In Britain as in America, the object of training professionals in everything from banking to the media is to produce a class of “managers” who instinctively muffle dissent — even if no one tells them to do so.
By John Pilger
Published 23 June 2011
The New Statesman
"......The reputable media play a critical role. Frederick Ogilvie, who succeeded the BBC's founder, Lord Reith, as director general, wrote that his goal was to turn the BBC into a "fully effective instrument of war". Ogilvie would have been delighted with his 21st-century managers. In the run-up to the Iraq invasion, the BBC's coverage overwhelmingly echoed the government's mendacious position, as studies by the University of Wales and Media Tenor show.
Security matters
By John Pilger
Published 23 June 2011
The New Statesman
"......The reputable media play a critical role. Frederick Ogilvie, who succeeded the BBC's founder, Lord Reith, as director general, wrote that his goal was to turn the BBC into a "fully effective instrument of war". Ogilvie would have been delighted with his 21st-century managers. In the run-up to the Iraq invasion, the BBC's coverage overwhelmingly echoed the government's mendacious position, as studies by the University of Wales and Media Tenor show.
Security matters
However, the great Arab uprising cannot be easily managed, or appropriated, with omissions and caveats, as an exchange on the BBC's Today programme on 16 May made clear. With his celebrated professionalism, honed in corporate speeches, John Humphrys interviewed a Palestinian spokesman, Husam Zomlot, following Israel's massacre of unarmed demonstrators on the 63rd anniversary of the illegal expulsion of the Palestinian people from their homes.
Humphrys: . . . it's not surprising that Israel reacted the way it did, is it?
Zomlot: . . . I am very proud and glad [they were] peacefully marching only to . . . really to draw attention to their 63-year plight.
Humphrys: But they did not march peacefully, that's my point . . .
Zomlot: None of them . . . was armed . . . [They were] opposed to Israeli tanks and helicopters and F-16s. You cannot even start to compare the violence . . . This is not a security matter . . . [the Israelis] always fail to deal with such a purely political, humanitarian, legal matter . . .
Humphrys: Sorry to interrupt you there but . . . if I marched into your house waving a club and throwing a stone at you then it would be
a security matter, wouldn't it?
Zomlot: I beg your pardon. According to the United Nations Security Council resolutions, those people are marching to their homes; they have the deeds of their homes; it's their private property. So let's set the record right once and for all . . .
It was a rare moment. Setting the record straight is not a managerial "target"."
Humphrys: . . . it's not surprising that Israel reacted the way it did, is it?
Zomlot: . . . I am very proud and glad [they were] peacefully marching only to . . . really to draw attention to their 63-year plight.
Humphrys: But they did not march peacefully, that's my point . . .
Zomlot: None of them . . . was armed . . . [They were] opposed to Israeli tanks and helicopters and F-16s. You cannot even start to compare the violence . . . This is not a security matter . . . [the Israelis] always fail to deal with such a purely political, humanitarian, legal matter . . .
Humphrys: Sorry to interrupt you there but . . . if I marched into your house waving a club and throwing a stone at you then it would be
a security matter, wouldn't it?
Zomlot: I beg your pardon. According to the United Nations Security Council resolutions, those people are marching to their homes; they have the deeds of their homes; it's their private property. So let's set the record right once and for all . . .
It was a rare moment. Setting the record straight is not a managerial "target"."
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