Monday, 28 April 2025

Thinking about how events are reported.

It’s interesting how things are reported. I don’t suppose any reporter can be completely unbiased but the best try to be so. It’s become harder and harder in the modern age. And events are reported in the passive voice rather than the active; things are “done” rather than people “doing” them. Here’s an example from Jeremy Corbyn:


“Palestinians are not “facing” starvation. 


They are being starved to death by Israel.


Yet our government still refuses to end all arms sales and implement sanctions, granting endless impunity for Israel's crimes against humanity.


End the blockade — and stop the genocide.”


And here’s a Michael Rosen poem about the media and how they report: 


Will it be one years time

five years time

ten years time

there'll be a prize-winning documentary

that will move us

and sadden us

that will be acclaimed by all

because it asks the question:

how could it have happened?


It will win prizes

because the media are always

so good at looking back 

at the past

and expressing 

what makes us weep

but are always so bad

at showing us

what might make us angry

at the moment

when it's happening.


There has just been a memorial ceremony for the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner was there on our behalf. Meanwhile, in the present, the descendants of Jewish holocaust survivors are out on the streets protesting against what is going on in Gaza. 



Louis Theroux has made another documentary about settlers on the West Bank. He made one back in 2011 apparently and now he has made an updated version. Apparently he faced some hostility as he filmed; “During a visit to a Palestinian home, settlers drive up and point guns with laser sights through the windows at him. More than once, he has to politely ask people to lower their guns while talking to him. In one especially tense encounter, he has to bark “Don’t touch me” at a pair of balaclava-wearing Israeli soldiers.”


No doubt he’ll be labelled antisemitic. The film aired on BBC Two. We missed it but I have been told it is available on iPlayer. We must watch it before it is banned.


Life goes on, stay safe and well, everyone! 

No comments:

Post a Comment