This piece is 🔥! It is mainstream media walking away from the truth that is breaking public discourse not ordinary people walking away from mainstream media.
Thanks Amy you are one of the true journalists that speaks truth to power as Chris Hedges & many more independent journos do .. MSM is just a megaphone for the establishment peddling their own narrative NOT the facts!!!
I read very little MSM, just enough to remind me that sanity must be protected —- age group 77.
I found the LNL 23 minutes of Marr v Hedges a travesty. It was embarrassing. No information was elicited. Hedges could have been asked three or four questions, answered without interruption, and we the listener might have learned something other than “ headline”, “Reuters “, “you’ve never been there”.
It feels like the concluding comment could be clearer if we added the word 'neutrality'. In the Hedges interview Hedges was effectively arguing for objectivity, whereas Marr was willing to sacrifice objectivity for some ridiculous idea of neutrality (or balance).
It is representative of the Western outlook as a whole and of the epistemic and geopolitical shift we are seeing: when the truth doesn’t serve its interests, power surreptitiously swaps the definition of truth (or justice) based on universality for a definition of truth based on a ridiculous notion of ‘neutrality’ (which is anything but of course).
Under this view, the possibility for truth falls, and so does the possibility for justice. International Law, human rights, etc. All of it is made to depend on what the aggressor says is true, regardless of the actual truth value of those assertions. Truth becomes tantamount to what the most powerful player says.
There is nothing neutral about fascism, nothing neutral about genocide. To say there is is to side with it and to side against 'objectivity'.
It is probably the only strategy available to power with social media around: the legacy media can no longer doctor the truth in the ways it could in the past, but it can muddle what truth means and amplify ‘alternative facts’, as Hedges argues.
And as Amy argues, this means that we will increasingly turn away from the sources who use their legitimacy to muddle the truth. As is obvious in the global movement to free Palestine, despite what our governments and legacy media have to say about it.
And as is clear with both Remeikis and Hedges (and @deepcut news), there will be the set of courageous journalists who stand for journalism's ethos, and those like Marr who hold on to status with crumbling imperialist institutions.
What is even more stunning with the Marr-type journalism, is that Israeli officials are not in fact hiding what they are doing or planning to do, they constantly say it outright and out loud. This is true for ministers, soldiers, TV presenters, journalists, public polling, etc.
So it isn't even a matter of reporting what each actor in the conflict actually says (as Marr deceivingly claims). Rather, it is more a matter of reporting what Israel tells Western journalists to say, i.e. limit any comment on Israel's deeds to the press releases provided by Israel. What part of this is objective, neutral or balanced in their minds isn't clear, but that seems to be what they are effectively saying.
*To be more precise, Marr is making the strange argument, that it is fine to do journalism in the body of news articles (i.e. be mildly critical of Israel), but that the titles of these same articles should be Israeli PR. It is a similar dynamic to the overall movement: the appearance, the packaging (i.e. the title, the press release), matters more than, and need not represent the content (i.e. the article, the deed). Packaging of genocide as 'technically not genocide', or lethal weapons as 'technically not lethal weapons', matters more than the genocide and the lethal weapons themselves.
Minor correction off the main point but important. Qld’s rainforests are not the first carbon sinks to become carbon emitters. Just there’s been a recent paper published that zeroed in on this. This shift is happening across the world’s forests and other carbon “sinks”. And yes, this is very serious. Also debunks ALL nature based carbon offsets.
Maybe but I haven’t found it. Suspect it’s too controversial for most unis to allow. My best effort to explain it is: Nature based carbon offsetting is generally regarded by climate scientists and climate policy experts as greenwashing. This is primarily due to the lack of a credible foundation in the scientific theory of the biological carbon cycle. Any carbon that is sequestered as part of the short biological carbon cycle is ephemeral, unlike fossil carbon which is effectively a forever addition to the biosphere i.e. it can be lost back into the atmosphere in fire or drought. The biological carbon cycle is also globally dispersed i.e. if carbon is temporarily stored in an Australian forest but an equivalent quantity is lost due to fires in the Amazon, then there is no net gain in sequestered carbon for Earth’s atmosphere. In our globally heating world, net losses from ecosystems tend to exceed net gains. Land managers overall are struggling to hold onto existing soil and surface carbon stores. Put simply, there is nothing to bank. This lack of efficacy of offsetting has been confirmed empirically. A recent study printed in Nature Geoscience concluded that the [net] carbon sequestration potential from global ecosystem restoration was approximately zero: see https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-025-01742-z. Note that in spite of this scientific and policy consensus carbon offset trading remains a multibillion dollar worldwide industry as well as a central pillar of the Albanese Government’s Safeguard Mechanism.
Thanks for this piece. I agree that we are moving away from media with agendas that hide the truth. For instance I watch or purchase little MSM publications because of it. I don't buy "the batman comic" or Daily Telegraph anymore and have not for many years. Although to be honest up until my mother in law moved out of the house I used to buy it on Sunday so she had the TV guide. But that was it.
I find it hard as the MSM still have a hold of a lot of people, especially of my age (65) and above. They still seem to read the comic and similar publications. But, thankfully, the younger generations appear to be onto it.
This piece is 🔥! It is mainstream media walking away from the truth that is breaking public discourse not ordinary people walking away from mainstream media.
Thanks Amy you are one of the true journalists that speaks truth to power as Chris Hedges & many more independent journos do .. MSM is just a megaphone for the establishment peddling their own narrative NOT the facts!!!
I read very little MSM, just enough to remind me that sanity must be protected —- age group 77.
I found the LNL 23 minutes of Marr v Hedges a travesty. It was embarrassing. No information was elicited. Hedges could have been asked three or four questions, answered without interruption, and we the listener might have learned something other than “ headline”, “Reuters “, “you’ve never been there”.
Terrific piece. Thanks! Also, explains why Q&A was such an unwatchable bad faith bucket of shit. And why debating should be banned in schools.
Great piece.
It feels like the concluding comment could be clearer if we added the word 'neutrality'. In the Hedges interview Hedges was effectively arguing for objectivity, whereas Marr was willing to sacrifice objectivity for some ridiculous idea of neutrality (or balance).
It is representative of the Western outlook as a whole and of the epistemic and geopolitical shift we are seeing: when the truth doesn’t serve its interests, power surreptitiously swaps the definition of truth (or justice) based on universality for a definition of truth based on a ridiculous notion of ‘neutrality’ (which is anything but of course).
Under this view, the possibility for truth falls, and so does the possibility for justice. International Law, human rights, etc. All of it is made to depend on what the aggressor says is true, regardless of the actual truth value of those assertions. Truth becomes tantamount to what the most powerful player says.
There is nothing neutral about fascism, nothing neutral about genocide. To say there is is to side with it and to side against 'objectivity'.
It is probably the only strategy available to power with social media around: the legacy media can no longer doctor the truth in the ways it could in the past, but it can muddle what truth means and amplify ‘alternative facts’, as Hedges argues.
And as Amy argues, this means that we will increasingly turn away from the sources who use their legitimacy to muddle the truth. As is obvious in the global movement to free Palestine, despite what our governments and legacy media have to say about it.
And as is clear with both Remeikis and Hedges (and @deepcut news), there will be the set of courageous journalists who stand for journalism's ethos, and those like Marr who hold on to status with crumbling imperialist institutions.
Long live journalism.
What is even more stunning with the Marr-type journalism, is that Israeli officials are not in fact hiding what they are doing or planning to do, they constantly say it outright and out loud. This is true for ministers, soldiers, TV presenters, journalists, public polling, etc.
So it isn't even a matter of reporting what each actor in the conflict actually says (as Marr deceivingly claims). Rather, it is more a matter of reporting what Israel tells Western journalists to say, i.e. limit any comment on Israel's deeds to the press releases provided by Israel. What part of this is objective, neutral or balanced in their minds isn't clear, but that seems to be what they are effectively saying.
*To be more precise, Marr is making the strange argument, that it is fine to do journalism in the body of news articles (i.e. be mildly critical of Israel), but that the titles of these same articles should be Israeli PR. It is a similar dynamic to the overall movement: the appearance, the packaging (i.e. the title, the press release), matters more than, and need not represent the content (i.e. the article, the deed). Packaging of genocide as 'technically not genocide', or lethal weapons as 'technically not lethal weapons', matters more than the genocide and the lethal weapons themselves.
You are so correct.
Wow what an excellent read. Technically and actually.
Minor correction off the main point but important. Qld’s rainforests are not the first carbon sinks to become carbon emitters. Just there’s been a recent paper published that zeroed in on this. This shift is happening across the world’s forests and other carbon “sinks”. And yes, this is very serious. Also debunks ALL nature based carbon offsets.
Careful, they might argue that because they are carbon emitting we should mine them.
@oliver caddick, do you know of scholarly articles the effects of forests becoming carbon emitters on the carbon offsets rationale?
The science is underdone and overly empirical on this issue ie the broader implications are missed. A couple of articles I’m aware of are: https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-environ-112823-064813;jsessionid=3baOSEvOkWlVEU-FBgP0aPD25H6n52zADoLfOcVz.annurevlive-10-241-10-91 &
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09497-8.epdf?sharing_token=qJWDwF5ATGbUOgfP36bbcNRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0MRKxp_1k9jUQvuKavbaWZ6xOEZtQ0P_dux1sqpBOHNw-KvJdYPXQEnw0HOxl5-0m1TCcZdaHk_tkhzdnjs9PJH8VZru0zB9YquB_AS2fnUQpXr2qHESaQmOtqlHS7cBNClXmlefPmQKZv1y25hM2e59iHLe0-h3-yvsXJIY-IZ3SHRDw2plfV7hvHX0_0a5ec%3D&tracking_referrer=www.abc.net.au
To figure out the implications for nature based carbon offsets you have to apply science logic in your own brain I’m afraid.
Cheers! Sure it seems like a kind of no brainer, but feel like there’ll probably have been people who did thorough work on the matter.
Maybe but I haven’t found it. Suspect it’s too controversial for most unis to allow. My best effort to explain it is: Nature based carbon offsetting is generally regarded by climate scientists and climate policy experts as greenwashing. This is primarily due to the lack of a credible foundation in the scientific theory of the biological carbon cycle. Any carbon that is sequestered as part of the short biological carbon cycle is ephemeral, unlike fossil carbon which is effectively a forever addition to the biosphere i.e. it can be lost back into the atmosphere in fire or drought. The biological carbon cycle is also globally dispersed i.e. if carbon is temporarily stored in an Australian forest but an equivalent quantity is lost due to fires in the Amazon, then there is no net gain in sequestered carbon for Earth’s atmosphere. In our globally heating world, net losses from ecosystems tend to exceed net gains. Land managers overall are struggling to hold onto existing soil and surface carbon stores. Put simply, there is nothing to bank. This lack of efficacy of offsetting has been confirmed empirically. A recent study printed in Nature Geoscience concluded that the [net] carbon sequestration potential from global ecosystem restoration was approximately zero: see https://www.nature.com/articles/s41561-025-01742-z. Note that in spite of this scientific and policy consensus carbon offset trading remains a multibillion dollar worldwide industry as well as a central pillar of the Albanese Government’s Safeguard Mechanism.
Thanks for this piece. I agree that we are moving away from media with agendas that hide the truth. For instance I watch or purchase little MSM publications because of it. I don't buy "the batman comic" or Daily Telegraph anymore and have not for many years. Although to be honest up until my mother in law moved out of the house I used to buy it on Sunday so she had the TV guide. But that was it.
I find it hard as the MSM still have a hold of a lot of people, especially of my age (65) and above. They still seem to read the comic and similar publications. But, thankfully, the younger generations appear to be onto it.
Keep up the great work you are doing.