and just show a general intolerance of anyone who disagrees with them. I’d be the first to admit that many of these tendencies can be found in other religions and other beliefs. I respect an awful lot of Muslims who have taken part in the Arab Spring and who have the courage and bravery to fight the dictators that used to dominate that part of the World.
And Villager thinks that I am require dto respond to his questions within 2 hours – sorry luv the grant from Hillary doesn’t stretch that far – and I never said the ad hominems were aimed at me – just that they were ad hominems which they clearly are.
Anyway toodlepip and Goodnight.
“Mary….I’ve stopped reading the MSM completely, choosing to live on a need-to-know principle. You are an invaluable filter in that process. Thank you.”
That was Villager yesterday at 23h39.
Resident Dissident called Mary “the Virgin Mary”. Well, perhaps that was a slight exaggeration, but to judge from Villager’s post she’s certainly well on her way to canonisation.
*********
Congratulations by the way to Resident Dissident and CE not only for the way they argued their corner but also for the way in which they managed to flush out most of the Eminences of this blog (I’ll make an exception for Clark, who managed to post with civility and was the only one with the grace to apologise for something he’d got wrong).
HubbaBubba,
You’re looking through your petty little prison of Catholicism. Saints and all that are wonderful fables which you should put through the usual wringer of rigour that you otherwise seem to aspire to. Whereas, I am free. And in freedom there is real wisdom and real love. You seem to have forgotten, I have already declared here on an earlier thread that I love Mary. Her posts reflect her wisdom, human compassion and sense of humour. I respect people whose personal growth over their years is easy to see. Its rather like looking at a beautiful old tree. Canonisation etc and all that childish nonsense, I leave to you to ponder.
This may yet help save you:
The Nature Of Thought: Part 1(of 6) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9VaU8EOR8k
(partly in French)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMbmHTy-OQE
—
As for new found friends Res Diss and CE, they are nothing but stunted screws and nuts, that are part of State machinery and standard-bearers of the MSM. In a corner, yes you are right.
Thanks for your kind words Villager. Hope I am not like any of the trees that my brother has had to have felled! They are larches which have the disease that is spread by spores and one of them had butt rot as well, ie rot spreading up from the base. 🙂
The Forestry Commission can legally order their felling and removal.
http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pramorum
It is quite funny how the three resident trolls have formed themselves into a little band. I wonder when they will get their instructions to leave this site?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrq6av5-PS8 Captain Beaky and his band!
Villager
If you believe that Mary’s posts about JK’s background – or the into the background of anyone she disapproves are motivated by human compassion – then I feel sorry for you. I think some of the reactions to JK here and among the newspaper comments just add fuel to the cult theory – since cults are notorious for the bile and fury they express to those who see through their nonsense and leave.
Habbabkuk, 7 Feb, 9:18 pm; I did not apologise for something I got wrong. I smoothed over a misunderstanding caused by resident dissident’s faulty typing. Look at it again:
resident dissident subsequently stated that “not” should have been “note”.
Reading it in its faulty form, it says that I should hide my identity as resident dissident does, and that Assange and Wikileaks formerly denied any reason to hide identity. It makes two different points about different parties, and should therefore have been two sentences instead of one.
Please don’t blame me for resident dissident’s mistake.