Two-Bob Media Watch

What's this? ABC Television's Media Watch tackling a Middle East-related item:

A Syrian homecoming: What the Good Weekend did not reveal in its story about a young woman travelling to Syria to see her father (24/3/14)?

No, it can't be! For as long as I can remember, the routine pro-Israel bias that pervades the Australian ms media (including the ABC), and provides so much fodder for this blog that I can barely keep up with it all, routinely escapes MW's radar.

But not Syria!

Now what appears to be the problem here:

"The story sidestepped the brutality of president Assad's Syrian regime."

You're kidding me, the ABC has been sidestepping the brutality of the Israeli apartheid regime since, like, time immemorial.

"So is Reme Sakr just an ordinary Australian woman? Well, no. She's a leading light in Hands Off Syria, which backs President Assad, refuses to admit he's used chemical weapons, and paints the popular uprising as a foreign invasion."

OMG, HOS! You mean Reme doesn't want Syria getting the Iraqi makeover? She doesn't believe the msm's necessarily the last word on chemicals in Syria (or on anything else for that matter)? And she knows, unlike MW, that Syria has - how can I put it? - COME A LONG WAY SINCE 2011. Off with her head! (That is, if the invading foreign jihadis don't get there first.)

"She also joined a delegation from Hands Off Syria and the WikiLeaks Party to express solidarity with Assad. That's her in a meeting with the president..."

Is this the same MW that's been turning a blind eye for aeons as caravan after caravan of politicians and journalists have made the pilgrimage to the apartheid state, and returned, singing like canaries?

"... and its worth remembering their visit was roundly condemned by all sides of Australian politics."

For MW this includes Tony Abbott, who'd have Australian troops on the ground in Syria if President McCain so much as whistled, and who has not only shaken the hand of Israel's Netanyahu but invited him to these shores, and The Greens' Richard Di Natale, who baulks at BDS.

"Good Weekend... rightly damned the terrorists and fundamentalists who are trying to establish an Islamic state. But it made no mention of the moderate Syrian opposition."

Good luck in your search for the fabled MSO, MW.  And keep a look out for the unicorn while you're at.

"The story was... powerful PR for a brutal regime led by a man the UN has branded a war criminal. We think readers deserved more balance and a lot more disclosure."

Once MW gets around to:

a) exposing the powerful PR for another brutal regime cum serial violator of UN resolutions routinely generated by its own employees, Geraldine Doogue, Phillip Adams, Ben Knight, Robyn Williams, Matt Brown, David Hardaker etc; and then

b) moves on to tackle Zionist shills in the corporate press such as Greg Sheridan, Paul Sheehan, and Christian Kerr,

I might take it a little more seriously.

In the meantime, MW, as George Galloway said last year to the ABC's James Carleton on the subject of the ABC and Syria: "Don't pretend you got a fur coat on because I can see your drawers." (See my 16/7/13 post Our ABC Owned.)