There is no such thing as unbiased news coverage

The recent debacle that has plagued the reputation of the erstwhile seemingly pious and virtuous Al Jazeera TV network comes to no surprise.

Having for many years managed to successfully portray an image of a neutral and impartial broadcaster of news and analyses on Middle Eastern affairs, albeit from an Arabian standpoint, the Doha-based network has recently been openly attacked by its own staff for deliberately skewing news coverage of the latest Egypt street sentiment with a blatant twist in favour of the Islamic Brotherhood.  

It emerged that  Al Jazeera  beamed archive images of a vastly empty Tahris Square to dress up a live news report suggesting that the turnout of people supporting the ousting of President Mosri was rather poor and was against what the majority of Egyptians wanted.
And why would it? Simply because of the vested interests its owner – the Qatari government – has in maintaining the brotherhood’s grip into power for reasons that are totally indifferent to me.

Compare this, with the way the Western media preferred to report on the same story; In what was a blatant coup de’ eta against a democratically elected government, European and US media adopted a rather subdued and low key news and analyses agendas in an obvious attempt to depolarize the situation and defuse the dynamic of the demonstrating supporters of the Brotherhood by appealing for calm and a return to order. None made any reference to a coup de’ eta, neither did they question the sanity or long-term consequences such a violent removal of a democratically elected leader from the office is likely to have in years to come.

And why is that? Because the media, anywhere in the world, follow their owners’ agenda or that of their owners’ bosses agenda, for there is no such thing as a mainstream independent media outlet at an age when, he who controls information, and its flow, controls the world itself.

This is true in both the industrialised world and in the so called BRICS, emerging or third world economies, albeit on a different scale and for varying reasons.

Contemporary research demonstrates increasing levels of consolidation, with many media industries already highly concentrated and dominated by a very small number of firms

Globally, large media conglomerates include Viacom, CBS Corporation, Time Warner, News Corp, Bertelsmann AG, Sony, Comcast, Vivendi, Televisa, The Walt Disney Company, Hearst Corporation, Organizações Globo and Lagardère Group.

In nations described as authoritarian by most international think-tanks and NGOs like Human Rights Watch (China, Cuba, Russia), media ownership is generally something very close to the complete state control over information in direct or indirect ways (see Gazprom Media).

So who controls information, in its totality? Who is masterminding and authorizes the information consumed by billions? Who has such unfathomable power to be able to dictate communication policy on a global scale?

Is it the US resident and the CIA? To a certain, microscopic scale, this is true. Is it the Greek government? Yes, from a small nation’s microcosmic viewpoint Prime Minister Samaras controls the way Greek media report on the longest ever recession that has affected a European nation since the end of World War 2. Is it the BBC? Yes, to a degree which protects Her Majesty’s interests at home and in the Commonwealth, it does. We all know that.

But, what if, these disparate media and those who exercise control over them have to report to someone or some others, whose job is not to micromanage?

Those few, who perhaps, collectively possess enough influence to rule over those who rule us. A group of elite, super wealthy individuals – some recent estimates during the occupy Wall Street movement put them at 1 per cent -  who design long-term policies on all major issues impacting on our lives, from energy supply, to food security and from health services and pharmaceuticals to job creation and religious strife.

As an ex-journalist and a PR man, I have always loved working for and with the media; but as a maturing father growing up in an era marred by conspiracy theories, social injustice and increasing gap between those who have and the ‘have nots’, I maintain my right to be skeptical about the power of the Fourth Estate.

Because, if this power, is indeed being misused and misdirected from protecting the weak and the innocent into becoming a propaganda machine for the handful, then it better had seized to exist.