Today the gov launches it "Reclaim The Streets" initiative. The other day Channel Four news said the government was reclaiming the phrase from direct action environmentalists.

On a similar tip radio 4 (i think not 5) has a radio show called "Undercurrents" which is dedicated to a grass roots telling of issues....

Anyone notice something going on here?

there have been other, less spectacular, examples of conventional journalists taking rather too much "inspiration" from the free press / net.
difficult to say how much can be done to stop it either, which is unfortunate becuase it may give the socialist movement a bad name (just like Livingstone did...)

If they want to play our game, then we can play theirs. Let's sue these corporate and government bastards for breaching intellectual property rights.

We keep reading on The Observer's front page how their sales figures have rocketed in the past 12 months. It is very easy to work out the reason for this.

When The Observer was taken over by The Guardian last year it was in dire straits. With a declining readership it looked like it was in terminal decline. Then along came The Guardian to the rescue.

The increase in sales over the last 12 months or so can mainly be put down, I believe, to Guardian readers switching to The Observer out of a sense of loyalty. Many progressives, lefties etc. buy the Guardian not because it is a great left-wing newspaper, it certainly isn't, you only have to read the abysmal, one sided coverage it gives of the situation in Colombia. The reason they buy it is for the quality of many of its free lance writers. The Observer does not have the quality free lancers the Guardian does, Terry Jones accepted. Instead we're left with puerile little turds like Nick Cohen and a snivellingly patronizing editor (see below).

After reading an email received from Media Lens regarding complaints about an article Mr. Cohen recently wrote I have decided to boycott this peice of corporate crap once and for all.

Ya Basta! The Observer must change or die.

Please read the following correspondence and decide for yourself.



March 20, 2002

MEDIA ALERT UPDATE - ALL THE BLOODY CHILDREN

THE OBSERVER'S NICK COHEN AND OBSERVER EDITOR ROGER ALTON RESPOND ON IRAQ


Following our Media Alert Update, 'The Observer's Nick Cohen Responds On Iraq' (March 15, 2002), Media Lens received this reply from Nick Cohen on March 15, 2002:

"Dear Serviles
I would have more respect for you if you showed the smallest awareness that a tyrant bore some responsibility for tyranny. I appreciate this is difficult for you, it involves coming to terms with complexity and horribly Eurocentric principles such as justice and universality, and truly I share your pain. But your for [sic] sake far more than mine, I'd like to know roughly how many deaths in Iraq are down to Saddam. If you admit that we're in double figures, or more, what should be done about it?
Viva Joe Stalin,"

Also on March 15, a Media Lens reader forwarded this reply to his letter on Iraq from Observer editor Roger Alton:

"This is just not true ... it's saddam who's killing all the bloody children, not sanctions. Sorry"


RESPONSE FROM MEDIA LENS

As Media Lens readers will know, we have so far sent two closely argued, rational and referenced challenges to Cohen. We have refuted his arguments point by point, presenting credible facts, sources and evidence. In response, we have received, again, no serious arguments, just more abuse.
Recall that Cohen is a highly-paid professional journalist, whose job it is to report accurately - he is in the business of communicating and promoting debate. But like the Guardian's Middle East editor, Brian Whitaker - who
wrote back to us despite, as he put it, "the risk of provoking further correspondence" (Whitaker, email to Media Lens, March 1, 2002) - Cohen seems to feel that attempts to engage him in honest debate are an insult to his integrity. Why do journalists take challenges to what they write so
personally? Why do they so often respond with contempt, sneering abuse, or silence, to honest challenges from the public they are supposed to serve?

Presumably by "Serviles", Cohen also means John Pilger, Noam Chomsky, Denis Halliday, Hans von Sponeck, Unicef, Save the Children Fund UK, The Catholic Relief Agency, Human Rights Watch, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and so on. We presume the "Viva Joe Stalin" sign-off is meant to
suggest that all of the above are preserving the spirit of Stalin in some way. Further comment from us seems unnecessary - Cohen's words speak for themselves.

On the point about our lacking the "smallest awareness that a tyrant bore some responsibility for tyranny", we note merely that in our initial email to Cohen we wrote, "Iraq was (and is) certainly governed by a brutal
dictatorship - as are most countries in the Middle East." It is of course +the+ classic response of mainstream commentators to smear critics of US/UK actions as apologists for the targets of Western aggression. In reality, though, it is quite reasonable to be opposed to +all+ brutality and
injustice - no matter which government is responsible - as we are. But this possibility is not allowed to interfere with this convenient device for dismissing rational arguments.

The recipient of Roger Alton's email is an 83-year-old veteran of the Second World War (who has asked to remain anonymous), an officer who served for seven years in XIV Tank Army. In our view, he is a remarkable individual,
both rational and compassionate. He told us that he wrote to Alton and Cohen because he is all too familiar with the horror of war, with what it means for innocent civilians and soldiers. We feel that his letter to Alton merits
reprinting in its entirety:

"I have read with some astonishment the defence you have attempted with Media Lens about your recent article and further comments about Iraq, as I had looked to you previously more as a source of enlightenment than most
commentators.

There is it seems to me, (an 83 year old man and for many decades a reader of the Observer), a tendency on the part of so many journalists/analysts/commentators to now go along with what they appear to assume is the line which will best ingratiate them with or not estrange them from 'the establishment', by accepting the arguments of those such as Hain, Bradshaw, Straw whose axes are continuously being ground with a view to being wielded to ensure ongoing political power. That power is looking sideways all the time to the umbrella of the hegemony of the present US government (not the American people) to forward their ambitions - such
ambitions are not those of the Labour Party, (associated with which I have been for best part of 70 years) but more of those who have consigned a New role for it once they have achieved a position gained on the backs of generations of party workers.

I say with all courtesy, please examine information/facts in more depth and try and resist the temptation to assume/use the arguments of others...hope that doesn't sound too much like the great-grand-father I am, but there is satisfaction to be had if you attempt "From pois'nous herbs (to) extract the healing dew". I will still look forward to your next effort...

Sincerely,

(Name Deleted)"

It was in response to this courteous and cogent letter that Alton wrote:

"This is just not true ... it's saddam who's killing all the bloody children, not sanctions. Sorry"

The callousness of Alton's response revived uncomfortable memories of an extraordinary article in the Guardian by David Leigh and James Wilson, entitled "Counting Iraq's victims - Dead babies always figure heavily in
atrocity propaganda, and Osama bin Laden is merely the latest to exploit them. But what is the truth?" (The Guardian, October 19, 2001)

Under a graphic reviewing various estimates for numbers of excess child deaths in Iraq, were the words, "Those dead babies", as though the subject were somehow a matter for levity.

Curiously, despite the title, the article described bin Laden's claims but then went on to recognise that "the awkward fact is that it was not bin Laden who originated these claims of baby-killing in Iraq. It was America's
critics in the west.

The film-maker John Pilger has been among the most trenchant... But are Pilger and his western colleagues correct? In part the answer is that there were never any dead babies at all. The 'dead babies of Iraq' are a
statistical construct." (ibid)

The cold-hearted brutality of the article, with its casual talk of "dead babies", "atrocity propaganda" and a "statistical construct", elicited a large number of complaints to the Guardian.

To his credit Roger Alton has since apologised for his reference to "the bloody children", claiming that he was referring to "the interminable nature of this debate, not obviously to the children themselves".

But perhaps Alton should apologise to the British public more generally, and also to the suffering people of Iraq, for his paper's performance in conducting this "interminable debate", for in fact there has been no such debate in the Observer.

In a previous Media Alert, we revealed that, as of March 5, 2002, the Guardian and Observer had mentioned senior UN diplomat, Denis Halliday, in just nine articles since September 1998. Having checked again (March 18,
2002), we find that all of these mentions were in the Guardian - Denis Halliday (who resigned in September 1998) has not been mentioned once in the Observer since September 1998. Hans von Sponeck (who resigned in February
2000) has also received no mentions. Remarkably, these highly credible senior UN diplomats - who sacrificed long and distinguished careers in courageous acts of protest, describing the sanctions programme +they+ ran as "genocidal" - have been granted no mentions, not even on the letters page, by Alton and the Observer. This, in our view, is outrageous, particularly given the belief among many people that the Observer is a liberal newspaper willing to provide space for arguments that challenge establishment power.

Cohen and Alton's views on Iraq are clear enough. So too is that of Observer reporter David Rose, who wrote last December:

"...the decisions made by the Western-led coalition at the end of the Gulf war in 1991 were a catastrophe.

Now, as the United States and its European allies argue over extending the 'war on terrorism' to Iraq, the doves are using the arguments they deployed 10 years ago. They were wrong then, and they are wrong now... There are occasions in history when the use of force is both right and sensible. This is one of them." (Rose, 'The case for tough action against Iraq', Observer, December 2, 2001)

We find it ironic indeed that last Sunday's Observer boasted that the paper provided "the broadest debate on Iraq". ('Where next on Iraq?', March 17, 2002)

But the Observer is only a small part of the political and moral disaster that is the corporate press. The Guardian has mentioned Halliday in just 9 articles since September 1998, the Independent has mentioned him in two articles, the Times records two mentions, and the Telegraph one. A check of
the New Statesman (March 19, 2002) reveals that Halliday has received 8 mentions, all of them by John Pilger. Pilger aside, no other journalist in the New Statesman has mentioned Halliday. And again, barring one excellent documentary by Pilger, there has been close to zero coverage on both BBC TV and ITN. Where are people to turn for access to Halliday's and von Sponeck's devastating indictments of Western policy in the mainstream media? The answer is that there is nowhere to turn - our government is protected by a
blanket of 'free press' silence.

Is it any wonder that genocidal Western sanctions have been able to proceed, at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives, largely untroubled by a public that is pacified by a flood of government and media propaganda? Is it
any wonder that, for much of the public, Iraq is a non-issue? Is not the media's failure to honestly report the charge that our government is responsible for genocide a stunning betrayal of the British public, and the
people of Iraq?

This is only one example of how the free press consistently stifles democracy by filtering the free flow of information challenging powerful interests. On issue after issue, the 'free press' reveals itself to be an establishment press promoting power-friendly views, while ignoring or
marginalising views that damage power.

The corporate press is able to function as a support for state-corporate interests because journalists will +not+ speak out against papers, editors, or the structural dishonesty of the media system as a whole. There are a
number of fine radical journalists who support what Media Lens is doing. But not one of them is prepared to directly challenge the performance of the Guardian, Observer and the New Statesman. Why? Because they recognise, as several have told us, that to do so would mean career death. It is simply
not done to criticise the paper that publishes one's work, or to criticise the media system in a way that reflects badly on that paper. With cynical journalists too indifferent to care, and honest journalists too afraid to
speak, the 'liberal' press is never subjected to serious challenge. As a result honest debate is replaced by silence masquerading as consensus. We spend our time well when we consider that, in a truly free press, such criticism would be welcomed as absolutely essential to the ongoing struggle
for freedom and honesty against compromise and corruption.

If Iraq is subjected to a further military onslaught, we should be in no doubt that a large part of the burden of responsibility will fall on the shoulders of journalists like Alton, Cohen and Rose, whose job it is to challenge cynical power, to promote compassion, understanding, restraint and rationality. At the very least, it is their job to allow the public to make up its own mind on the views of people like Halliday and von Sponeck.

Editors may apologise in retrospect but that will be of precious little comfort to the bloodied children of Iraq.

sometimes infact most times ive been wondering whether im reading the news of the world when reading the observer or guardian. it is tripe and should be boycotted by socialists. the mirror has more accurate coverage of events while the alleged socialist broadsheets nonce about no doubt too worried about whether when their coke will be arriving .

what sort of a silly headline is that? observer copies rts spoof paper? i think satire has been around a bit longer than Evading Standards my dears. lighten up! Haven't you ever heard of The Onion?
anyways i thought the observer section was hilarious. go to chris morris' website on the war www.shadowhammer.org and you'll see just how brilliantly he has managed to deconstruct the mediaspeak and the doublespeak that justifies stupidity and evil
morris conceived it wrote it and sold it to the observer
big deal? not really.
i'm just glad that ocassionally the observer bores wake up and decide they want a bit of edginess. it's broken through the post 9/11 media piety and cleared the way for lots more dissent in its wake

Just saw a classic quote on BBC news webpage (from ages ago)
about halliday


'I think an article in the Iraqi press praising his approach to his work is ample evidence of his unsuitability for this post' - US state department

does seem odd that the search engine on bbc.co.uk/news brings up hardly anything (and nothing recent) of the opinions of halliday and other high level critics of iraqi sanctions.

I think it's rather obtuse of your correspondent not to realise that the focus of the Observer article was the coverage of the "dead baby" issue, not the dead babies. Levity is not out of place when discussing press coverage, no matter how horrendous may be what it is that's being covered. For example, on the rail disasters, it's perfectly reasonable to humourously point out the ghoulishness of the press. Chris Morris' own "On The Hour" material has plenty of other examples. The Press is always a legitimate target. It should be big enough to take it on the chin, no matter what its political allegience.

Found this in the Guardian this morning; (by Caroline Bennett)

One of our slogans is missing, Mr Blunkett

Ringing with moral justice, entitlement and pragmatism, "Reclaim the Streets" is a resoundingly good slogan, far too good to be hogged by the battalion of Lycra-bottomed cyclists who used to occasionally block city streets in the mid-90s as a protest against car culture.

Today, Reclaim the Streets does not merely insist on the rights of non-drivers - it is a pillar of the radical direct-acting establishment, "a participatory organisation", as one RTS website describes it. It represents activists of all kinds, from situationists,anarchists and full-time anti-globalisers to more capitalism-tolerant but nonetheless idealistic pedestrians and guerrilla gardeners. "The Reclaim the Streets idea has grown up and left home," boasts the London RTS website.

In fact, the Reclaim the Streets idea has come along so nicely that it recently attracted the attention of the home secretary, who adopted it for the government's ever-so-tough new campaign against street crime.

"We literally must reclaim our streets," David Blunkett said on Sunday, and his Tory shadow Oliver Letwin agreed: "What we need is effective long-term reform which puts the police back on our streets and reclaims those streets for the honest citizen throughout Britain."

While some RTS activists may feel rather flattered that their cause has been co-opted by Blunkett and Letwin, today's doughty answer to Batman and Robin, many more, to judge by the website, may feel that no coalition - even one as participatory as their own - is big enough to embrace both the shadow cabinet and the situationists.

As it is unlikely that the anarchists have bothered to copyright their slogan, their options are limited. Do they share it with the home secretary? Or should they take direct action to get it back?

The most constructive way forward may be some sort of slogan swap, whereby, in exchange for RTS the direct activists are offered some compensatory, New Labour slogan. While Blunkett could spend the next four years attempting to organise a street party, the direct activists would select from such missions as "Education, Education, Education", or "Tough on Crime, Tough on the Causes of Crime". Or "Things Can Only Get Better".

And who knows, in the hands of a principled and efficient body such as Reclaim The Streets, maybe they really will.

Just a few points, comrades:

1. RTS did not invent satire. You wish. Jonathan Swift was at it in the 18th century, as were the Romans. Or perhaps they were copying Evading Standards too. Along with Monty Python, perhaps. And The Onion.

2. Chris Morris is the most subversive satirist working (on the edge of the mainstream) in Britain today. He has probably done more to chip away at the armour of conventional journalism and advertising (which I think is something we call culture jamming, kids) than RTS ever managed. Has no-one here seen Brass Eye? No activist could do a better job of ridiculing politicians and corporates than this man. And he managed to get the words 'Greg Dyke is a cunt' onto prime time BBC TV. More power to him.

3. The Observer may or not be crap, but it's not owned by a corporation, it's owned by a trust.

4. Media Lens are bonkers.

5. 'Six months that changed a year' was very, very funny. Unlike the Socialist Worker. Or anyone who sells it. Though perhaps we think that subversive humour should only be available to smug activists like us. After all, everyone who buys newspapers is a corporate whore who will be strung up come the revolution, aren't they....?

6. Sigh.

Don't mean to be rude, but the idea that the Guardian and Observer are left wing or socialist makes me laugh! They're classic middle-class liberal.

As Harry Perkins said, "I wouldn't trust Guardian to guard my Uncle Sid's greenhouse"..

The Mirror is basically a Labour paper, which is pushing a slightly more leftie line right now because it sells well.

There is of course one national weekly socialist paper, available in most newsagents. Of course you might offend Noreena and her superior sense of humour if you buy it!

saying something three times doesn't make it any more true.

Fans of the Guardian & Observer are always complaining about all the other papers being right wing, but I would estimate that the Guardian & Observer are more dramatically to the right of their readership than any other newspaper.

just to make people aware how most of the middle column texts for the imc-uk are developing: whoever thinks an article in the newswire needs highlighting sends a summary text as a proposal to  Imc-uk-features@lists.indymedia.org - the text is being looked at by people on that list (59 members at the moment), and everyone on the list is free to improve/change/block any proposed text. if no one has objected the text will be uploaded after 24 hours. this way of working is to give people who are not affiliated with any of the indy subgroups (and people who don't have the training or passwords) the chance to participate in what appears in the middle columns. when big actions happen the 24 hours period is bypassed as people then mostly communicate via irc. the feature list is open for everyone who wants to engage in uk indy thus if you are taking issue with any of the wordings please mail, or subscribe to this list. the archive is publicly archived, check it on  http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-uk-features/ - subscribe on  http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-uk-features

and btw, whatever people want to read into the exact wording of the middle column text, i always thought the piece is a brillant bit of satire ...

Evading Standards and Financial Crimes were funny and innovative spoofs, but I don't think they were the first spoof ever. Jonathan Swift was doing something quite similar in the Eighteenth Century, or Thomas More was doing a spoof travel book with Utopia, in the Sixteenth century. And newspaper spoofs have been happening certainly since Private Eye was established in the Sixties, and almost definitely way before that.

Chris Morris, the author of the Observer thing, was doing spoof news back in the mid-Nineties with the Day Today.

So you're talking crap.

Up the bosses! Profit before ethics!

yes it does
yes it does
yes it does

The one who occasionally writes for the said shit newspaper, or am I imputing you with more intelligence than you really warrant.

of course i'm not that noreena. she can't string two sentences together, and i doubt if she knows indymedia exists. you think i'd wear an 'anti-capitalist trouser suit' (quote from her last article...!)? give me SOME credit, pur-lease.

incidentally, that's another reason we should be grateful for chris morris. the more space in the observer occupied by him is one space less that she can get into.

i'm not chris morris's wife either.

Ah no, I suspect THAT Noreena would be far too witless to add intelligent commentary to the indymedia site, and is possibly only in the Observer because she gives good head.

Yeah the Observer is establishment but it's not that weird that ocasionally radical stuff gets in. I've heard Chomsky on Radio 4, Palast (banned from CNN) gets in the Observer, Fisk is brilliant in the Independent.

When radical messages get a voice in the mainstream, it's really not something to get all worked up about. Gosh, if we carry on like this, people might think that we are a small narrowminded ghetto of activist idiots whose identity relies on believing ourselves to be part of an enlightened, pure, radical subculture, which is threatened when radical ideas appear in mainstream society.

"The rebel wants to remain outside society. The revolutionary wants to transform it." Jean Paul Sartre

We think its a bit dodgy that BBC are calling themselves Undercurrents now so we wrote to them..will post their reply when we receive it.

Legal department
BBC radio 3
Broadcasting house
Portland house
London W1A1AA


Re: Undercurrents on Radio 3

Dear Legal department at Radio 3

It has been brought to my attention that Radio 3 is running a programme entitled Undercurrents.

While we may applaud the issues covered in Undercurrents on Radio 3, we are worried that your audience may confuse radio 3’s Undercurrents with our own video/Television programs of the same name. We have reported human rights, social issues and environmental issues since 1993 under the name of Undercurrents.

We have made Television programmes for Channel 4 named Undercurrents and own both www.undercurrents.co.uk and www.undercurrents.org. We also presently supply archive images to BBC Television and radio under the name of Undercurrents.

Undercurrents would be interested to hear from you on when you envisage changing the name of your programme.

Yours sincerely,



Undercurrents

I'd read the first few posts on this wire with mounting dismay - just how humourless and self-regarding do you need to be not appreciate excellent satire and top-notch snook-cocking when it appears, regardless of where it actually appears? Fortunately, the remaining comments have justified my general faith in the anti-capitalist movement - I'd just add to the general hurrah for Chris Morris; and also ponder upon what appears to be the increasing degeneration of Nick Cohen. He used to be quite good, once. Poor man.

The term "corporate press" doesn't accurately describe the Guardian/Observer, as much as some lefties like to abuse the term in the same way those on the right call the media "liberal". It is run by a non-profit trust, and if you object to its content, then I urge some of you to take a look at our press. In fact, compared to the New York Times, the Observer somes off like something out of Infoshop to the average American reader. They regularly publish anti-corporate articles by American reporter Greg Palast who is thoroghly censored here. I've read the Mirror, and can't understand the comparison by some of you since it is mostly a tabloid with bikini clad lasses on the cover. A similar debate has divided much of the left here in the States in reguards to the Nation when it published pro-war articles by (your)Cristopher Hitchens, but such arguments are an immense waste of time since it's utopian (and ignorant) to want any given publication to agree with us 100% of the time. Either we want uniformity(i.e. false national consensus for the "war on terror", the supposed 80% approval rating of an unelected president, dissenters as terrorists, etc.), or discussion(Chomsky vs. Hitchens, etc.). The satire in question to me was absolutely brilliant and quite a remedy to the constant replay of the same images and Bush soundbites, requisite "God Bless America/Deutchland uber Alles" and row after row of flags on every street. You'd get death threats and/or jail for publishing something like that here.

Upton speaks fact about American media from what this Canuck sees as for Canadian media, well it is the model of corporate concentration. One may be able to joke about Camp X-ray but not the tragedy of 9-11. As a someone used to the Canadian press I feel a relief at some of what I read in the Guardian and Observer -- at least I can find some facts and not some tripe celebrating Neoliberalism and the need to protect the rights of property!

to a point.

As you point out, you are from the US and are therefore conditioned to the US press.

Obviously the press in a vasal state has more leeway to make fun of the elite at the heart of the empire as it makes its subjects feel a bit more independent.

Compared to the US press, the British press is obviously the "lesser of the two evils". But why be content with that.

We should insist that the press tell the truth about what's going on in the world, be that through authentic journalism, comment & analysis or satire.

The press needs to be pushed.

Only one winner there then, and it's not the fat boy.

Considering most corporate media pours scorn and derision upon most free indy media networks, its hardly surprising that most poeple have gotten arsey over this Observer article.
And as for chris morris, i love satire and can't wait to read this article.
But, calling someone a cunt on air, no matter how subliminal, isn't satirical.
brass eye is great. but uses shock more than satire to get ove its points.

sue them? reclaim the streets? sorry- im new to this whats reclaim the streets or wotever it is