Easter: More rising than falling
“I call upon heaven and earth this day to witness that I have put before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life! Choose life, so that you and your descendants may live.” (Deuteronomy, 30:19)
Recent articles in Media
11 April 2025
ABC has Four Corners with just one angle: Anti-China Media Watch
In the midst of a federal election campaign, China is front and centre, with the major parties falling over themselves to look tough on national security. The mainstream media is once again aiding and abetting the political narrative without any serious analysis; Albo and Dutton are going to swipe back the Port of Darwin from its CCP-linked owners, but the mainstream media is clueless as to how that will happen; Tony Abbott tells his former chief of staff we’re being bullied by China; and a heavily-promoted Four Corners program fails to scale the great wall of objectivity.
9 April 2025
An arresting American Gaza challenge
Recent US commentary backing President Trump’s extraordinary American Gaza takeover project has regularly stressed how critics should come up with a better plan.
7 April 2025
Institutionalisation: Vice-chancellors’ cowardly collusion with antisemitism lobby
In response to a Senate inquiry into supposed antisemitism on Australian university campuses, the Group of Eight (Go8) vice-chancellors representing the Australian National University, Sydney, Melbourne, Monash, UWA, UNSW, Queensland and Adelaide have produced a definition of antisemitism which is to be enforced on all their respective students and staff.
5 April 2025
Asia battered by Trump’s harsh tariffs – Asian Media Report
In Asian media this week: “Reciprocal” tariffs savage poor nations. Plus: Auto levies hand “keys to the future” to China; Myanmar military declares ceasefire but continues fighting; Black carbon pollution a threat to glaciers; US, India in nuclear power deal; Bitter times for Darjeeling tea industry.
4 April 2025
China’s spies are here to help Albo: Anti-China Media Watch
The Australian reliably informs as that in Beijing it’s “all the way with Albo for PM”; the latest Chinese ship in the proximity of Australia’s waters is both an act of aggression and proof positive that New Zealand’s scientists are among the most “clueless” creatures on earth; and Confucius Institutes have to go from Australian university campuses.
3 April 2025
Will Australia’s media do better at cracking down on lies this election? The signs aren’t good
Populism uses the freedoms of democracy against democracy. In particular, populists use freedom of speech to promote hate, incite prejudice, intensify social division and spread lies.
3 April 2025
The West and inconvenient memory: The destruction of history
“Nations without a past are contradictions in terms. What makes a nation is the past, what justifies one nation against others is the past and historians are the people who produce it.” – Eric Hobsbawm
2 April 2025
The personification of politics
Reducing the complexities of international politics to the idiosyncratic personalities of world leaders suggests the Western media believes concision is an antidote to the short attention spans of readers, viewers and listeners. They may be right about this.
29 March 2025
China’s war is almost here: Anti-China Media Watch
Mainstream media tells us exactly when China will invade Taiwan; it continues to run the false narrative that the Chinese naval ships fired missiles into the path of commercial airliners; and China, with a solitary overseas military base versus 800 US bases, poses a massive risk to our masters in Washington.
28 March 2025
Why voting in a fact-checking void should worry you
Australian voters heading to the polls need to be aware there's little standing between them and potential manipulation of information by vested interests.
28 March 2025
Behind Australia's antisemitism hoax
Australia’s recent wave of political scaremongering and hyperbolic reporting about antisemitic attacks on Jewish schools, synagogues, businesses and a day care centre has finally subsided, but its impact is still being eagerly exploited by right-wing media outlets, pro-Israel lobby groups and politicians of all stripes.
26 March 2025
There is no way in which China is a threat to Australia or even the US
Pearls and Irritations editor-in-chief John Menadue talks to Pascal Lottez of Neutrality Studies about Western misconceptions of China and the narrative that has led to a very poor understanding of the biggest power in Asia.
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28 February 2025
The Chinese invasion begins: Anti-China Media Watch
26 February 2025