Rural Dictionary

journo

Corporate journalist (political slang word). aka propagandist.

Journos are scumbags who tape people fighting the cops and stuff like that, knowing damn well that the cops will get the pictures off them and use them to persecute people, but who go ahead regardless, and then act all shocked when their cameras get smashed and they get chased off.

Also responsible for most of the disinformation which people take for "common sense" - for instance, the idea that the US has "liberated" Iraq.

For every one good journalist, there's ten or twenty who are corporate whores.

Some favourite journo tricks:

Make out before a demo that there's going to be loads more people than they will, and that there'll be trouble when there won't - thereby making an excuse for repression - and then when the crisis fails to materialise, attribute this to the repressive policing which was legitimated by the initial scare stories. e.g. London Mayday.

Just ignore events which don't fit your worldview or your story. For instance, only ever cover violent protests and ignore any where there's no trouble. Or don't bother covering the protest itself - just make a fuss about how there was "no violence" and this was all the cops' doing. c.f. non-coverage of the third day of protests at the Gothenburg EU summit (because they were peaceful).

Cut bits from out of interviews so everyone says what you want them to say. For instance, in the Rushdie affair, local news put on an Asian saying the book had stirred controversy and a white guy saying he defended free speech. All very stereotypical. But get the full transcript and you find the Asian guy said he supported the book even though it caused controversy, and the white guy was a Nazi who wanted Asians out of Britain, rambled on forever and just said a little snippet about free speech in the middle. It was cut and pasted to make it fit preconceptions.

Get all your info from a single biased source. For instance, info on protests and on "race relations" comes from the police. If the police are your only source, you end up always tailing their line, without even knowing it. Another example is the "lobby system": in Parliament, some journos are allowed into the inner sanctum of political life... as long as they agree only to report the stuff they're told officially. So they might be able to find out that MP such-and-such is doing coke or that so-and-so admitted that the Iraq war was all about oil, but they aren't supposed to reveal it - yet they sound authoritative because they're in the inner sanctum and can quote "sources close to the prime minister" and stuff like that.

Ask a question such as, "do you think the liberation of the Iraqi people was a good thing?" - if someone says "well yes I suppose", report this as: "such and such says US is right: we needed to overthrow dictator, says such and such in interview".

Divide news up into chunks and don't put together stuff which is similar. For instance, NEVER link economics and politics. This way everything stays confusing.

Use simplifying concepts. For instance, every conflict in Africa is by definition "tribal" and a proof of "their" incivility. Anyone who uses force against a government the west likes must be a "terrorist" and be motivated by an irrational ideology or religion. And so on. That way, everything seems to make sense and nobody asks any questions about what's REALLY going on (e.g. mobile phone companies in the Congo, US support for the mujahideen in Afghanistan, etc. etc.).

Any rumour you like the sounds of is a "fact". Any fact you don't like the sounds of is a "rumour" (make sure to include "rumours" from the other side as well).

by AnDY May 1, 2004

227👍 183👎

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journo

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