THE PROPAGANDA WARS TO HEAT UP? BBC CHIEF WANTS MORE MONEY

A regular reader here, Mr. S.D., sent me this article, and it's one of those pieces that if one doesn't really think about it a bit, and read a bit "between the lines," might be dismissed as not all that important. But I think it is a tremendously important piece for what 2015 might herald. Here's the article:

Former Director of BBC World Service: U.K. and U.S. "Outgunned" by Russia, China in Info War

Here, in essence, is the problem, at least as far as the former BBC World Service director, Mr. Peter Horrocks, is willing to state it:

"Peter Horrocks says Russian and Chinese state-owned news channels are financially outgunning the foreign language international service of Britain's public newscaster.

"Horrocks argues that British government ministers should free up extra money for the World Service to combat Moscow-backed propaganda from the Kremlin's English and foreign language service RT, according to a report in The Guardian."

And a little later, again the same focus on "we need more money":

"'We are being financially outgunned by Russia and the Chinese, but there's no way we're being outgunned on the results [a global audience]. The role we need to play is an even-handed one. We shouldn't be pro one side or the other; we need to provide something people can trust,' Horrocks said."

The short article goes on to cite the cases of two western journalists who had "worked for RT" and then resigned:

"RT, formerly Russia Today — the Kremlin's well-funded foreign-language satellite channel — is expanding across the world. It recently announced the opening of a dedicated London bureau and is recruiting British journalists who can expect average monthly take-home pay of £4,300 ($6,720), according to Sarah Firth, the British reporter for RT who resigned in July disgusted with slanted coverage of the downing of Malaysian Flight MH17 in a suspected rocket attack over Ukraine. Firth said she was sick of being used as a propaganda tool for Putin.

"American anchor Liz Wahl, whose on-air resignation as Russia Today's Washington correspondent in March is now a YouTube hit, says RT understands it cannot reach the audiences of CNN or Fox News, but channel chiefs focus on "getting the message out."

"'Stories must conform to a basic principle: Make the U.S. and the West look bad. In doing so, you make Russia look better by comparison,' she said."

So what are we really looking at?

Here comes my high octane speculation (and an equally high octane prediction): first, I've long suspected that the cases of the RT resignations were a little "too convenient", and have entertained the idea that perhaps a scenario was concocted to make RT look bad. Everyone knows that RT is a propaganda organ, just as SeeBS or Faux News or Deutsche Welle or the BBC itself are propaganda organs. The real problem, if one reads a bit between the lines of Mr. Horrocks' complaint, is that the West is losing the propaganda war, at least among a more intelligent audience. And the Ukrainian fiasco was a crucial catalyst in speeding up the increasing cynicism and loss of trust in the West against the political and media elites: there is no easy way to "spin" the fact that a legitimate government was simply overthrown by a series of well-executed covert ops that installed what for all intentions and purposes is an even more corrupt government in Kiev, with very murky links to Fascist groups.

Enter RT.  If you've ever watched RT over a prolonged period of time, two things will become evident (1) it is self-evidently a propaganda organ, but a very good one. Contrast it to the fanfare--blaring ham-fisted broadcasts from Radio Moscow of the Cold War and you'll get the idea of just how good it really is. Looked at a certain way, one could say that the Western media propaganda outlets, Deutsche Welle, The BBC, Radio Liberty, even (for those who can remember it), Radio Free Europe, didn't have to work all that hard nor be all that sophisticated in their presentations because Soviet propaganda at the time was so bad. In short, the Cold War made western propaganda sloppy and, over time, ineffectual, since they didn't have any real competition. (2) What makes RT so effective is that it does cover genuine news, often news ignored in the West, and does so with an aim to challenge the inherent systemic contradictions and hypocrisies in western policies and institutions.

And that's the rub, because those contradictions and hypocrisies are not going to go away, and hence, must be spun to the West's own audience. Mr. Horrocks, in this reading, is admitting, in other words, that the Western is losing its own people. The problem isn't therefore, a lack of money; the problem is that the western elite's playbook is old, well-known, and exposed, and they can't come up with anything genuinely new. The problem is simply declining faith in the responsiveness of Western elites and governments to their own people, and the declining trust that this has engendered, and RT carefully and deliberately speaks to that growing audience.

And that's why they need more money: they intend, as the article notes, to go toe-to-toe with Russia (and China), and specifically over the Ukraine issue, but they also need more money because their propaganda has to become much more sophisticated. They intend, beginning in 2015(here comes the prediction) to greatly intensify the propaganda wars against Russia and China. If they've been paying attention to RT and its growth(and they obviously have), one of the things they will do (here comes another prediction), is to restore trust in their media outlets by the admission, here and there, of the hypocrisies of western policies and institutions, while targeting their geopolitical agenda. They will of course, do nothing whatsoever to address and rectify those systemic problems in any meaningful or substantive way. So long as banksters aren't jailed, LIBOR rates continue to be fixed, derivatives of derivatives are traded, mortgage fraud is countenanced, military-industrial complexes are lavishly funded, covert operations and "regime change" to be the order of the day, then RT is going to have a field day, and the BBC is going to spend a lot of money for essentially nothing. But make no mistake, the propaganda wars are going to intensify, because both parties to it know the value of the individual human mind.

See you on the flip side.

 

 

 

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Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative history and science".

14 Comments

  1. Delurking on January 5, 2015 at 9:55 pm

    Just ludicrous! Not that RT would be pure as the driven snow and somehow uniquely immune from broadcasting propaganda; but when the West incessantly broadcasts blatant lies and intelligence-insulting propaganda at levels heretofore never seen, as they are today, RT does not even have to resort to propaganda! Duhhhhhh! In the face of the West’s current unprecedented level of in-your-face moral bankruptcy, all RT need do in response is TELL THE TRUTH…which is what they have been doing. Again: duhhhhhhhh!

    So then is the British government so stupid as to accept this clown’s argument and pay him more to somehow LIE HARDER in the face of RT’s broadcasting of the truth? It is maybe not that stupid, but certainly that corrupt. The clown will probably get his raise.

    Hell, all the BBC need do is hire psychopaths since this today is a psychopath’s world from top to bottom and inside and out. Then they could immediately proclaim: “Mission accomplished!”



  2. Churchless Mouse on January 5, 2015 at 9:03 pm

    Great blog Joseph! It certainly is an important issue. Quantum mechanics teaches us that reality isn’t known until consciousness reaches out to measure it in my measuring it to determine its final state.

    It is the same with information. What propaganda can confuse the eigenstate of perception, And distort its probability matrix, In the end, When truth encounters it, reality tends to sweep the field.

    And once consciousness has latched onto truth, it tends to stick to it almost as if consciousness becomes entangled with the actual state of the system.



  3. Frankie Calcutta on January 5, 2015 at 6:40 pm

    It seems as if this chap wanted some extra money from the British government for the World Services he could just threaten to start reporting on child sex crimes among UK ministers. But I guess the government could retaliate by investigating the BBC pedophiles. It would be a vicious circle and by the time they were done, every pedophile in London would be exposed. Fortunately, when they finally declare a truce, the only new agency still reporting it will be RT and that will just be shrugged off as Russian propaganda. The Brits can then go back to their usual inane reporting and ministerial blather and the citizens will forget the whole pedophile hiccup entirely.



    • jedi on January 7, 2015 at 12:14 pm

      trusted sources have confirmed he threatened to publish the glass steal act….a new kingdom wonder hit of enormous financial gravy trains…a variation of the glass steegal act except with baloney served from balconies, runaway trains, broken champagne glasses, dog whistles and a host of vaudeville pretenders to the throne.

      All cities like empires have an expiration date…so might as well party like its 1999.



  4. DaphneO on January 5, 2015 at 2:38 pm

    RT is a government sponsored site and is open about it. However, as Joseph said: “What makes RT so effective is that it does cover genuine news, often news ignored in the West, and does so with an aim to challenge the inherent systemic contradictions and hypocrisies in western policies and institutions.”

    We never get to hear the other side on any news channel and in any newspaper in the west.

    And their propaganda is often pretty bad now!

    I’ve been going to http://russia-insider.com/en sometimes, and apparently this is not a government sponsored Russian site. People may care to add this site to their list of news sites.



    • marcos toledo on January 5, 2015 at 8:42 pm

      DaphneO here another link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1Qt6aNH#t=11 JFK to 911 Everything Is A Rich Man’s Trick it’s about three and half hours long but worth the time to view it.



      • Sandygirl on January 7, 2015 at 8:47 pm

        Does this link work, I can’t get it darn it.



        • Margaret on January 7, 2015 at 11:16 pm

          @Sandygirl, I searched on the title and found it here:
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1Qt6a-vaNM
          “The who, how & why of the JFK assassination. Taken from an historical perspective starting around world war 1 leading to present day. …”

          @Daphne, thanks for the tip about Russia Insider.



  5. DownunderET on January 5, 2015 at 12:52 pm

    “News”, one of my favorite subjects. Here in Oz we have 3 commercial TV stations, a government news station (with no adds), and a sort of ethnic station which has news from around the world in just about every language you can name. News on the 3 commercial stations consists of as many car accidents and house fires as you can take in, THATS IT. Sales of news papers is disappearing on a global basis, and they are asking you to subscribe on the internet, yeah right.
    There is no doubt that the internet has been the “party pooper” that is taking out the Faux’, CNN’, and all of the other news outlets that parade as being “fair”. I like RT, and yes it is propaganda, but at least you get more “stuff” than you get elsewhere.



  6. basta on January 5, 2015 at 11:03 am

    RT is so effective because the Anglopaths have gone full retard, making their job a cakewalk. Roles have reversed since the Cold War and now the Mighty Wurlitzer of the Western press is viewed (quite rightly) as morally bankrupt and fully in the control of the Western security agencies. Want to know what the CIA has to say about anything? Mosey on over to the Washinton Post or flip on CNN or..

    All RT talking heads have to do is report truthfully about what the West is really doing, and add a pregnant pause or a quizzical look after explaining it, and that’s “propaganda” enough. Sort of like that saying about enough rope…



  7. marcos toledo on January 5, 2015 at 9:52 am

    I don’t have the BBC World Service since I switched to DISH. I do miss Click and Stephen Sayers and perfect example of the West media problems. Sunday I tune into the Catastrophe News Network for a special on GPS on the CSA Moon history program hand what I got their latest over dosing on the funeral of the two policemen in NYC. The coverage put me in such a bad mood that I was cheering their murder. And CNN is wondering why their viewers are switching them off. So RT is slated which media outlet isn’t but they are delivering real news the Western media isn’t.



  8. jedi on January 5, 2015 at 8:34 am

    This is another example of controlled dialect with a known/ planned output.
    The hidden hand at work, more garrbage for sheeples to program themselves into more divisions by the group that controls media and money supply….the cannibals.

    Here is something for some of you upstart, junior intel assets that troll this channel and make peoples lives crap, thereby making your entire crap self destructive existence palatable as you dive into the extinction pool with cool aplomb.
    Control the sheeples most coveted mind by the tried and proven way of improving the environment which they exist in. Sure you’ll have to put up with them being happy, enjoying there existence, which drives you miserable excuses for pretending to be human however you at least are back in control…..basic shepherd manual 101.
    Eg…go fix a river, stream somewhere….and have your horeses blast it all over the media in skimpy outfits. You can then start selling stocks on future river projects, projecting fish sales, water sales, then poison other rivers, driving the price up….and then come in like the white knight and clean it Of course you will have all those much coveted young minds, under your corruption media/ monetary control whilst its business as usual….just try too keep your snide, demeaning comments off camera and save it for your own personal entertainment. Matrix 101



  9. DanaThomas on January 5, 2015 at 7:41 am

    Well, RT’s “Going Underground” is certainly one of the most interesting broadcasts about UK politics.
    As for China, unless the BBC knows something that most of us don’t, there doesn’t seem to be very much overt Chinese propaganda targeting “western” audiences (except perhaps on the Tibetan question). But there is of course the massive ongoing effort to mould the opinions of the “Chinese diaspora” throughout the world.
    For non-Chinese speakers, it takes quite a little searching on the web to really get an idea about what the Chinese political class is doing and thinking, especially with regard to key areas such as the financial system (e.g. the push to include remenbi in Special Drawing Rights) and space (whatever happened to the Chinese Moon Mission?).



  10. Lost on January 5, 2015 at 7:10 am

    Cue the JBS claims that huge failures by the BBC+New York Times that are in distinct contrast to more factual, not perfect, reporting by RT is really a secret plot by those running the BBC and the US news media to undermine the western world. So the BBC is really working with the Russians.

    As to Soviet propaganda: Going back and reading what claims were made immediately after the Gulf of Tonkin “incident”, the Soviet reporting at the time was far more accurate than reporting in the US press. And as you know the Soviets called the assassination of JFK a right wing coup.

    In the early 1990s a friend who’d been a young Soviet army officer in the early 1980s claimed he’d seen Soviet intelligence indicating that the US was prepping an invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1970s. I was perfectly willing to believe the US was playing games there before the Soviets invaded, but given late 1970s US domestic concerns the US wouldn’t be invading–22 years later on the other hand.



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