FAIR:
"Media Cheer Assange’s Arrest. ... A Washington Post editorial (4/11/19) claimed Assange was 'no free-press hero' and insisted the arrest was 'long overdue.' Likewise, the Wall Street Journal (4/11/19) demanded “accountability” for Assange, saying, 'His targets always seem to be democratic institutions or governments.' ...
A host of other media outlets across the spectrum (Washington Post, 4/12/19; New York Times, 4/12/19; London Times, 4/7/19) similarly framed him as a 'narcissist,' one with an 'outsized view of his own importance,' despite his poor 'personal hygiene,' according to the New York Times (4/11/19).
The narcissist accusation is a common trope thrown at enemies of the US establishment, including Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez (National Review, 6/27/07; Economist, 3/9/13; Miami Herald, 7/25/15), Vladimir Putin (Atlantic, 4/15/14; Guardian, 3/10/18) and even Bernie Sanders (Huffington Post, 2/9/16; New York, 11/25/18). It was also exactly the same line of attack the media used against Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who leaked NSA documents (e.g., New Yorker, 6/10/13; Bloomberg, 11/1/13; Chicago Tribune, 12/23/14), and how the prosecution portrayed Chelsea Manning at her trial, suggesting it is a convenient putdown rather than a good-faith description of anti-establishment figures.”
-->Thank you, FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) for showing us that in some cases the US mainstream media is little more than a mouthpiece for government and corporate interests.
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The Guardian UK:
"The US is threatening to veto a United Nations resolution on combatting the use of rape as a weapon of war because of its language on reproductive and sexual health, according to a senior UN official and European diplomats. ...
Even after the formal monitoring mechanism was stripped from the resolution, the US was still threatening to veto the watered-down version, because it includes language on victims’ support from family planning clinics. In recent months, the Trump administration has taken a hard line, refusing to agree to any UN documents that refer to sexual or reproductive health, on grounds that such language implies support for abortions."
-->The NYT protects its readers from such shameful behavior. It didn't print the story. UPDATE: the very watered down version was passed, limiting resources for women who are raped during wartime. That story was covered by the NYT.
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BlackListedNews:
"We often think of video games as fiction, but the US government has weaponized them to advance its agenda around the globe. Nowhere is this more clear than in Venezuela, where the US military has laundered regime change propaganda through some of the world’s most popular first-person shooter games. ...
Venezuelan citizen journalists Orlenys Ortiz and Sancocho Power have drawn attention to the similarity between the plot of a 2013 first person shooter game, Call of Duty. ...
The mission ends with the execution-style killing of Venezuela’s leader, who is shot in the back in slow motion by America’s finest."
-->Yes, another shameful chapter in how the empire treats the rest of world. It's really just a video game after all. Thank goodness our newspaper of record protects us from such revelations.
