Is it the dawn of a new age of truth in mainstream media? Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian has identified itself as The Israelian. What’s the scam?
“I think most thinking Australians are a bit sick of and immune to the bias The Israelian newspaper engages in favour of the genocidal ethnostate of Israel,” said a letter from politician Shaoquett Moselmane (screenshot below).
What next … are there no 40 beheaded babies?
Three possible explanations spring to mind: sloppy sub-editing, cheeky sub-editing (not all Newscorp peons are Netanyahu fans), or Moselmane deliberately snuck it into his letter of warning and the in-house lawyers believed he had a pretty solid defamation claim, so ran it. That is, he was likely to sue and, if so, would be likely to win.
The most plausible explanation is that Moselmane did indeed stick it in there deliberately but the subs missed it. For the News lawyers to let it ride the story complained about must have been one heck of a defamation.
For connoisseurs of the appallingly biased coverage of Gaza and Israel in the mainstream media however – to use the technical term – this is a hoot.
The Israelian and other Newscorp mastheads are yet to resile from their “40 babies beheaded” and other Israeli propaganda fables from the Hamas attacks of October 7, yet to publish one balanced investigation into the genocide, and with deliberate credulity, run the official US/Israel line on everything, no matter how bizarre.
They gave licence to the US invasion of Iran by gulping down and spewing out the mega-porkie about 30,000 to 80,000 Iranian protestors killed by the ‘murderous regime’. You name it.
Despite proclaiming the importance of free speech there has been nary a boo out of them about the Israel lobby’s attacks on free speech in Australia while they have relentlessly hammered critics of Israel’s wars to the point of grubby obsession – vid Randa Abdel-Fattah and Grace Tame.
Am Yisrealian Chai!
Regulators duck for cover as Australian media fails to correct “40 babies beheaded”
Michael West established Michael West Media in 2016 to focus on journalism of high public interest, particularly the rising power of corporations over democracy. West was formerly a journalist and editor with Fairfax newspapers, a columnist for News Corp and even, once, a stockbroker.