Moral misery of "independent journalism"

                                                     Moral misery of "independent journalism" 

By: Atilio Borón: In this article: Latin America and the Caribbean, Argentina, Cyberwar, Human Rights, United States, Media War, Ideology, Political Interference, Julian Assange, freedom of expression, Media, Public Opinion, Journalism, Journalists murdered, Politics. 

 Reviewing some old notes accumulated on my computer's hard drive, I found a series of statements from the National Academy of Journalism of Argentina expressing their concern about freedom of expression and the attack on "journalists" such as Luis Majul and Daniel Santoro. 

 The institution of yore is presided over by Joaquín Morales Solá, a man who pretends to ignore the difference between informing - and giving an opinion on the basis of reliable and checked information - and using the media in which he works for propaganda operations presented before his defenseless audience as if they were "independent journalism."

 In a recent broadcast of his program Desde El Llano, the president of the ANP “interviewed” Mrs. Elisa Carrió who was dispatched with an endless series of nonsense, without the supposed journalist managing to stammer a single cross-question! It was not a journalistic interview but a case of subliminal political propaganda, probably paid. That is to say, a scam to the television audience. 

Carlos Pagni, another representative of "serious journalism" in Argentina, had done the same a few days before when he "interviewed" Juan Guaidó for just over half an hour who, as Carrió would later do with Morales Solá, spilled huge amounts of " bullshit ”before an impassive Pagni, who made no comment or asked any questions to test Guaidó's words. 

 The objective, of course, was to provide the Venezuelan grotesque with a platform to spread the word about his political project. In both cases, a supposedly journalistic space appears to have been hired to promote the political agenda of a self-proclaimed candidate for governor of the province of Buenos Aires, who returned to political leadership a few months after having announced her definitive retirement; or that of a wimp proud to have been appointed "president in charge" of his country by Donald Trump. All this, I repeat, before the complacent attitude of the acquiescent "interviewers"

 In short, much of what they call "independent journalism" is nothing more than a cover for some merchants to traffic their communication space and auction it (themselves or their employers) to the highest bidder. And on top of that they have the luxury of pontificating on freedom of expression, the republic and democracy! 

 In short, this is the harsh reality of journalism that in our time describes itself as "serious and professional", and not only in Argentina and Latin America. Europe or the United States are not safe from this scourge, which is one of the greatest threats to democracy in the modern world.

 The ANP came out in defense of two characters from the media sewer such as Luis Majul and Daniel Santoro whose “investigative journalism” is produced by a singular team whose mainstays are the intelligence services and a bunch of corrupt judges and prosecutors, one and the other in open violation of the laws of this country. 

This operation has nothing to do with journalism. Its objective is to obtain instruments and supposed evidence to persecute, harass and eventually extort political rivals and sectors linked in this case to the ruling party.

 The ANP thing is not an exception; Neither are the large Argentine media conglomerates (which include graphic press, AM and FM radio, open and cable television, bot farm, etc.) such as Clarín, La Nación or Infobae. But due to its global gravitation, the newspaper El País in Spain takes the laurels in what makes the prostitution of journalism turned into a nauseating house organ at the service of the rich and powerful around the world. 

That is why it was not surprising that in the middle of last year Antonio Caño, former director of that newspaper between 2014 and 2018, published a note entitled nothing less than The Error of Calling Assange a journalist. In it, he argues that the founder of Wikileaks is an "impostor" because, according to him, "journalists do not steal legally protected information, do not violate the laws of democratic states, do not distribute the documents provided by the secret services without having verified them" , a task that Caño entrusts, corporately, to the good knowledge and understanding of professional journalists.

 Professional journalists, like who? It may be, in very few cases, but why not trust people with more specific training to evaluate the data disclosed by Assange such as political scientists, sociologists, internationalists, historians, semiologists and experts in military matters or intelligence?

WikiLeaks video 'shows US attack'           

But in addition, many of Caño's Latin American friends and colleagues do just that: they steal information that “should” be legally protected, they violate the laws of democratic states sharply, and they distribute the documents provided by the secret services or corrupt officials of the judiciary to harass and / or destroy their political adversaries.

 In his angelic candor, or diabolical cynicism (a question that readers should discern), the former director of El País says that professional journalists “take care not to cause unnecessary damage with their work, they give the people mentioned the opportunity to defend themselves, seek the opposite opinion to that held by the main source of information, do not act with political motivation to harm a government, a party or an individual. Journalists do not defend any cause in a democratic society other than the exercise of their work in freedom.

 " I reread these lines from Caño and I correct myself: I don't think his is a case of childish naivety. Let's say it with all the letters: it is the subtle discursive stratagem of a high-end imposter who knows that in the exercise of hegemonic journalism, the one he calls “professional”, those pristine rules that he enunciated are violated with premeditation and treachery; that the so-called “independent journalists” intentionally cause harm to the persons or institutions that are victims of their persecution; that they do not give them an opportunity to defend themselves; that they never seek an opinion contrary to the line that their bosses or employers lower them and never accept to debate with those who hold opposite points of view; and they always act politically motivated to harm a government, party or individual.

 The case of Agustín Edwards Eastman, owner of El Mercurio de Chile, is a paradigmatic example of what the journalists defended by Antonio Caño and the president of the ANP, Joaquín Morales Solá, do.

 That is why after more than fifty years of journalistic prostitution in good time, the Chilean Association of Journalists expelled him from its ranks, precisely for having done exactly what Caño says that professional journalists do not do. If in Argentina there were an institution with the same values ​​and courage as its Chilean colleagues, the number of political operators disguised as journalists who would be expelled from its ranks would easily reach fifty.

 It is precisely because of this moral degradation that the ANP's thunderous silence in the case of Julian Assange, unjustly imprisoned for having informed the public about the war crimes, corruption and global espionage of the United States government, is not surprising. 

Not a word in defense of a true champion of the fight for freedom of expression, which the ANP falsely claims to defend; nor a gesture of solidarity before a journalist held in a maximum security prison, in absolute confinement, without contact with anyone, without seeing sunlight for a few minutes once a week, subjected to physical and psychological abuse of all kinds despite the precarious condition of his health. 

But having revealed the secrets of the empire and its constituents -which the media hitman hides under seven keys- for the ANP Assange is a traitor, an “impostor” as Caño says, who does not deserve any solidarity. On January 4, Judge Vanessa Baraitser will announce her sentence in the trial for the extradition of the Australian to the United States. 

 Despite the weakness of the evidence provided by the complainant, the accused was deprived of his liberty and sent to jail. There is outrage among real journalists around the world, warns the award-winning British filmmaker and journalist John Pilger, who claims never to have seen such a grotesque farce as the trial in London. 

Lawfare spreads like an oil stain, and from Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile and Ecuador it has already arrived in Europe and the United States. But the ANP does not believe that such a thing exists because, according to its leaders, lawfare is a malignant invention of a totalitarian, populist, Chavista, and Castro left wing, and therefore it emphatically dismisses Pilger's complaint. The immorality of that institution has no limits. 

 

This denial is also revealed in relation to the situation of journalists in the United States. Since the outbreak of the Black Lives Matters protests over the cold-blooded murder of George Floyd by the Minneapolis police, 322 journalists have been attacked (with very few exceptions, by “law enforcement”); 121 were arrested, 76 had their equipment (photographic or video cameras, cell phones) or facilities (press rooms) destroyed, and 13 were charged and subjected to judicial proceedings.

The same source reports that in 2018 five journalists were shot to death in the United States. But this was not and will never be news in the hegemonic media, appropriately characterized by its critics like the Bullshit News Corporation because most of the information they spread is just that, garbage; much less will it be a cause for concern or denunciation for the ANP, obedient to ignominy before the least wishes of the imperial master.

 The institution defends its communication hucksters, not these poor devils harassed by power in the United States who pay with their lives for their loyalty to their chosen profession. On the other hand, if a journalist, even just one!, Had been arrested in Venezuela or suffered the destruction of his work team, the shouting of the world media hitman would have been deafening. Their double moral standard makes them despicable subjects. 

Conclusion: the self-described “independent journalism” is nothing more than a criminal organization because, as Gilbert K. Chesterton recalled in times of World War I, “newspapers began to tell the truth and today they exist to prevent the truth from being bliss ”. 

 For this they have four main weapons: promoting "post-truth"; lie and use the fake news piecemeal; use the information shield (for example, never say anything about the endless slaughter that Colombia bleeds daily or about the revelations of the Panama Papers involving former Argentine president Mauricio Macri) to protect partners and / or friends; and the media lynching of "annoying" leaders who must be demonized so that judges and prosecutors can then complete the process by sending them to jail or disabling them to compete for public office. 

 That is why today that press, so corrupt, constitutes one of the main threats to democracy, and if society does not react in time, it will probably end not only with the little that remains of freedom of expression, but will further accentuate the asymmetry between a Hegemonic press that dominates the media space without counterweights and truly independent journalism, which barely survives in the face of such unequal competition. 

But what is at stake is not only freedom of expression; also the right of the peoples to access truthful and verifiable information, legally obtained. And of course, democracy is also in danger because to survive it requires that the media space on which it rests be effectively democratic and plural and not muzzled by the dictatorship of single thought. 

 Democracy is emptied of content, degrades and finally succumbs when the communicational substrate on which it rests is an information tyranny. Preventing this from happening will be one of the great and urgent battles that we will have to fight once the pandemic is defeated. 

 (Taken from Atilio Borón's blog)