From Overseas Press

Western media play along in the disinformation game

(chinadaily.com.cn)
Updated: 2010-06-29 16:01

It is time for the Western media, which have accepted blatant and often dangerous news distortions, to clean up their act, said Gregory Clark, a former Australian diplomat in an article in Japan Times on June 25.

Clark pointed out that in the reports of the March torpedo attack on a South Korean warship, Western media blasting North Korea for the attack make little or no mention of the fact that it was in disputed waters. He also said that there are even doubts whether there was an attack, as Sweden, the only neutral member in an international group investigating the affair, withdrew from the final report. Even though two other possible causes for the sinking have been put forward, little of this finds mention in Western media, where calls for strong retaliation and U.N. condemnation against North Korea wax large, he added.

According to Clark, it's a similar story with regard to the media fuss over Chinese naval activity in the East China Sea. "China has a not-invalid claim to a large Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) in the East China Sea even if it conflicts with Japan's median line claim. And China can hardly be expected to remain immobile while Japan acts as if its own claim is set in stone, especially since Beijing, unlike Tokyo, seeks a compromise joint development agreement between the rival claims."

The western Pacific coral reef of Okinotorishima also presents a similar dilemma for Beijing, said Clark. "China does not dispute Japan's ownership of the reef. But it could hardly remain silent after the Japanese military earlier this year landed troops on the reef in a bid to support Tokyo's claim for an encircling 400,000-square-km EEZ — a claim that contradicts international law, which states that rocks unable to sustain economic activity cannot have an EEZ."

But one would have to look hard for any mention of these crucial details in the Western media, where increasingly China is portrayed as expansionist and a future military threat, said Clark.

Working in Canberra for years, Clark said he saw up close how slanted material from allegedly impartial academics and think tanks was pushed into the media, and used. "Western disinformation efforts during the Kosovo and Iraq wars were harmful. With South Ossetia, we had the remarkable sight of the main US and UK media telling us that Russia had attacked Georgia when it was almost the complete opposite — a claim that could easily have led to a revived Cold War. Even worse was the 1962 claim that China had attacked India when it was the complete opposite — a false claim that indirectly led to the Vietnam War."

Clark suggested that it's time for the media to clean up their act a bit when a similar media disinformation war over Iran is under way, financed in part by CIA funds, reported in 2008 by American award-winning commentator Seymour Hersh.