faq

• What is Media Lens ?
• What is the objective of Media Lens ?
• Who are you?
• Why did you start up Media Lens ?
• Are you saying that the mainstream media is some kind of a giant conspiracy to keep the public ignorant?
• But surely our major authoritative media, such as the BBC, are more or less neutral in their reporting and analysis?
• So, what is the fundamental aim of Media Lens ?
• Who/what inspired you to set up Media Lens ?
• What does Media Lens actually do?
• How do I sign up for free media alerts?
• How do I update my email address for receiving media alerts?
• How do I stop receiving media alerts?
• Are you aiming to convince mainstream editors and journalists to be more honest and/or to give more space to dissidents and their arguments?
• Why do you concentrate on the ‘liberal’ media?
• Why have you repeatedly refused to appear on the BBC's Newsnight programme?
• Why do you sometimes criticise others on the left or in the green movement? Shouldn’t you concentrate your attacks on more obvious ‘villains’?
• Does Media Lens think that honest journalists and media commentators should resign from the mainstream?
• Are you claiming that certain things cannot be said in the mainstream media?
• Is mainstream media propaganda maintained by conscious design?
• Why don’t you issue media alerts more frequently?
• Why is non-violence so important to Media Lens ?
• Why do you strongly discourage even joking references to violence at the Media Lens message board?
• What authority do you have to speak out on media issues, given that you’re not even working journalists yourselves?
• Surely The Guardian and The Observer, at least, have lots of progressive, even radical, journalists?
• What do other people think of Media Lens ?
• How is Media Lens funded?
• How can I help or support Media Lens ?

Media Lens is a UK-based media-watch project, which offers authoritative criticism of mainstream media bias and censorship, as well as providing in-depth analysis, quotes, media contact details and other resources. Media Lens has been commended by a number of writers, academics, organisations and activists including FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting), Edward Herman, Noam Chomsky and John Pilger.

Our aim is to encourage the general population to challenge media managers, editors and journalists who set news agendas that traditionally reflect establishment/elite interests. We hope to raise public awareness of the underlying systemic failings of the corporate media to report the world around us honestly, fairly and accurately. Fundamentally, we wish to reduce suffering wherever it occurs.

Media Lens consists of three people:

Please see the about us page for more information

David Edwards and David Cromwell met when the latter was working on his book Private Planet. We were chatting together in the pub one evening and, after a couple of pints, setting up Media Lens simply seemed like a good idea! Once we were put in touch with Phil Chandler through a mutual friend, Media Lens was up and running in the early summer of 2001.

More seriously,Media Lens is a response based on our conviction that mainstream newspapers and broadcasters provide a profoundly distorted picture of our world. We are convinced that the increasingly centralised, corporate nature of the media means that it acts as a de facto propaganda system for corporate and other establishment interests. The costs incurred as a result of this propaganda, in terms of human suffering and environmental degradation, are incalculable. We started up Media Lens to raise public awareness of this reality, as we see it.

No. In seeking to understand the basis and operation of systematic mass media distortion, we flatly reject all conspiracy theories. Instead, we point to the inevitably corrupting effects of ‘market forces’ operating on, and through, media corporations seeking profit in a society dominated by corporate power. We reject the idea that mainstream journalists are generally guilty of self-censorship and conscious lying; we believe that the all-too-human tendency to self-deception accounts for their conviction that they are honest purveyors of uncompromised truth. We all have a tendency to believe what best suits our purpose; highly paid, highly privileged editors and journalists are no exception. In any case, professionals whose attitudes and opinions most closely serve the needs of corporate power, whether in media institutions or elsewhere, are more likely to be filtered through to positions of authority within such institutions.

Media Lens has grown out of our perception of the unwillingness, indeed inability, of the mainstream media to tell the truth about the real causes and extent of many of the problems facing humanity, such as poverty, human rights abuses, war, pollution and climate change. Because much modern suffering is rooted in the unlimited greed of corporate profit-maximising - in the subordination of people and planet to profit - it seems to us to be a genuine tragedy that society has for so long been forced to rely on the corporate media for 'accurate' information. Obvious conflicts of interest mean it is all but impossible for the media to provide this information. We did not expect the Soviet Communist Party's newspaper Pravda to tell the truth about the Communist Party, why should we expect the corporate press to tell the truth about corporate power?

We believe that media 'neutrality' is a deception that often serves to hide systematic pro-corporate bias. 'Neutrality' most often involves 'impartially' reporting dominant establishment views, while ignoring or marginalising non-establishment views. In reality it is not possible for journalists to be neutral; regardless of whether we do or do not overtly give our personal opinion, that opinion is always reflected in the facts we choose to highlight or ignore.

While Media Lens seeks to correct some of the worst excesses of corporate media distortions as honestly as possible, our concern is not to affect some spurious 'objectivity', but to engage with the world to do whatever we can to reduce suffering and to resist the forces that seek to subordinate human well-being to profit. We do not believe that passively observing human misery without attempting to intervene constitutes 'neutrality'. Nor do we believe that 'neutrality' can ever be deemed more important than doing all in our power to help others.

We accept the Buddhist viewpoint that while greed, hatred and ignorance distort reason; compassion empowers it. Our aim is to increase rational awareness, critical thought and compassion, and to decrease greed, hatred and ignorance. Our goal is not at all to attack, insult or anger individual editors or journalists, but to highlight significant examples of the systemic media distortion that is facilitating appalling crimes against humanity: the failure to communicate the truth of who is responsible for the slaughter of over half a million Iraqi children under five since 1991; the silence surrounding the motives and devastating consequences of corporate obstruction of action on climate change; the true nature, motives and consequences of 'globalisation'; the corporate degradation and distortion of democratic society and culture.

Our hope is that by so doing we can help all of us to free ourselves from harmful delusions. In the age of global warming and globalised exploitation these delusions threaten an extraordinary, and perhaps terminal, disaster. They should not be allowed to go unchallenged.

We hope that this website will help to turn bystanders into compassionate actors. As historian Howard Zinn has written:

"Society has varying and conflicting interests; what is called objectivity is the disguise of one of these interests - that of neutrality. But neutrality is a fiction in an unneutral world. There are victims, there are executioners, and there are bystanders... and the 'objectivity' of the bystander calls for inaction while other heads fall."

There are many writers, activists, groups and individuals that have inspired us, and continue to inspire us. We owe a particular debt to Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky, especially their classic book, 'Manufacturing Consent - The Political Economy of the Mass Media' (Pantheon, 1988). We recommend Herman and Chomsky's "propaganda model of media control" as a basis for understanding the manner in which truth is filtered from, rather than consciously obstructed by, the modern media system.

Also, we both respect and admire the work of Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR, a media watchdog based in the United States: see www.fair.org ). We both felt that such an operation, or something like it, should be active in the UK (and elsewhere).

We undertake media monitoring covering both broadsheet press coverage and terrestrial broadcasting in the UK. Regular, free email ‘alerts’ inform Media Lens subscribers of mainstream news stories to which they might like to respond. These alerts explain why a particular news story, comment piece or programme is guilty of bias, omission and/or distortion. We provide tightly-argued rebuttals and/or an ‘alternative’ perspective, as far as possible providing references (e.g. reports from respected non-governmental organisations, the United Nations and others) to allow readers to make up their own minds. At the end of each media alert, we include a “suggested action” where we typically provide contact details of editors and journalists involved in a particular news story or comment piece. We encourage readers to challenge directly the relevant media personnel. We strongly urge people to adopt a polite tone at all times. Any kind of abuse or personal attack is strongly discouraged.

Media alerts are archived at the Media Lens website for ease of reference. Although we use the term ‘Media Lens subscribers’, the email alerts and, indeed, all other sections of the Media Lens website are free.

Just go to the Media Lens website at www.MediaLens.org . Click on 'subscribe' in the left hand column, then enter your email address. You will then receive all subsequent email alerts as soon as we send them out.

First unsubscribe your old email address, using the link provided at the end of each Alert. Then subscribe from the site using your new email address.

Unsubscribe using the link provided at the end of each Alert.

No, that’s not a major consideration for us. Our bigger aim is to draw public attention to the deep systemic problems of current media institutions. Boosting the number of sympathetic journalists in such institutions, or boosting the amount of honest and challenging reporting and analysis that the mainstream provides, could well have beneficial effects. However, the more fundamental and relevant point is that structural constraints in the mass media, and its systemic linkages with state-corporate power, inherently allow very little space for honest or seriously challenging journalists and journalism. The very structure of the mass media precludes honest discourse. Why would one expect a profit-seeking institution to allow a platform to people to challenge that very institution? There may be some, short-term marginal benefits to be had from seeking out the more challenging journalists; but a more effective longer-term strategy, we think, is to boost public awareness of the reality of mainstream media deceptions and omissions. That's a central aim of Media Lens , at any rate.

Because they delimit the outer limits of acceptable debate from a left or Green perspective: ‘thus far and no further’. Many people on the left and in environmental circles feel that, bar a few problems here and there, The Guardian, The Independent, the BBC, Channel 4 and others provide a more or less level playing field for news and debate. Why else would groups like Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace devote so many resources to gaining media coverage in such outlets?

But when did you ever read a piece even in the ‘liberal’ press on the factors that shape news reporting and analysis? It’s extremely rare. And whenever such an article does appear, it's almost invariably standard liberal waffle on the media as the ‘fourth estate’: challenging established political power for the benefit of citizens in order to uphold democracy, freedom and human rights.

The press and, in particular, the liberal press, is full of examples of how journalists can manage to ignore - or be unconscious of - the narrow bounds within which 'facts' can be reported and analysis presented.  There's little, if anything, in the mainstream media on the structural constraints of a highly commercialised, conglomerate media industry. With rare exceptions, not a word on the fakery of the 'war against terror' and how mainstream journalists have become adjuncts of destructive state power: mouthpieces for government and corporate propaganda. As ever, there are exceptions in the mass media, with gaps here and there (look at what Robert Fisk manages to do in The Independent; John Pilger in The Mirror), but the typical 'media-savvy' piece, with its absurd notions of 'balance' and 'fairness' is simply media white-washing.

The point about our focus on the Guardian, Observer, Independent, the BBC and others (which is far more significant than any focus on individuals) is, therefore, deliberate and not all inspired by any kind of enmity or hatred. After all, one of the big obstacles to a more rational and compassionate society is a media system that suppresses the truth about the destructive consequences of corporate power. This system promotes indifference, greed, selfishness, hatred of enemies, passivity, and so on. At the same time, this system is able to convince people by an intellectual sleight of hand, evolved over decades and even centuries, that it is basically open and free. The key element responsible for convincing people of this mythical press freedom is not the right-wing press – most caring, compassionate people are not fooled by that – but the so-called ‘liberal’ press: the Guardian, the BBC, and so on.

So what we’re trying to show is how the whole corporate media system acts to obscure extraordinary destructiveness, violence and deception. In particular, we wish to expose the role of the ‘liberal’ press in maintaining the illusion that it doesn’t fulfil an establishment propaganda role when, in fact, it does. We’re hoping to help people see through the illusion that we have an awful right-wing press and a pretty good left-leaning liberal press. The bigger picture is that many people imagine, wrongly we believe, that genuinely critical and free-ranging debate is not just tolerated, but encouraged in western society.

Because we're trying to extend the level of rationality and compassion in society, we're deliberately challenging the most rational and compassion elements of the press. But we feel absolutely no hatred whatever for the individuals we challenge. Bear in mind that we are just challenging their views; there's no questioning of attacking them personally, or promoting any desire to remove them from their jobs. We're also a million miles from the Leninist idea of leading society to some utopian world. Media Lens set against any idea that we would want to lead anything or anyone.

The view of one of us in particular [David Edwards], is of social change that is essentially rooted in Buddhist philosophy: namely, the belief that society improves to the extent that selfishness, greed, hatred and ignorance are reduced in individuals and replaced by compassion, selflessness, generosity, kindness and reason. Our goal is to challenge as many of the illusions that stand in the way of kindness and compassion as possible.

Why have you repeatedly refused to appear on the BBC's Newsnight programme?

First of all, it's very noticeable (certainly to us) that we are receiving literally no overtures from the print media to appear in any newspaper or magazine. Not only that, no national mainstream British newspaper has so much as mentioned our new book, Guardians of Power, since January. The contrast is remarkable. The BBC claims to be desperate to have us appear on Newsnight, but the Guardian, Independent, Observer, Times and the rest won't touch us with a barge pole - they won't even answer our emails.

We have no doubt that the reason is because we insist on having complete freedom and control in determining what appears in print. By contrast the master manipulators at the BBC would have almost total control over what happened to us, how the debate was framed, how we were made to appear, on TV - we would be very much in their world. They strongly believe, we feel, that they could use their expertise to neutralise and defang what we have to say. David Fuller's BBC online article is a perfect example of what the BBC had planned for us - they had clearly accepted IBC's version of events at face value (see: Fuller, 'Virtual war follows Iraq conflict,' April 28, 2006; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/4951320.stm). The focus would not have been the serious issues at hand, but our alleged McCarthyite proto-terrorist tactics. The article made us look terrible - Newsnight surely had something similar in mind for the studio.

We believe the BBC, like many media, is complict in major war crimes - appearing suggests we afford them some kind of legitimacy. After all, we wouldn't have appeared on some Nazi or Stalinist TV channel. We're not suggesting the BBC is on a par with something like Nazism - the point is that it does have a highly destructive impact. Appearing also assists them in giving the impression that they are willing to host an honest debate. Literally decades of consistent performance all but prove that this is not the case - the BBC (Newsnight very much included) is massively biased in favour of ruthless corporate greed and state violence. They provide very occasional space for dissidents like Harold Pinter, Noam Chomsky and (potentially) us as a kind of vaccine inoculating against awareness of the true limits on freedom of speech. People see a dissident speak once in a blue moon - nothing much is achieved, except that the public is misled into assuming far greater media openness and honesty than actually exists.

We think it is reasonable to appear in the mainstream if we are free to criticise the media hosting our work. But we think it's important - given the vast bias of the media - that we have as much control over what appears as possible. For us that means writing what appears. We would happily publish material in a newspaper - we wrote an article for the Guardian and appeared on a montly basis in the New Statesman for two years from 2003-5.

Our focus is on encouraging the public to look beyond the mainstream to honest, non-corporate media rooted in compassion for suffering rather than greed for profits. Appearing in the mainstream is very low on our list of priorities. Often the time invested is huge in proportion to any benefits gained. We would rather carry on doing what we're doing.

To be honest, there are also personal reasons. We don't want to be leaders, media talking heads, or minor celebrities. It doesn't interest us in the slightest. There are also risks, as the 11th century Buddhist poet Ksemendra explained:

"I am ashamed of my own mind! When I give in to such destructive thoughts, my mind becomes unstable. The thoughts of wealth and glory that arise first are like poison ivy: they harm merely by a touch, enchanting and paralysing the mind."

Genuine debate has nothing to do with attacking people or criticising them personally, as we said above. It is also, not at all about winning or losing. It should be about an exchange of views on issues of tremendous importance. There is very little of that in the mainstream, so for us any kind of genuine debate is very positive. To challenge the ideas of environmentalist and Guardian columnist George Monbiot, for example, (see archived media alerts, December 2002) is not to make a personal attack against him. The idea that criticising someone's ideas somehow involves a personal attack seems quite widespread, particularly among 'liberals' (who intensely dislike challenges from the left). We regard the charge of ‘personal attack’ as a way of stifling honest debate.

That’s for those individual professionals to decide, not for us. But consider this. The media has covered up the quarter of a million dead from the last Gulf War; the hideous results of economic sanctions on Iraq, with a million dead; the Western installation and support of dictators around the world, and so on. Former UN Assistant Secretary-General Denis Halliday resigned in protest at sanctions against Iraq, sacrificing a career lasting 34 years with the UN. His successor, Hans von Sponeck, sacrificed a 30-year career. It's quite clear to us that the Western media has also played a crucial role in suppressing the truth about the effects of sanctions from the public, thereby allowing the horror to continue relatively unchallenged.

So when might journalists consider resigning? Presumably no one would argue it would have been okay to work for the Nazi press, or Pravda. Is there a point when journalists should take a stand against press corruption here? Let's be clear that in our press, including our 'liberal' press, there is an understanding that journalists (rare exceptions like John Pilger aside) are simply not allowed to examine or expose the limits of the corporate press, either by focussing on individual newspapers/TV channels or on the press generally. There has never been a serious analysis of the limits of freedom in the media. Think about that: there has never been a serious analysis of how our society communicates truth to itself!

Our view is that in a free society, given the costs of press corruption in terms of suffering and human lives, journalists should consider refusing to work for a corporate media institution unless it is on the understanding that they are free to criticise both the media generally, and that media entity specifically. This, of course, is outrageous from the point of view of the corporate mindset; no-one in business is allowed to criticise the product in front of customers. Employees, including journalists, are recruited to +increase+, not decrease, profits (being consistently honest might win readers but would lose advertising and government support, as the worker-friendly Daily Herald found out in the 1960s). But we think this mindset should be challenged. Human life and happiness, and in fact the future of the planet, should +not+ be subordinated to the internal logic of corporate profit, no matter how many people act as if there is no other way. We know that this is crazy from a corporate point of view. But it's sane, and in fact vital, from a human point of view.

Are you claiming that certain things cannot be said in the mainstream media?

Yes, not loudly and consistently, at any rate. It seems to us that the whole of the mainstream media is in the icy grip of a giant 'gentleman's agreement'; it's simply understood that certain things can't be said about the media because it 'just isn't done'. The rewards if you're willing to go along with this are huge and obvious. The insider logic (or illogic) is that going along with it means honest journalists can do more good from inside, and if they speak out and get fired, or resign, that means there is less honest journalism for people to see. That's a strong argument; we don't take it lightly. But look at where we are! US power is out of control, global warming is gathering pace with what may well be terminal consequences, and vested interests are fiercely opposing even trivial action. And of course some 500,000 people may be about to be attacked, killed and maimed in Iraq. The list could go on... Notice that Denis Halliday took the opposite view; that sometimes people have to, as he says, "stand up and be counted". Hehas done an enormous amount of good outside the system, as has Hans von Sponeck and former chief UN weapons inspectors Scott Ritter.

So it's possible that a difference can be made this way - it's worth trying. But the key to making it possible is for journalists, or would-be journalists, to be willing to abandon all hope of a career in the mainstream and instead try to be very honest and challenge the media and pressure it to change. If these efforts are backed up by massive democratic participation, with hundreds and thousands of people writing letters, campaigning, protesting, and so on, a lot of good could be done.

Would it be more effective for Media Lens and our readers to do what we do outside the mainstream media system and try to make things easier for people working inside the system? It's difficult to know. Consider what might happen if honest journalists got together, came out, and publicly refused to write for the media unless they were free to criticise their specific employer and the media generally? Would it in fact be a disaster, with all honest journalism disappearing from our papers and screens? Probably not. We live in a society that absolutely depends on the appearance of openness and freedom; the powers that be could not afford to allow this to happen. Or would it lead to an explosion of awareness of just how unfree and destructive our press is? If that happened, the consequences for us and for people on the end of our bombs in the Third World could be dramatic.

Our own view is that whistle-blowers and uncompromising honesty motivated by compassion are incredibly powerful, and now is the time to try something new. One thing you can be sure of is that the other way - everyone keeping silent - will not get us anywhere.

Again, we reject any notion of a massive organised covert campaign to manipulate public opinion. This is what Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky have to say about it in Manufacturing Consent:

"The 'societal purpose' of the media is to inculcate and defend the economic, social, and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state. The media serve this purpose in many ways: through selection of topics, distribution of concerns, framing of issues, filtering of information, emphasis and tone, and by keeping debate within the bounds of acceptable premises."

Media Lens would agree that our system can't be reduced to a cleverly disguised form of '1984'. In fact, thought control is far more important and effective in our society because it's far more hidden. As Chomsky, has famously said:

"Propaganda is to democracy what violence is to the totalitarian state."

We’d love to, but a lack of resources means we’re limited in what we can do.There is certainly no shortage of examples of propaganda to address! However, the alerts are almost without exception researched, written and edited by just two people: David Edwards and David Cromwell. We both do what we can on Media Lens after paid employment elsewhere.

Also, the media alerts tend to be quite lengthy, deliberately so. Because our task is to counter propaganda in the mainstream that typically requires explaining in some depth why a particular article or news broadcast is indeed propaganda. That means setting out our sources and arguments carefully. It's quite understandable if readers are highly sceptical when they read our alerts - who are we to challenge BBC correspondents, for instance? In fact, we encourage scepticism. People should be sceptical about anything they read or hear. We'd like readers to read our alerts then be able to go away and check the facts for themselves, should folk so choose; and so we try to provide the necessary information for people to do that.

We send out on average about one alert a week, but quite often it's more frequent than that, particularly at times of real significance such as when the US/UK politicians ramp up the war rhetoric.

Violence always feeds concentrated power and repression. One of the reasons the world is dominated by concentrated power to the extent that it currently is, we believe, is that the left has often not renounced violence. This has been used to marginalise and destroy the left, and to strengthen established power. This, surely, is one of the big lessons to be learned from the last century.

The 9-11 attacks against America have been used to facilitate and justify a wave of repressive measures and murderous wars around the world. The forces of exploitative greed are vitally dependent on a supply of enemies to demonise and fight against. If enemies don't arise naturally, and it’s debatable to what extent they do arise naturally, such enemies are simply hyped and created out of fantasy.

We understand the frustration that people feel in the face of warmongering and destruction of the environment, but the (false) idea that venting this frustration will bring some kind of personal relief should not be confused with the idea that it would bring progressive change. Media Lens is currently documenting the endless propaganda warnings of terrorist threats. The reason this is happening is because violence, and the threat of violence, are the best ways to promote passivity and obedience in the population. It's the best way to turn the public against progressive movements (how many times has the trashing of MacDonald's in London a few years ago been repeated on our TV screens?). It's also the best way to divide and conquer radical movements, made up of people who want to do good, not violence.

Everyone should have the right to speak out on issues they feel are important. Why should only media professionals be allowed to cast judgement, if at all, on their own profession? That’s elitism and we reject it totally. In any case, we've been active within the media for ten years, with all kinds of experience, encounters, interviews, friends, contacts and so on. We've also been analysing the media quite intensely for years - that should perhaps count for something. Chomsky and Herman aren't media professionals (this nonsensical argument has been used against them too, by the way). It's an irrational argument, intended to marginalise the public.

There are progressive voices there, yes. We like many of George Monbiot’s articles, for example, as well as those of Paul Foot, and some of the work of Guardian comment editor Seamas Milne, to name a few. But the idea that those writers and others such as Paul Brown, John Vidal and Richard Norton-Taylor, for example, really challenge established power, including the media, just isn't borne out upon detailed examination. None of them ever question the role of their own newspaper in maintaining state-corporate power.

Another example: former Guardian comment editor David Leigh, sometimes considered favourably for granting comment space to a number of left writers, co-authored an article titled: "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. He wrote "The 'dead babies of Iraq' are a statistical construct." It caused a storm of protest.

There's also the problem of the Guardian/Observer's actual overall performance on a range of issues. It’s generally abysmal, as we’ve documented in case after case. Having a small handful of more progressive writers on the comment pages hardly balances the acres of establishment-friendly propaganda in the Guardian’s more extensive news pages We once asked George Monbiot what he thought of the Guardian's awful performance on Iraq and he refused to answer us.

The Guardian might be free of some of the pressures of ownership. But the impact of government, advertising (on which the Guardian is dependent for fully 75% of its revenue), sourcing, corporate flak, market ideology and patriotism mean that it is very much a part of the propaganda system and performs much as the propaganda model would predict.

We know of a large number of excellent writers - John Pilger, Edward Herman, Howard Zinn, Mark Curtis, Sharon Beder, Milan Rai, Michael Albert, Norman Soloman, and many others - who are effectively excluded from the Guardian for no good reason we know about. Could it be that writers who are selected to contribute to The Guardian, even progressive commentators, are acceptable, in part, because they rarely criticise the media?

The problem with humour of the kind that fantasises about hitting politician X, Y or Z over the head with an iron bar, or even just flinging abuse at X, Y or Z, is that it's perfect ammunition for people who want to discredit what we're doing. Journalists like nothing better than to reveal the 'hidden agenda' of radical movements by quoting what violent 'supporters' reveal of their true intentions on message boards, and so on. You might argue that they will demonise us anyway and that's true, but why make life easy for them?

We’ve almost without exception had an enthusiastic response from readers and warmendorsements from prominent commentators on the left, including Noam Chomsky who wrote:

"Establishment ofMedia Lens is a welcome development. Regular media monitoring by FAIR and other organizations in the US has provided an invaluable service for people who seek to understand the world, and for media professionals who value critical reaction. Expansion of such projects elsewhere should have the same salutary effects, while also providing an important comparative perspective that should facilitate inquiry into the nature and functioning of ideological institutions of the state capitalist democracies."

On the other hand, many journalists have responded to our challenges with abuse, sarcasm and anger (as well as silence). BBC political editor Andrew Marr once accused us of being “pernicious and anti-journalistic” while Observer columnist Nick Cohen once disparaged us with “Viva Stalin”.

At the time of writing (January 2003), more than 2000 people around the world receive media alerts: in the UK, the US, Italy, Australia, Afghanistan, Colombia, India and many other countries.

Media Lens gratefully acknowledges the financial support of the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust, the Lipman Miliband Trust, the Foundation de Sauve, the Marmot Trust and a number of individual donors.

Monetary donations can be made online using the PayPal system: this also allows for credit and debit card donations. You can also make a direct payment from a UK bank to the Media Lens account. more details here

We also appreciate offers of help from individuals or groups willing to undertake monitoring of the media. This could be as little or as much as you like. For example, you could concentrate on one newspaper - the Daily Telegraph, for example – and email us the URLs (web addresses) of relevant news stories and comment pieces. We encourage people to take a look at some media alerts to get a feel for the kind of story we might tackle (e.g. on Iraq, Afghanistan, corporate interests or climate change). Even the occasional quotation (referenced with date of publication, headline, journalist’s name) is welcome. All such contributions are potentially useful in writing future media alerts. We appreciate copies of email exchanges that Media Lens readers have with journalists and editors, especially when these have been in response to a media alert. In exceptional cases we will issue media alerts consisting of submissions from Media Lens readers.