Mass Media Omertà
Burying Al Jazeera's 'The Labour Files'
http://www.medialens.org/2022/mass-media-omerta-burying-al-jazeeras-the-labour-files/
Date Written: 2022-10-05
Publisher: Media Lens
Year Published: 2022
Resource Type: Article
Cx Number: CX24776
The damaging revelations about the Labour Party in the recent four-part Al Jazeera series, ‘The Labour Files’, and the almost totalitarian silence in response by British news media, should ram home the illusory nature of ‘democracy’ in the UK.
Abstract:
-
Excerpt:
The AJ series shines a light on the struggles Corbyn had with the party’s central bureaucracy which resisted the leftward shift his victory had initiated when elected as Labour leader in 2015. When he was finally able to have Labour general secretary Iain McNicol (now Baron McNicol of West Kilbride) replaced by Corbyn ally Jennie Formby in 2018, the painfully slow processing of disciplinary cases on antisemitism came to light. Recall that this slow investigation of Labour antisemitism cases had been a huge stick which the media used to thrash Corbyn.
Andrew Feinstein, a veteran anti-racist campaigner originally from South Africa who has written and lectured on genocide prevention, is shown in one AJ programme examining Labour’s confidential disciplinary files. Hundreds of party activists had been suspended on the basis of these files. Feinstein pointed to clear examples of real antisemitism. But there were also many examples of cases where ‘there was no antisemitism whatsoever’. These were typically people criticising Israel for its crimes.
Subject Headings
