The Guardian hit a new low in Amelia Hill’s report on Julian Assange’s appearance at the Oxford Union. Hill moved beyond propaganda to downright lies.
This is easy to show. Read through Hill’s “report”. Then zip to 20 minutes and 55 seconds of the recording of Assange speaking at the event Hill misreports, and simply listen to the applause from the Oxford Union after Assange stops speaking.
Just that hearty applause is sufficient to show that the entire thrust and argument of Amelia Hill’s article moves beyong distortion or misreprentation – in themselves dreadful sins in a journalist – and into the field of outright lies. Her entire piece is intended to give the impression that the event was a failure and the audience were hostile to Assange. That is completely untrue.
Much of what Hill wrote is not journalism at all. What does this actually mean?
“His critics were reasoned, those who queued for over an hour in the snow to hear him speak were thoughtful. It was Julian Assange – the man at the centre of controversy – who refused to be gracious.”
Hill manages to quote five full sentences of the organiser of the anti-Assange demonstration (which I counted at 37 people) while giving us not one single sentence of Assange’s twenty minute address. Nor a single sentence of Tom Fingar, the senior US security official who was receiving the Sam Adams award. Even more remarkably, all three students Hill could find to interview were hostile to Assange. In a hall of 450 students who applauded Assange enthusiastically and many of whom crowded round to shake my hand after the event, Hill was apparently unable to find a single person who did not share the Rusbridger line on Julian Assange.
Hill is not a journalist – she is a pathetic grovelling lickspittle who should be deeply, deeply ashamed.
Here is the answer to the question about cyber-terrorism of which Amelia Hill writes:
“A question about cyber-terrorism was greeted with verbose warmth”
As you can see, Assange’s answer is serious, detailed, thoughtful and not patronising to the student. Hill’s characterisation – again without giving a word of Assange’s actual answer – is not one that could genuinely be maintained. Can anybody – and I mean this as a real question – can anybody look at that answer and believe that “Verbose warmth” is a fair and reasonable way to communicate what had been said to an audience who had not seen it? Or is it just an appalling piece of hostile propaganda by Hill?
The night before Assange’s contribution at the union, John Bolton had been there as guest speaker. John Bolton is a war criminal whose actions deliberately and directly contributed to the launching of an illegal war which killed hundreds of thousands of people. Yet there had not been one single Oxford student picketing the hosting of John Bolton, and Amelia Hill did not turn up to vilify him. My main contribution to the Sam Adams event was to point to this as an example of the way people are manipulated by the mainstream media into adopting seriously warped moral values.
Amelia Hill is one of the warpers, the distorters of reality. The Guardian calls her a “Special Investigative Correspondent.” She is actually a degraded purveyor of lies on behalf of the establishment. Sickening.
Boris was just doing PR for Irvine Sellar and the Qataris at the Shard opening. He is speaking to Sky News’ comedian Enda Brady, the only trouble being that the sound kept breaking!
These say it all.
enda brady@SkyEnda
Huge cheers as Boris Johnson formally opens The Shard. Hurrah!
enda brady@SkyEnda
I’ll be joined by Boris Johnson live on @SkyNews after 0900 from the top of The Shard
enda brady@SkyEnda
The window cleaners have just turned up to start work here!
plus about 6 more in the same vein. Hope he doesn’t fall off from the top.
Habbakuk
TV ‘historian’, ‘Prof’ Niall Ferguson , and his ‘killer apps’ are not taken seriously in any history faculty.
@ Komodo : yes, I imagined that she had a degree in Eng Lit from Oxford since you specifically referred to that degree, but thank you, of course, for confirming.
Thanks also for your two answers revealing your lack of knowledge about either Oxford or Eng Lit degrees in general.
Only one answer to go, the answer to my main question : what’s the connection between the fact that Louise Mensch has an Oxford degree in Eng Lit and the article she wrote which you link to? If none, don’t be afraid to own up, I shan’t eat you.
James Delingpole has one too, so I see a pattern for producing professional irritants developing. Have you got one, Habbabkuk?
@ Giles :
Well, Niall Ferguson seems to be taken seriously enough by the history faculties of Harvard, Stanford and Oxford Universities.
But hey, what’s their judgement compared to your own superior wisdom and expertise?
@ Giles : why? do you feel you’ve missed out?
“Well, Niall Ferguson seems to be taken seriously enough by the history faculties of Harvard, Stanford and Oxford Universities.”
He’s not taken seriously in academic terms, having published no more than one book of any serious academic merit. He’s no more than a media money pot.
Not that you’d have the faintest clue how these things work, even when explained.
CheebaCow, 1 Feb, 4:30 am: yes, I have a Facebook account, because without one I wouldn’t be able to see most of the stuff posted on Facebook. Sometimes there is important evidence there, and it is useful for finding people, and for being found.
However, my account is barely active.
My typical Facebook session goes like this: Cycle the power on my router to get a new IP address, and clear all private data from my browser as the router reboots. Go straight to Facebook by putting the URL directly into my browser’s address bar, not via a search engine. Log in. Spend several creepy minutes finding whatever it is I’m looking for, feeling like the whole world is looking over my shoulder. Log out (if I can find a logout button). Turn off the router, clearing all cookies and Javascript as the router comes back on.
I hate the place. All the buttons are obscure and change from session to session, and nothing does quite what is says on the tin.
Google is another creepy one and they don’t draw nearly enough suspicion. Also Bing, Yahoo, Amazon, and others; all must be deeply infiltrated by now. Assange is right; digital communications networks have become a global corporate spying system.
@Mary – thanks for the ref to Heathcote Williams, aging Old Etonian Notting Hill hippy. I looked up some of his recent stuff, including his poem Royal Babylon, and it’s good. The epithet I just gave him, on its own, would be horribly misleading. Long may he thrive.
On some of the other posts above…a humble reminder to the good people here…don’t feed the trolls, don’t wrestle with pigs. Years ago, thinking I understood the wisdom of this advice, I still let myself get sucked in on occasion, and kept responding to the swine. We can all do that. What we need is self-discipline, brothers and sisters, in the common good! 🙂
I’m reminded of habby’s revealing reply when asked about misogyny. I think there may even have been exclamation marks involved.
Laurie Penny read English at Oxford and she’s an annoying, irrelevant, up her arse, narcissistic tit too.
“Google is another creepy one and they don’t draw nearly enough suspicion. Also Bing, Yahoo, Amazon, and others; all must be deeply infiltrated by now. Assange is right; digital communications networks have become a global corporate spying system.”
Google is extremely frightening. When they travel the country taking pictures for street view they are logging the MAC addresses of every wireless network in range. As someone walks down the street with their smartphone it is transmitting the MAC address of their home router. Someone armed with a computer can know where you live and have a picture of your house complete with high resolution satellite image of what you have in your back garden in seconds. A quick check will reveal your name and then your credit rating and a search on facebook a lot of personal details and those of your friends. They can soon find out what things you buy and if you use a wireless network at work have a good idea what you do for a living. They can transmit all this along with a photo of you to someone with a clipboard further down the street.
Imagine what Hitler could have done with technology like that and what someone not unlike him is doing right now.
“On some of the other posts above…a humble reminder to the good people here…don’t feed the trolls, don’t wrestle with pigs.”
You can’t herd cats.
Security job for former Met chief John Yates
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/security-job-for-former-met-chief-john-yates-8458525.html
I seem to remember John Yates having been involved in “cash for honours” investigations and some slithery evidence at Leveson. The company he is going to is G3:
“His job will involve working directly for FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 multinationals, as well as the Magic Circle of elite UK law firms, to unravel corporate scandals. G3 has reportedly been investigating the listed coal miner Bumi, which has been the subject of a bitter row between Nat Rothschild, the scion of the banking dynasty, and Indonesia’s Bakrie family.”
G3 is also linked to:
“G3 gained some notoriety in 2011, when the London and New York-based company was dragged into Liam Fox’s resignation as defence secretary. It emerged G3 was one of six parties, which also included private-equity baron Jon Moulton, who had covered the international travel costs of Mr Fox’s close friend and self-styled adviser, Adam Werritty.”
This is interesting.
Senior Met Police detective jailed for 15 months over corrupt payments.
I’m surprised that anyone would walk the plank for this, since they were all at it, and have been for many years. Unless there’s a reduction on appeal it’s curious.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/9841689/Senior-Met-Police-detective-jailed-for-15-months-over-corrupt-payments.html
I think Habbabfcuk wishes it to be thought that he has done a BA somewhere, possibly Oxford, and probably English. And if he writes for the Sun, too, that would conclusively demonstrate his superiority over all other posters here. Who are not entitled to express their opinions at all unless they have degrees in that specific subject area. Unfortunately, he knows fuck-all, and it shows. Unless, of course, he is fishing for the identities of the posters here, in which case his weird behaviour makes sense. Just a suggestion – je n’accuse pas.
Did I do French at Harvard? No. And I guess I am unworthy to complete the Captcha unless I was personally tutored by Stephen Hawking. So sorry – I wasn’t.
Positively my last response to this noxious troll.
I see even the Guardian has reported on the UN’s confirmation that Israel is in breach of international law. Despite the diversionary attack on a Syrian “convoy”…
Secret papers show extent of senior royals’ veto over bills
Whitehall guidance regarding the veto senior members of the royal family enjoy over parliamentary bills when they might affect their financial interests.
On p.24, it is revealed, for example, that the monarch’s consent had to be sought for the progress of the bill for the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, because it enabled the prosecution of the Crown Estate
Commissioners (a body corporate under section 1 of the Crown Estates Act 1961) for corporate manslaughter or corporate homicide. If they were found guilty, the fine would have to be paid by the Crown Estate, which would obviously affect the monarch’s financial interests, and, y’know, that might not be OK with the multi-billionairess blood-drenched mass-murdering parasite.
Meanwhile…I’ve just finished Heathcote Williams’s poem Royal Babylon, which is highly recommended. Interesting about the royal family and nuclear power. A lot of the money from nuclear power is grabbed from selling the uranium, which mainly comes from an area of Canada stitched up by the Rothschilds in the 1950s with Churchill’s fawning help. (You can read about this in Frederic Morton’s admiring biography of the Rothschilds. There’s probably a one-line reference in Niall Ferguson’s crappy tomes somewhere too.) I can’t imagine the royal family weren’t involved, given the amount of money we’re talking about.
Habbabkuk
“If it’s Friday it must be….Liberia today on world poverty and famine. Try visiting one of the many British food banks Dave” (Mary at 07h23)
“The above might just give one of two impressions (or both) :
– Cameron and the UK government shouldn’t bother about world poverty and famine and but should concentrate on poverty in the UK
-poverty in the UK is as bad as poverty in Liberia and the rest of Africa.”
It doesn’t give me either impression:
David Cameron doesn’t give a shit about world poverty
Poverty is relative
@ Doug Scorgie (12h38) “David Cameron doesn’t give a shit about world poverty”
Oh, fine, whatever you say, Doug., I’ll take your word for it.
More on the fragrant Louise (Whispering Grass)Mensch –
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jan/30/louise-mensch-partner-abuse-claims
A bit alien, is Louise, IMO –
http://s1276.beta.photobucket.com/user/Komodobite/media/BlueMensch_zps9f3f3e0e.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0
@ David (10h33)
“He’s {ie, Professor Niall Ferguson} not taken seriously in academic terms…”
Thus spake Davy, the official spokesman for the academic community on two continents. Not.
Israel can do no wrong
British Foreign Secretary William Hague claims the Israeli regime’s violation of Syria’s airspace in the air raid on a Syrian army research center is a “reaction” to the Syrian crisis rather than a breach of the country’s sovereignty.
“I’m not going to give any condemnation of Israel, rushing to any criticism,”
Villager, 1 Feb, 3:28 am: I have some disagreements with your comment:
but I’ve posted my reply on the previous thread where they will be on-topic:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/01/whatever-happened-to-craig-murray/#comment-391592
http://m.youtu
be.com/watch?v=bjdIM3p0gvE
Corruption of British Elite.
Fall from Grace.
@ Mary
Uk colomn live.
News channel.
News interspective, Guardian under spotlight.
“More on the fragrant Louise (Whispering Grass)Mensch -”
It has always struck me as odd that the main instigator in the paedophile witch hunt is the Daily Mail who always have an ample supply of young ladies in various stages of undress in a column at the side of their web page.
I just took a look at their site for evidence expecting to find some 16 year old heiress on the beach somewhere and came across this.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-2271091/Jennifer-Garner-daughter-Violet-share-laugh–enjoying-girl-time-park.html
What sort of person is this newspaper catering for?
@ Komodo : of course you don’t need a degree in whatever in order to comment on a particular subject. But it would help if you knew just a teeny weeny bit about the subject, and it would help even more if you refrained, to borrow one of the late Kingsley Amis’ expressions (BTW, he got a BA in English at Oxford!), “from talking utter piss”.
(PS – liked your “fuck all” and “Habbabfcuk”. Original, thoughtful and subtle.)
Komodo
my sympathy in your epic struggle against our common amico, the expert linguist (la lingua italiana, I believe) and darling of this blog, the magnificent habbabba. He is a nuisance but perhaps a necessary evil. My grandmother believed that god created flies to pester lazy bones who would otherwise spend the whole day lying peacefully in the sun. Could it be that god created habbabba exactly for that purpose?
So Yates has left Bahrain. No more dinars to pick up? A disgusting specimen of the human species.
He should have had his collar felt for letting Bliar go on the cash for honours scandal.
N_ Yes Heathcote Williams is bloody brilliant. I should thank Dave Lawton for sending the link to Heathcote’s word poem on dear old Harry Patch. The combination of his words, beautifully narrated, with the footage and stills from the First World War had me in tears this morning. The pocket politicians Bliar and Brown attempted, but failed, to get him their disgusting warmongering. I saw how Camilla, ‘Duchess of Cornwall’ why had been sent to invade his militarised funeral which Harry had said he did not want to happen. He had been in the 1st Duke of Cornwall’s Regiment in that terrible carnage.
On the video we had the Duke of Cornwall, P Charles and father of the young psychopath P Harry, on the horrors of war and how it must never happen again etc.
Harry Patch Anti War Hero
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d26IVqVivE
I liked this letter in the Morning Star. Sunday 27th January 2013
One Harry got war right
Prince Harry justifies his killing role in Afghanistan with the casual comment, “take a life to save a life.”
I prefer the words of a different Harry, the late Harry Patch.
At his death in 2009 he was the oldest surviving soldier who had fought in the trenches in the first world war.
He was proud that he never killed anyone.
He said: “War is organised murder and nothing else … not worth one life, let alone all the millions.”
Joy Hurcombe
Worthing
PS I know a one or two tenants of the Duchy of Cornwall in the West Country and in the Scilly Isles. You should hear what they have to say about their landlord.
http://www.duchyofcornwall.org/managementandfinances_structure_offices.htm
Yet another stranglehold on the people of these islands. So feudal.
LOL http://www.duchyofcornwall.org/faqs.htm
I wish there was an edit function. So many typos and errors above for which I am sorry.
Thank you for those illuminating words, Karel. However, the struggle is over. The defeated troll is reduced to contradicting itself under its rock, utterly ignored by-
Komodo
I like your turn of phrase Komodo!
~~~
Let’s see if GG makes it past the starting post tonight on Any Questions. I do not normally listen but will do so at 8pm.
Ken Clarke, Keith Vaz, George Galloway, Ruth Porter
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01q8mwx
The ever present establishment stooge Vaz there. But who is Ruth Porter?