the meeja we had to have...

Journalist, author and documentary filmmaker John Pilger talks to Antony Loewenstein about the media.

What's your view on the Australian media's reporting on Iraq, especially in the corporate media?

It's a version of the way it's reported in the United States. That means the Iraqi people barely exist. It's an honourable "war" not a conquest. Britain is slightly different; a couple of newspapers broke ranks and did a terrific job of telling people the truth - there is nothing like that here.

In what way?

Well, there is no real sense that we are living through the biggest political scandal of our lifetime - the unprovoked attack on a defenceless country justified by a series of documented lies, the killing of up to 100,000 people and the devastation of that society. We have seen an increase in child mortality and people are drinking water mixed with sewage, along with toxic contamination including depleted uranium throughout the country. What has been done to that country, on top of a dozen years of economic sanctions driven by the United States and Britain and supported by Australia, is an epic crime. I interviewed Professor Richard Overy, one of the world's leading authorities on Nuremburg and international law, last year and he said that under international law, what had happened in Iraq was a major crime against humanity, and Bush and Blair could be in the dock. Imagine that perspective, that truth, in our media.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald Full story >>>

(Thanks for the heads-up, Paul.)