Alan MacLeod

Senior Staff Writer/Podcast Producer, @MintPressNews. I mostly tweet about US/Mid East & Lat Am. politics, but complaining about corporate media is my passion.

[Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod]

Unlike Reuters, @MintPressNews reports on Israel/Palestine accurately.

And we are under attack because of it. Sources within Israel have managed to pressure Indiegogo and others into freezing our readers' subscriptions.

We need you to subscribe to us directly on our website.

If you're in a financial position to do so, please do support us.

https://t.co/hYduYzXT0X

[Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod]

Incredible how a certain country/perpetrator is never mentioned in these headlines.

[Reuters @Reuters]

Nearly three years after an airstrike killed her sister and caused her early birth, a Gazan girl as old as the war itself is rebuilding her bond with the mother she was separated from as a newborn

[Seyed Mohammad Marandi @s_m_marandi]

If you unfollow Al Jazeera and other US-oriented media outlets and follow alternative media instead, you do yourself a favor.

[Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod]

@briebriejoy Two-thirds of French troops in 1944 were Black.

When Paris was liberated, American commanders specifically ordered that they weren't allowed to march through the city.

[Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod]

Let's talk about this New York Times headline, and what it reveals about bias, propaganda, and how corporate media cue you to get outraged about some violence and ignore others 🇺🇦🇵🇸

1) Let's start with the title: "Trapped in a Kill Zone, a Ukrainian City is Beginning to Starve".

Check the incredibly emotive language. Barbaric Russia has turned an entire city into a "kill zone". I checked the archive, and the NY Times has NEVER described Gaza as a "kill zone," despite the numbers of slain there dwarfing Oleshky.

In summary, the language spurs the reader to get outraged. "Something must be done about this" is the clear implication.

2) "Russian-occupied Oleshky" -- this is an accurate phrase, but telling nonetheless. Want to guess how many times the New York Times has used the phrase "Israeli-occupied Gaza" to describe the situation there?

Zero. In fact, you have to go back to 1993 to see that phrase appear in the New York Times -- before most people reading this were probably born.

Ask yourself why that is. How can the newspaper of record go 30+ years without using such a matter-of-fact phrase, while using it virtually daily when it comes to Russia 🇷🇺 and Ukraine 🇺🇦.

3) "Menaced" -- Again with the emotive language. I checked the New York Times archive database, and could find zero examples in the past 50 years of the Times using the word "menace" to describe what Israel is doing to Palestine, Lebanon, or any of its other neighbors. But Iran and Hamas? They were regularly described as not only a menace to Israel, but often the world.

These things don't happen by accident, and they reveal the deep structural and ideological biases at play in media, even in something as short as a headline and subheadline. There is an enormous amount of information, views, and propaganda encoded in just a few words -- propaganda that you will unwittingly swallow unless you are critically assessing everything you read, see, and hear.

4) Finally, I have to comment on the image used to illustrate the article. The Azovstal Defenders were largely made up of men from the Azov Battalion, a Neo-Nazi paramilitary group that has been subsumed into the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

In the years before the 2022 invasion, the New York Times accurately described them as Nazis, but that quibble has now been put to the side.

5) This is not meant to be an anti-Ukraine post, claiming they receive special treatment. I'm merely trying to highlight how corporate media frame certain wars, presenting certain invasions as outrageous war crimes, while sanitizing and tacitly supporting others.

The key is to educate yourself in critical media literacy so you can see through the propaganda and make your own, informed judgements. See groups like @ProjectCensored and others for resources on media literacy.

[MintPress News @MintPressNews]

Dear Supporters,

It's Max Blumenthal (@MaxBlumenthal) - editor of the Grayzone.

Corporate media has totally discredited itself and won't tell you the truth about what the US is doing to Syria, Yemen, and Palestine, but MintPress has.

MintPress is breaking down deceptive Cold War propaganda on a daily basis, and I've been proud to collaborate with MintPress and to publish investigative work there that few others would have published.

In a time like this, we need MintPress more than ever, so do what you can to support this independent, non-partisan, anti-imperialist outlet by donating to them.

Click here to join the campaign: https://t.co/nNzaHv0ITC

In solidarity,

Max Blumenthal, Editor, The Grayzone
MintPress News

[Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod]

Have they tried not committing a genocide?

[Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod]

Classic pic: Muhammad Ali (left) joins a Palestine solidarity march in Chicago, 1988.

[Indie @ INN #NoneOfTheAbove #JournalismIsNotACrime @IndLeftNews]

I read an OUTSTANDING (and infuriating) article about Guy Katz, an ex-IDF "Anti-Semitism Expert" who's admitted to intelligence connections in the past. His mission? To demonize & criminalize anti-genocide speech in #Germany.
support @MintPressNews & @AlanRMacLeod
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[Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod]

A rapist defending other rapists.

[Headquarters @HQNewsNow]

Trump defends the men in the Cornell gang rape case, saying he “feels bad” for them and they won't get a “fair shake”

[Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod]

A personal message:

We are under attack from Israel and its lobby.

Watch this video, and donate below if you can.

https://t.co/KC1sUskxkG

[Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod]

Any headline that begins "Netanyahu says" is propaganda, not journalism.

[BBC News (UK) @BBCNews]

Netanyahu says flight attacker 'underwent Islamist radical indoctrination' https://t.co/dhV4hsx8LW

[Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod]

Warmongering is a threat to every single person in this country. Every bomb and bullet is another piece of food taken from a hungry child.

[Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod]

They said it. They literally just came out and said it.

[Conservatives @Conservatives]

We must cut welfare to fund defence.

[Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod]

@BBCNews I stopped reading at "Netanyahu says"

[Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod]

Everyone who supported this is still in power, but tens of thousands who opposed it were marginalized, arrested, or jailed.

Think about that.

[HatsOff @HatsOffff]

New aerial footage shows the scale of devastation in Gaza

[Alan MacLeod @AlanRMacLeod]

More people should know that The Atlantic's editor-in-chief is an American who volunteered to become an IDF prison guard.

In his memoir, he admitted to covering up serious prisoner abuse of Palestinians.

[The Atlantic @TheAtlantic]

Wallace Shawn’s resurfaced rant about Israel shows just how normalized anti-Semitism has become, @jkirchick argues: https://t.co/tU1socYaN6