British police arrested 30 animal rights activists; or "extremists"; for their actions to save innocent animals from torture cruelty.
Most articles reporting the raid, such as this one from the Reuters and the Daily Telegraphy article, are inexcusably biased; while widely quoting from the police statement, they don't refer to the comments of animal rights groups at all. Even Reuters article rather looks like a press release from the police, and Telegraph article concludes with the comment "these extremists are threatening dedicated researchers", without ever introducing the animal rights activist's ideas that these "dedicated researchers" can also be abusers of animal rights. The Sun, the most circulated English-language newspaper in the world, went on to describe the activists 'terrorists' in their headline (with the quotation marks).
Even the BBC article is extremely biased against the activists; they give the activists only one paragraph (two lines) in the bottom while devoting ten paragraphs to the police. The Independent coverage was slightly better as they reported that "Freshfields Animal Rescue Centre in Merseyside was among the places raided. The centre, which has been established for more than 25 years, takes in unwanted animals from across the region", but nonetheless isn't any different in a sense that police view (and those who support the police that the animal rights activism is morally indefensible) on animal rights and property rights are "true", "credible" viewpoints that readers need to succumb to.
Where's the principle of "objective" journalism? I know objectivity is an illusion, but can't they even pretend to be objective? It seems that the mainstream media hardly tells the animal rights activists' perspectives and reasons for their activism. Radical animal rights organisations, such as the Animal Liberation Front and Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (whose leader was arrested this time), don't advocate any actions that harm humans; "The ALF's credo states that no harm shall come to any sentient being". They believe that to liberate animals from cages, which is "burglary" when animals are considered "properties" of human owners, is justice. I don't necessarily support all of their actions, but their points that animals shouldn't be abused as properties, their actions are quite reasonable ones for them.
This post is neither to support nor to oppose actions taken by the ALF/any of the arrested activists. I'm a vegetarian and I fully support animal rights, but I'm myself ambivalent about ALF-type radical animal rights activism. However, I can confidently say that the activists' case deserves to be fairly and equally treated, and reported, by the media. When the public is bombarded with animals-as-properties argument and given virtually no opposing arguments, it looks like "common sense"/the natural way of treating animals even though it is just a social construction, just like slavery used to be. Animals-as-holders-of-rights arguments may sound "extreme", only because the mainstream media treats them as extreme views not worth listening to; not because it is ethically wrong.
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6 comments:
I think the situation we have here is the media taking the "official" or supposedly more authoritative stand. It is in the media's nature to take the position of the government, of the majority, of the hegemony, of the wealthy elite or of those who own or operate that media organisation.
In this instance Reuters is clearly taking a positivist legal approach and the police line. This is what Reuters generally does - since it is impossible to be truely value-neutral as a media organisation, but Reuters articles are published by a variety of other media organisations with various different political opinions who expect a "neutral" position in Reuters articles, Reuters generally accepts the "official" account of any event, seldom going on to criticise authority or norms in any way, shape or form, be that from a right-wing, left-wing, realist, idealist, liberal, libertarian, rights activist, Marxist or feminist perspective, or any other perspective.
In this way the media, often giving the impression of being an impartial "third estate", are able to give the impression that their stance is neutral and any clear variation from or criticism of that position is inherently biased, described either as "close-minded" or "alternative".
In this way the powerful (be it an elite hegemony or a majority controlled by an elite hegemony) are able to stigmatise anything that questions the status quo as "alternative opinion" rather than "accepted fact".
Yep, "official" has nothing to do with neutrality, or indeed, it's the contrary (as nothing is neutral). Authority's clearly biased towards Power and the status quo...
Does the media have any responsibility to be objective?. I mean they are private companies, who are we to decide what they show us, we choose to watch it therefore we can choose to accept what they state or not.
"Comment moderation has been enabled. All comments must be approved by the blog author."
Isn't this a prevention of freedom of speech?
That's exactly why the dominance of the privately-owned media is disastrous. Their motive is to make profits and these companies are controlling the mind.
I don't think the media has to be objective (which is impossible) as long as there are many media outlets in the society representing diverse views.
But under the corporate domination of the media it is difficult to find opinions that are critical of the prevailing values of society, particularly capitalism (as companies who own the media are benefitting from capitalism).
We can sometimes "choose" whether to watch it or not, but sometimes the media's bias is that they report something as priorities while they never report other issues which they don't deem to be important. It is more subtle media bias. (e.g. prioritising business news while ignoring activism news) If something is not reported at all, we can't choose to watch it! Then the societal value is manipulated by the media bias (e.g. business is more important). The media's influence on the public is phenomenal, so the public has right and interest in the media's operation.
Regarding the comment moderation, freedom of speech is a political freedom that restricts the government's power, so it is quite irrelevant in this situation. However, I don't censor posts because of its viewpoint, this is a blog for discussion. So I published your post, but if the comment is offensive, derogatory or inflammatory, I won't publish it.
"The public has right and interest in the media's operation." I meant that the public has the right to have influence on the media's operation...
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