- Niall McCrae and Jules Gomes
Mainstream media and the 'murder' of Tommy Robinson
My first employer was a killer. I saw him kill. My colleagues saw him kill. My employer was a renowned publisher and editor-in-chief of the newspaper I (Jules Gomes) worked for in Bombay. He had significant business interests. As reporters, whenever we wrote a story exposing the corruption of his business buddies, he would swiftly and ruthlessly kill. He would kill the story.
In journalistic lingo, an editor kills a story when he refuses to publish it. In my days, we also referred to killing a story as ‘spiking a story’. The editor would kill the story by taking your typewritten copy and ram it down a spike. Over the last few weeks, Britain’s mainstream media (MSM) has colluded in killing the story of the arrest, detention, trial and imprisonment of Tommy Robinson.
From the BBC to regional newspapers, from the Guardian to the Sun, the MSM has abdicated its responsibility for reporting fast-developing news on the Tommy Robinson case and its fallout in the almost daily protests in London and other British cities, not to speak of international protests from Sydney to Tel Aviv. How could the jailing of Tommy Robinson, the D-notice that temporarily silenced the press, and the subsequent public outcry, not be treated as the major story of the moment?
Fake news is not necessarily reporting false news. Fake news is also refusing to report news by pretending it does not exist. I (Jules Gomes) first encountered the concept of ‘fake news’ when I was a doctoral student in Cambridge in 2000. At an evening lecture, an older English gentleman came up to me and asked me if I was from India. When I confirmed this, he proudly told me that he got his daily newspaper flown directly from Bangalore.
Fake news is also refusing to report news by pretending
it does not exist.
I was taken aback. ‘Do you not have the best media in the world? The BBC? The Times? The Guardian? The Telegraph? The Independent?’ I innocently asked him. Was he an Indophile? Was he following a subject of interest from the Indian subcontinent? By then, I had learned to look down on the tabloids with a degree of Oxbridge snobbery, but I buried myself in the broadsheets and devoured them like a Victorian virgin before her first exposure to sex education.
‘The British media are views-papers, no longer newspapers,’ he replied. ‘They not only slant the news by constantly editorialising and mixing comment and reporting, but they are highly selective in choosing what to report. If they don’t like something, they will simply blank it out as if it never existed,’ he explained. ‘I get The Hindu from India and because they still know the difference between news and opinion.’ The Hindu is India’s second most circulated English-language newspaper, after The Times of India.
His words brought back memories. I remember filing a report as a cub reporter but making the mistake of inserting the adjective ‘controversial’ to describe a certain political personality. My chief reporter swore at me, crunched my typewritten copy into a paper ball and chucked it straight into the rubbish bin. ‘Gomes, if you want to write opinion go and ask the editor for a transfer. You are a reporter, not a columnist. Get me the news and shove your views up your backside,’ he yelled, slipping into ripe, colloquial Hindi for full effect, while the rest of the office sniggered mercilessly.
Our team of reporters was hugely relieved when a new editor-in-chief was appointed. The era of the dreaded spike ended and we were set free like a pack of hungry hyenas to report on corrupt politicians, businesses and civic officials.
The British media are views-papers,
no longer newspapers.
A typical MSM modus operandi of murdering a story is selective reporting. Stories are not just omitted; they are smothered to death with a pillow. The MSM has done this with the persecution of Christians in Muslim countries. ‘There is no question that these deaths constitute evidence of destruction for purposes of the Genocide Convention,’ a research paper in the Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, one of the world’s oldest and most prestigious international law journals, emphatically states. The truth that no one wants to know is that the persecution facing Christians is the largest ‘human rights’ violation issue in today’s world and the MSM have killed the story.
The MSM have also completely blacked out reporting on the ethnic cleansing of white farmers in South Africa. It refuses to report that the old racism has been replaced by a new racism because the new narrative runs contrary to the left-wing narrative of the mainstream media. Not surprisingly, alt media reporters like Lauren Southern, deported from Britain for her stance on Islam, have been alerting viewers to the new discrimination and racism against white people.
Whether due to government control or self-censorship, the MSM has mostly ignored Tommy Robinson (except for a few hatchet jobs – all emphasising his real name Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, without explaining his need for an alias and calling the protestors ‘yobs’ and ‘far right’). Yesterday, The Times ran a non-story on how a ‘clandestine visit’ by Tommy Robinson to New York ‘on a false passport’ helped to generate 60,000 tweets from conservatives in the US demanding his freedom.
The results of this abdication have been stunning. Suddenly, alternative media and social media have become like oases in a desert. Parched throats thirsty for news on Tommy Robison are regularly scouring the Internet for stories from Infowars and Rebel Media. While MSM revenues are drying up, contributions to Infowars and Rebel Media are flowing in to support Tommy Robinson’s cause. The alternative media are using the opportunity of a lifetime to position themselves as the saviours of the masses. And why should alt media not revel in their own importance if the MSM have virtually handed the goose that laid the golden egg to them on a silver platter?
Suddenly, alternative media and social media have become like oases in a desert.
I (Niall McCrae) was at the Tommy Robinson demonstration on 9th June in London and saw a clear discrepancy between the events as actually happening and the reporting by the MSM. I witnessed a peaceful crowd of 20,000 people, hearing speeches by various libertarians and critics of Islamic influence on the West.
As some of the gathering was heading back towards Trafalgar Square, the police inexplicably formed a line to halt their progress, despite hundreds having already passed. This unnecessary barrier led to violent scuffles and it was only at this point that the MSM became interested. The shared Sky/BBC helicopter appeared overhead. Reporting of the event was extremely narrow and biased, using angry white men to fit the narrative of Tommy Robinson’s supposed ‘far right’ supporters. I am not condoning the loutish behaviour, but I witnessed first-hand how the police provoked this reaction.
Politicians have joined the MSM in adopting a Trappist vow of silence on this disturbing case. At an unrelated meeting at the Houses of Parliament, I (Niall McCrae) raised the matter informally with a well-known Member of Parliament. She listened, having been contacted by several constituents, and promised to ‘have a word’. But the whole of Westminster has conspired to keep this topic out of circulation. There has been nothing from ministers or MPs (except for a single line by a Tory backbencher in a debate on child abuse). Ordinarily, you would expect some concern about the unusual immediate imprisonment or the denouncing of Tommy Robinson by left-wingers. Nothing.
Yesterday, however, a leading political figure was apparently caught out. A YouTube video allegedly shows deputy leader of the Labour Party Tom Watson saying that he hopes Tommy Robinson dies in prison, and that it would be unfortunately unlikely that he will be murdered. Tommy Robinson, according to the man purported to be Tom Watson, is ‘a cunt’. Our sources have confirmed that this is most likely not Tom Watson. If this is indeed Watson, it is scandalous, for reasons too obvious to state. If this is not Watson, it is equally scandalous, because it is outright defamation and an outrageous slur on his character and the video should be taken down immediately.
You will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
In turning to unregulated websites we take the risk of misinformation. Watch the video and see for yourself. It is most likely ‘fake news’.
In 2005, the leftwing University of California, Los Angeles conducted one of the first studies on media bias. The results took the researchers by surprise. ‘I suspected that many media outlets would tilt to the left because surveys have shown that reporters tend to vote more Democrat than Republican,’ said Tim Groseclose, a UCLA political scientist and the study’s lead author. ‘But I was surprised at just how pronounced the distinctions are.’
The question, of course, is one of culpability. When the MSM is free and fair in reporting the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, ‘fake news’ and the alt media will die a natural death. You will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Aroon Purie, editor-in-chief of India Today would tell his reporters, ‘Somewhere, someone is out to hide the truth. Find that. That is news. All the rest is merely advertisement.’
But when the MSM have themselves morphed like sci-fi mutants into the ‘fake news’ media and sold their souls in a Faustian bargain conspiring to hide the truth and kill the story of Tommy Robinson, it is the alt media and social media that will continue to keep the political prisoner alive and well.
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