The BBC’s Global News Cartel
By Paul Homewood
.
h/t Robert Christopher
.
.
On top of the Covering Climate Now (CCN) that Reuters is embroiled in, Jo Nova has the latest on the Trusted News Initiative (TNI):
.
What if the news media formed a global monopoly to control the news?
Imagine if the media and tech giants of the world banded together behind-the-scenes to rule certain stories were “misinformation” and all their agencies thus reported the same “news”?
That’s what the Trusted News Initiative aimed to do — decide what ideas were and were not allowed to be discussed.
It’s like “free speech” but without the free part.
Not only could the media bury things but they could get away with it if no upstart competitor could red-pill their audience.
It would be the death of the Free Press
In a world like that the people would be ruled mostly by whomever it was that decided what was “misinformation”. Those controllers would be the defacto Ministry of Truth.
We all saw it happen over the last three years, so it’s good to put a name on the beast, but even better, Robert F Kennedy is suing them for anti-trust violation.
The Trusted News Initiative is everything journalists should hate. It’s basically there to “protect” voters from hearing about things like the Hunter-Biden Laptop, good climate news and bad vaccine reactions. TNI practically told us that in 2020:
The Trusted News Initiative (TNI) was set up last year [2019, just in time, eh?] to protect audiences and users from disinformation, particularly around moments of jeopardy, such as elections.
Nearly everyone’s on board:
Core partners in the TNI are: AP, AFP, BBC, CBC/Radio-Canada, European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Financial Times, Information Futures Lab, Google/YouTube, The Hindu, The Nation Media Group, Meta [Facebook], Microsoft, Reuters, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Twitter, The Washington Post, Kompass – Indonesia, Dawn – Pakistan, Indian Express – India, NDTV – India, ABC – Australia, SBS – Australia, NHK – Japan.
Which is a handy list of “where not to get your news”.
.
Read the full story here.
.
And unsurprisingly our own BBC is at the very heart of it:
.
Disinformation is one of today’s great harms. It can undermine democracy, create division, and distort public debate. Tackling it is a pressing priority.
- International partnership of major news and tech organisations will build on successful co-operation to date and share alerts over dangerous disinformation during the US election
- TNI also announces plans to engage with ‘Project Origin’ verification technology which will tag content in order to identify when it has been manipulated
- New organisations joining TNI for the US Election: The Associated Press, The Washington Post
- The Trusted News Initiative (TNI) is extending the scope and ambition of its groundbreaking collaboration to tackle the most dangerous disinformation worldwide
At a recent summit chaired by the BBC’s Director-General, Tony Hall, the TNI agreed to a shared early warning system of rapid alerts to combat the spread of disinformation during the US presidential election.
The TNI is an industry collaboration of major news and global tech organisations working together to stop the spread of disinformation where it poses risk of real-world harm.
In the month leading to polling day, partners will alert each other to disinformation which poses an immediate threat to life or to the integrity of the election so that content can be reviewed promptly by platforms, whilst publishers ensure they don’t unwittingly republish dangerous falsehoods.
Alerts will also flag up content that undermines trust in partner news providers by identifying imposter or manipulated content which claims to come from trusted news brands.
This new expansion to the US follows the TNI’s success in tackling disinformation during the UK 2019 General Election, the Taiwan 2020 General Election and more recently, harmful coronavirus disinformation, including a claim that the UK Prime Minister had died whilst in hospital with Covid-19.
The TNI is also expanding its global network. New organisations joining the TNI for the US Election include The Associated Press and The Washington Post.
Notes to Editors
The Trusted News Initiative (TNI) was set up last year to protect audiences and users from disinformation, particularly around moments of jeopardy, such as elections. The TNI complements existing programmes partners have in place.
In summer 2019 the BBC convened a Trusted News Summit, bringing together senior figures from major global technology firms and publishing.
The TNI agreed to work collectively, where appropriate, to agree collaborative actions on various initiatives. Initiatives include:
- Early Warning System: creating a system so organisations can alert each other rapidly when they discover disinformation which threatens human life or disrupts democracy during elections. The emphasis will be on moving quickly and collectively to undermine disinformation before it can take hold.
- Media Education: a joint online media education campaign to support and promote media education messages
- Voter Information: co-operation on civic information around elections, so there is a common way to explain how and where to vote
- Shared learning: particularly around high-profile elections
https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2020/trusted-news-initiative
.
Why on earth should the BBC have any interest in the US General Election anyway, unless it was to ensure that the “right” candidate won.
TNI were no doubt heavily involved in the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, which was suppressed by most of the US media prior to the 2020 election as “Russian disinformation”. As has now become apparent, the story was true from the very start, and it uncovers potential corruption involving Joe Biden himself.
.
As Tony Thomas writes in his Wentworth article this week, Robert Kennedy, the nephew of President Kennedy, has launched an anti-trust lawsuit against TNI:
Kennedy’s lawsuit, less kindly, claims TNI’s commercial goal is to deplatform and crush the myriad of upstart online publishers who are contradicting the official lines and reducing trust in big media, along with its ad revenues. The legacy, high-cost media are smarting over competition from bloggers in the shift to digital publishing, with 85 per cent of Americans now getting their news online. …
US conservative pundit Tucker Carlson has satirised the Big Media censorship as: “We have a monopoly on telling lies. No one else can talk.” …
How’s that working out with the public?
Among 46 countries, the US media has become the least trusted (only 29 per cent trust it). …
In Australia, reporters are the second-least trusted of 30 occupations, ahead of politicians but behind delivery drivers. Only 43 per cent of Australians trust the media …
Kennedy says TNI’s Big Tech members collectively have a gatekeeping power over at least 90 per cent of online news traffic. De-platforming a small news publisher typically costs at least 90 per cent of its traffic. Even well-known major online news publishers can lose up to 50 per cent of their traffic from a seemingly minor change to Google’s search algorithms. Smaller online news publishers have been destroyed completely when shadow-banned, throttled, de-monetized, or de-platformed. …
Kennedy quotes the TNI alleged cartel making admissions. Last year Jamie Angus, then the senior BBC controller of news, said:
the real rivalry now is not between for example the BBC and CNN globally, it’s actually between all trusted news providers and a tidal wave of unchecked” reporting “that’s being piped out mainly through digital platforms … That’s the real competition now in the digital media world. Of course organizations will always compete with one another for audiences.
But the existential threat I think is that overall breakdown in trust, so that trusted news organizations lose in the long term if audiences just, just abandon the idea of a relationship of trust with news organizations.
The lawsuit also references suppression by the TNI group of electoral news harmful to the Democrats and other liberal establishment players.
In particular the lawsuit cites the mainstream news blackout in the weeks before the 2020 Presidential election on the scandalous contents of Hunter Biden’s abandoned laptop, which revealed allocating 10 per cent to “the big guy” — his father, Joe Biden — of Hunter’s lucrative influence peddling with America’s opponent nations. This coordinated blackout was justified by the lie — belatedly withdrawn by the Washington Post and New York Times 18 months post-election — that the laptop was Russian disinformation. Kennedy blames TNI for much of the blackout, thus the “truth controllers” propagated untruths.
https://wentworthreport.com/2023/02/03/the-global-cartel-of-narrative-friendly-big-media/
Tony concludes:
So the future of information is really between a cartel of big media and government players that spread the narrative, and lots of little sites like this that try to find and spread the truth. Well-funded propagandists for those in power, versus the rest on a shoe-string budget.
And they claim that they are “speaking truth to power.” Fully sick.
That says it all.
Comments are closed.
NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
I think this is unlikely. Not all of them?
Go away Malcolm. You are becoming tedious.
Of course you do Malcolm, of course you do…
Just to clarify, I write for Melbourne-based quadrant.org.au which posted my article. JoNova and Wentworth Report were secondary publishings. I suggest you take a look at the excellent material regularly posted on quadrant.org.au
Sounds like the UK 100 city initative. To force through net Zero at any price.I didnt want to include the word ‘socialist’ but I believe mr Khant is involved somewhere.
I think it might be instructive to publish the external funders of this cartel – ie the non “media” businesses….because this (below) will not surprise sceptical minds one jot, but will 100% scare the pants off the currently blinkered: taken from https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2020/trusted-news-initiative;
“The TNI agreed to work collectively, where appropriate, to agree collaborative actions on various initiatives. Initiatives include:
Early Warning System: creating a system so organisations can alert each other rapidly when they discover disinformation which threatens human life or disrupts democracy during elections. The emphasis will be on moving quickly and collectively to undermine disinformation before it can take hold.
Media Education: a joint online media education campaign to support and promote media education messages
Voter Information: co-operation on civic information around elections, so there is a common way to explain how and where to vote
Shared learning: particularly around high-profile elections”
So, can this be interpreted as they wish to “rig” elections by co-operating – “so there is a common way to explain how and where to vote/Shared learning: particularly around high-profile elections”. This is so familiar to Soviet style control of “News” – lets not forget that “Pravda” in Russian means truth……and trusted is “doverennyy”.
Which part of the BBC’s Charter facilitates this charade?
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. BBC employees are naive, gullible, narcissistic do-gooders who think they are “saving the world”.
Apart from the evil paedophiles who run it.
The initiative falls apart at ” to protect audiences and users from disinformation,”
Who decides what is ” disinformation” ? Is that a real word? 1984.
A news broadcast should be factual, nothing else. It must never feature the usual weasel words “could” “might” “possibly” etc. It could then be followed by a separate programme which features opinion and guessing.
Naturally, folk really trust members of TNI to not spread disinformation.
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/01/18/bbc-caught-using-photoshopped-image/
This action against TNI is good, but there is another layer to this onion.
American contrarians, pioneered by Rush Limbaugh, have for many years produced montages of news reporting where all the different major outlets use EXACTLY THE SAME WORDS when reporting. It’s spooky, AND, it means they are all under common direction or sourcing.
In all his years, with all his resources and contacts, he never found the origin, though he suspected New York Times controlled it all.
“Who told you to say that?” is still unanswered.
Just yesterday I was looking online for the sheet music of a song by Lesley Duncan. I discovered she had passed away over 10years ago – something I didn’t know.
Looking up articles/obituary comments about her, I found at least a dozen that were word for word exactly the same and all included multiple errors. (In the 70’s I was professionally employed in music business for a while)
Initially I put the errors down to lazy journalism but on reading your remark I now wonder if those “errors” were not accidental.
I wonder why Robert Kennedy has brought this lawsuit? I thought the established media was likely to support the Democrats rather than the Republicans.
Back in the days when it was rather more trustworthy one of my favourite World Service programmes was Six Continents. They would take a story and examine how it was reported around the world, revealing both local perceptions and concerns and political overlays. It took input from the monitoring station at Caversham, and quoted verbatim or at least direct translation. Sometimes they would pick a story that really hadn’t figured in the Western press, so you might learn more about say the relationship of China with countries in Africa, or some aspect of Indian domestic politics.
It was an education in how to understand news rather better. Of course there were also stories that were heavily suppressed in their countries of origin. Many never saw the light of day. But you can distinguish a cheetah by its spots…
I believe he’s against Covid vaccines so falls foul of the media regularly.
Is this true or did you hear it on the BBC?
“Voter Information: co-operation on civic information around elections, so there is a common way to explain how and where to vote”
Explain “how….to vote” Wow!
The European Union has it’s own Journalism Trust Initiative
https://www.journalismtrustinitiative.org/about
Sponsored by the European Commission, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, National Endowment for Democracy and Agence Française de Développement.
Irelands taxpayer funder broadcaster who constantly push climate alarmist nonsense signed up. The Minister who holds the communications portfolio in Ireland is the Green party leader.
RTÉ NEWS FIRST TO SIGN UP NEW TO GLOBAL JOURNALISM TRUST INITIATIVE
https://about.rte.ie/2021/06/23/rte-news-first-to-sign-up-new-to-global-journalism-trust-initiative/
There is the Reuters Oxford Climate Journalism NetworkM, whose main backer is Reuters, the rogues gallery of funding sources are there too. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/our-funders
In March this year, the European Broadcast Union Climate journalism – what works?
https://www.ebu.ch/news/2022/10/climate-journalism—what-works
So the message that fossil fuels work and help sustain our lifestyles should sell well then.
And how the extra CO2, mainly from natural sources, is greening the planet.
Reach plc is as bad as the BBC with their approach to articles about the alleged anthropogenic climate change.
It has a vast range of readers. Bearing in mind these are all electronic now as well as paper editions.
‘Reach plc (known as Trinity Mirror between 1999 and 2018) is a British newspaper, magazine and digital publisher. It is one of Britain’s biggest newspaper groups, publishing 240 regional papers in addition to the national Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror, The Sunday People, Daily Express, Sunday Express, Daily Star, Daily Star Sunday as well as the Scottish Daily Record and Sunday Mail and the magazine OK! Since purchasing Local World, it has gained 83 print publications.’
Couple all these seemingly different titles with the following :-
Data journalism or data-driven journalism (DDJ) is a journalistic process based on analyzing and filtering large data sets for the purpose of creating or elevating a news story.
You end up with brainwashing. In this case the Net Zero scandemic.
Whatever next ? Digital I.D. ?
The authorities will want to know everyone’s carbon credit just as today they collect national insurance numbers, finger prints and D.N.A.
Not-so-distant liberal thinkers would have been up in arms about a collaboration between big government and media conglomerants. Throw large corperations into the mix and you effectively have worldwide Facism.
Sadly Fascism is the correct tag. I suspect BBC employees wouldn’t understand because they think Fascism refers to extreme right wing racists as opposed to National Socialism where the state effectively becomes the only customer of private business. Bit like the wind and solar industry really.
The BBC are blind to right wing policies actually meaning economically favouring a small state and extreme liberalism ie self reliance and independence.
The BBC moves seamlessly from “medium right” Libertarianism to its exact opposite, fascism as “far right”. It thinks fascism is racism plus ultra-free markets when it is neither. The vast majority of young people have been taught that though, hence black-clad street thugs using violence to overthrow a democratic state, demanding suppression of various freedoms and an authoritarian government are convinced they are anti-fascists.
Robert F Kennedy Jnr is a constant litigator and has become a welcome (from the populist point of view) thorn in the side of the establishment. His wins against Monsanto and mandatory vaccination have received little publicity on this side of the pond (UK). Which illustrates the necessity for action against the proposed news cartel lest we all spend our lives watching the shadows on the wall of Plato’s cave.
The Roundup case is a travesty. There’s zero evidence it causes cancer and the alternatives are much worse in all aspects. Kennedy is a conspiracy-theory nutter.
Agreed. Roundup is one of Man’s greatest inventions.
I don’t like the conspiracy-theory nutter label. It’s Leftist language. Calling a theory you don’t like a “conspiracy theory” is ad hominem junk.
Original Toto drummer Jeff Porcaro died aged 38 from cardiac arrest. Lots of nutters declared it was due to his inadvertant inhalation of Roundup whilst treating weeds in his garden.
Sustained cocaine abuse could not possibly have had anything to do with it!!!!!
This is what happens when a sizeable proportion of the population believes its opinions are certainties and opposition to those opinions evil. That’s the basis of every murderous totalitarian regime and the basis of every persecution ever.
Amen. Once you demonize your opposition, ANY action – even murder – is justified.
It euthanizes democracy.
Whaley Bridge Dam failure due to climate change was a prime example of BBC news agenda manipulation.
The design of new spillway and other work seems to contradict that narrative, it was just caused by a lousy piece of engineering and a gross failure of regulatory oversight.
https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/about-us/where-we-work/north-west/restoring-toddbrook-reservoir
The BBC news website has a link: ‘Why you can trust BBC News’, which says:
BBC News is making even greater efforts to explain what type of information you are reading or watching on our website, who and where the information is coming from, and how a story was crafted the way it was. By doing so, we can help you judge for yourself why BBC News can be trusted.
Sickbag not included.