This article at the Washington Post published today concerns itself with a report that there is a mass exodus of Syrian nations fleeing over the border to Turkey, following up a previous story on this topic, and the Turkish army is now enforcing a closure of that border to stem the tide down to something that Ankara finds acceptable for the moment.
This is part of a larger effort by the Western Media Establishment to create and direct a narrative about the so-called "Syrian Revolt" that favors the party line professed by the Anglo-American political establishment--run out of No. 10 Downing Street in the U.K. and the White House here in the U.S.--and their allies in the international banking system. As happened in Libya previously, the leading media corporations in the U.S. and U.K. are not telling we--the people said to be represented by these governments, and to be informed by these corporations--the whole story.
We are not served by a media establishment that might as well be an agent of government policy. That is--and has been for generations now--been the case in the West generally, and the poles of the aforementioned Establishment (London and D.C.) specifically. We've got to seek out alternative outlets, and that means leaving the comfort zone that we've come to experience from the so-called "mainstream media" outlets; this means seeking out so-called "fringe" outlets, and it means active engagement with media narratives, on the assumption that NONE of them are telling the whole truth. In short, an overdue return to the active critical reading of multiple sources with known biases, intending to discern by triangulation what the truth of a matter actually is in fact.
We start by seeking out, and bookmarking, the online media outlets of foreign media outlets that publish in English. PressTV is a London-based, English-language television media outlet owned and operated by Iran. (This is the most recent Syria story as of this post and it covers actions by Egypt to organize a local group of nations to bring Syria's problems to a negotiated solution- something not covered in Western media because it interferes with the Western narrative.
The other major networks with a YouTube presence are RT (formerly Russia Today; owned by Russia, English-language studios in Moscow and D.C.; most recent Syria-related story is a follow-up about the Libya situation because it addresses a region-wide trend of anti-Western action) and Al Jazeera's English-language outlet with studios in D.C., London and Qatar- it's world headquarters. (It's most recent Syria story is about a claim by rebels to shoot down a military plane.)
While those outlets are non-Western mirrors of Western-style media organizations, the real influence is coming increasingly from individuals or small groups working online as podcasters. The best of them, still, is The Corbett Report- a full-time, one-man operation by James Corbett, a Canadian expatriate now living in western Japan (with his Japanese wife).
With regard to Syria specifically, The Syrian Girl posts video updates of her own as well as links to stories posted by others that gainsay or contradict the Western narrative; in particular, she gainsays the "freedom fighter" Western line on the rebels. This video gainsays directly that narrative.
Podcasters like these are gaining in influence because media networks increasingly use them as associates, sparing the networks the need to risk personnel themselves or recruit or retain in-house experts, while borrowing the independents' credibility for their own purposes. It's a win-win for both parties; the podcasters benefit from the increased visibility and the networks benefit from being able to exploit outsourced wells of viable, newsworthy commentary and reporting. Calling them "fringe" is no longer a devastating pejorative attack on such outsiders and foreigners, especially when former U.S. and U.K. Intelligence officers blow the whistle on Western media's complicity in Intelligence operations (because The CIA's Project Mockingbird never really ended; it got normalized).
This all part of an ongoing collaboration between the media and the government that goes back to World War I, as admitted by the co-founder of Public Relations--Edward Bernays--when he published Propaganda in 1928. Bernays was hardly alone in his actions, or his motivations, and the apprentices of his apprentices are now the leaders of the media end of the said Establishment.
Why, then, should you believe what Brian Williams says on NBC Nightly News?
You shouldn't. You should, instead, regard what he says as suspect until evidence to confirm those claims reaches your awareness- just as you do with academic claims. We cannot let others do our thinking for us, because if we do they'll define our world- and, therefore, our identity, to their benefit and not ours. (You shouldn't do that with these alternatives either, but at least they're better--especially James Corbett--with citing or linking sources so you can check for your self.)
And we're talking about identity here, aren't we?
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