|
How To Manipulate Readers With ‘Expert’ Slanted Reporting
Imran Khan, a former cricket star who went into politics and became Prime Minister of Pakistan, had been ousted by bribing and threatening politicians of his coalition to turn against him. Khan had developed good relations with China and Russia and was against allowing the U.S. military to use Pakistan as a base for attacks in Afghanistan.
The new Pakistani government under Shehbaz Sharif has turned out to follow opposite policies. But it is increasingly unpopular. Imran Khan has used his popularity to raise a public ruckus against the ruling elite and the military and judicial forces behind it. He and his PTI party have good chances to win in the next election.
U.S. media reporting about Khan is thus conflicted. While it tries to show him in a negative light it can not simply omit the facts that speak in his favor. Quoting partisan expert is one of its tools it uses to solve that conflict.
A recent New York Times demonstrates this technique.
Pakistan’s Imran Khan Is Now the Target of Forces He Once Wielded
Old allies like the military have turned against him, but the former prime minister’s appeal on the street has only grown stronger, setting up a dangerous showdown.
The opener:
Former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s allies have been arrested. Media outlets and public figures considered sympathetic to him have been intimidated or silenced. He has been hit with charges under Pakistan’s antiterrorism act and faces the prospect of arrest.
For weeks, Pakistan has been gripped by a political showdown between the ruling establishment and Mr. Khan, the former cricket star turned populist politician who was ousted from the prime minister post this year.
A local expert is quoted in paragraph seven of the NYT piece:
“The former prime minister has been accused of threatening government officials — they are serious allegations bringing the confrontation between him and the federal government to a head,” said Zahid Hussain, an Islamabad-based political analyst and a columnist for Dawn, the country’s leading daily. “Any move to arrest him could ignite an already volatile political situation.”
Khan has been accused of "threatening government officials" and these are "serious allegations" claims that local analyst.
However, a few paragraphs later we learn that there were no threads at all but only the announcement of regular legal action:
In an echo of that political script, on Sunday Mr. Khan was charged under Pakistan’s antiterrorism act after giving a speech to thousands of supporters in the capital, Islamabad, in which he threatened legal action against senior police officers and a judge involved in the recent arrest of one of his top aides.
Announcing a well founded legal complaint against some officials is certainly not an act of terrorism. It is not consistent with "threatening government officials" or a "serious allegation" against Khan. It is simply the exercise of the right of every person under law.
Another case of using an 'expert' to slant the piece into a certain direction follows in paragraph thirteen:
“What differentiates this moment from previous moments is the amount of sheer street power Khan has,” said Madiha Afzal, a fellow at the Brookings Institution. “And street power makes a difference in Pakistan even when it does not translate into electoral votes.”
"Even when it does not translate into electoral votes" lets the reader assume that Khan does not have the support at the ballot box where it counts.
However, the opposite is the case. Six paragraphs on the facts sneak in and debunk the Brookings 'expert':
In the past two months, Mr. Khan has managed to parlay his widespread support into electoral prowess. His party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, won sweeping victories in local elections in Punjab — a province that has often served as a bellwether for national politics — and in the port city of Karachi.
Why, one wonders, do the NYT authors bother to quote two 'experts' when both are evidently wrong and contradicted by the facts further down in the piece? Why are those misleading opinions given more prominent places than the historical record?
One gets the impression that the original reporting in the piece was written factually. But the editorial process at the Times then insisted on adding 'expert' voices to give it the desired slant. The preferred placing of those voices above the facts will mislead non-diligent readers of the resulting effusion.
This technique is only one of several low level manipulations used in 'reporting' by the Times and other media. Sneaking opinionated voices into factual reporting reveals the perception media intends to impose on their readers.
“Here’s the guideline, if a figure is aligned with the USA then he is a “leader of people”. If he’s against them, well then he’s a “populist politician”. So transparent.”
It’s the same in Europe. If someone is pro-EU or pro-Globalism, he is “moderate”, “center” (or at most “center-left” or “center-right”), he is a “leader”, “business-friendly”, etc.
If someone is critical of EU and the slightest bit in favor of Sovereignty, he is a “populist”, an “extremist”, either “far-left” or “far-right”, an “enemy” of business, and now very popular a “PUTINIst”.
And none of them are leaders, they’re just “mistakes” the voters made, like Syriza in Greece or Orbán in Hungary, that soon “the markets” and the “international community” of “liberal drmocracy” will teach them a lesson…
In the new trend, all those pro-NATO and USA vassals are “allies”, but those that talk about facts (like NATO/USA war crimes, coups, invasions, etc) are “irresponsible”.
As a left-wing voter (Social-Democratic, Nordic Model), I noticed this many years ago in mainstream media. The portuguese one even calls “far-left” or “extremist” and “populist” to the parties that propose things that already exist in Scandinavia.
They probably learned with the USA example of calling “communism” to the idea of worker rights, or healthcare as a human right, or education without debt, etc.
This isn’t Communism. USA is fascism!
But since the last 6 months, this manipulation industry has gone beyond that, and now the “accepted” line of thinking is even thiner. And people just slightly outside that official line of the regime, are attacked in an even more evil way.
I remember a guy talking about the hostorical context of Ukrainian war, he didn’t even start giving his opinion, just facts, and the TV “journalist” (from the channel: SIC) interrupted him to make this intervention with a very sad face:
“But don’t you have pitty on the Ukrainian children NOW suffering?”
-and then proceded to let the pro-Nazi/Nato comentator do his intervention, repeating the war started on 24-February-2022 and Ukraine was at peace before that…
At this point, I completely stopped watching western mainstream media, and asked myself if at this point is Portugal learning theUSA propaganda, or is USA media learning how to lie even more with the portuguese mainstream “example”.
About Imran Khan? Pakistan isn’t even news. Most people can’t even point the country in a map. This mass ignorance is the perfect “status quo” for mass desinformation and manipulation of perception of the peasants by the “elites” (called “regime” or “oligarchs” only when we’re talking about Russia or non-Western aligned countries).
And the “news” of stupidification is another technique. Today Sanna Marin is on the news, the ‘woke’ propaganda is all over the place. But there’s ZERO talk about the crimes that USA and Turkey are right now doing against Syria territory and against Kurdish people.
Nor is there any talk about what Finland is doing to Kurdish refugees. I guess for this people with “european values” and very “progressive” ideas, Human Rights are optional, depending on the skin color, and depending if they are compatible with the Empire’s ambitions.
DISGUSTING!
Posted by: Carlos Marques | Aug 23 2022 18:59 utc | 55
@bevin | 62
Who said anything about “Socialism”?
This is the problem with USAmericans and the Right wing Europeans now following USA politics. You can’t even distinguish Social-Democracy from Socialism.
All you need us a trip to the library, dude…
When I say I like the Nordic Model with a Ghent system a exemplar worker’s rights, high and progressive taxes to pay for a good wellfare system and public/state healthcare and education, all this with a regulated enough market economy, I’m not talking about Socialism.
I’m talking about a mixed economy regime with a plural Parliament, that does all the good things that also exist in Cuba, and mixes it with all the good things that exist in USA. Just like China does in a pragmatic way, but obviously not so democratic as the Nordic countries.
That, by the way, is one of Karl Marx lessons in Das Kapital. Use the best Capitalism has. Refuse the worst Capitalism has. So far, the Nordic Model, is the best one putting that idea on practice.
The difference between Marxists and Social-Democrats is that Marxists want to keep replacing Capitalism with Socialism until they achieve a “perfect” Communist society, while Social-Democrats have a more pragmatic approach.
A Socialist says “let’s nationalize that, the State does it better”. A Capitalist says “let’s privatize that, the Capitalist does it better”. A Social-Democrat says “let’s evaluate the results and see wich one works better in each situation, for the good of all citizens”.
And then there are different Social-Democratic views. But if you can’t even distinguish Social-Democracy from Socialism, than I’m not even going to start explaining that to you…
What I can tell you is I undetstand why Bernie Sanders felt the need to use the word “Socialism” in USA, even though he is a more Capitalist leaning Social-Democrat. He would be considered Center-Right politician in Scandinavia, or at least one of those Social-Liberals in the Center.
If anyone in USA thinsk “Socialism” when someone else talks about Bernie Sanders or Scandinavia, that’s because USA is not a Democracy. It’s a freak of nature regime, where people have only one party (NeoLiberal in economy, warmongering in foreign politics) to choose from, but that comes in 2 colors in terms of views for the Society: red for Conservative/Fascist, blue for Libertarian/Woke.
Even China and Cuba have more colors than that inside their “Communist” regimes!!!
Why the commas in this word? Because Cuba isn’t really Communist, that’s just a historical necessity for anti-imperialism. And China has also a mixed economy, where it applies either Socialism or Capitalism depending on what they think works better in each situation for the benefit of the entire nation.
Neither China nor Cuba are trying the Marxist-Leninist idead of achieving true Communism (the complete end of Capitalism) through Socialism.
More important than all this is the discussion of something else: Europe’s greatest weakness is that it went from Industrial Capitalism to Financial Capitalism. Periphery countries got paid to close their industries and open services. The Germans thought this would give them hegemony over the rest of Europe. They forgot they need energy for their industry… Now that Germany might have to stop producing in order to use the available energy to keep its citizens from freezing in the Winter, and periphery countries have no one to sell their services to, what will be of the European economy?
This is the result of excessive market economy, and not enough planed economy. Excessive fanatism from people defending EUropean federalism, and not enough sovereignty. We don’t even have enough Agriculture.
If Russia does not sell us its grain, we starve. This is crazy! It wouldn’t happen in China.
If inflation goes too high, our wages might not be enough to pay our bills in Southern Europe. This wouldn’t happen if we all had a Ghent System empowering workers to demand decent wages, like the Nordic countries have.
If there’s a crisis, if the recession is too big, many people won’t have money to pay for health insurance, because we imposed market economy there too, instead of keeping it a free (from the user point of view) human right. This won’t happen in Cuba.
Even the currency is problem in Europe. We have an €uro completely disfunctional because of market econony fanatism and €uropeanist extremism. Well, in this case all countries in the world with their own real national currency, are a much better example. Well, apart from Zimbabwe…
This is not “Socialism”. This is the pragmatic approach of a modern Social-Democrat. If in some cases the best solution sounds Socialist, it should be applied regardless, and the rest of the market economy can stay Capitalist if it works well that way, and the political regime can be very plural and proportional (also something USA doesn’t have).
I’ll finish with the most ridiculous example, that makes USA’s savage NeoLib Capitalism sound like a Taliban middle-age regime: you can fire a pregnant woman, and not give any support nor child leave.
And here I don’t even need the Social-Democratic example to compare, because this USA’s regime is unthinkable in any civilized country.
Posted by: Carlos Marques | Aug 24 2022 3:03 utc | 91
|
