BY AL MARIAM
It is often observed that journalists need to be as transparent as possible with their audience about their sources and the limits of their knowledge. Without transparency in reporting, there can be little trust. One would think a newspaper that has been in existence since 1851 would be prudent in verifying facts, responsible in framing stories and serve as an “honest information broker”.
Sadly, the New York Times has become the New York Herd Times. The Times has little interest in getting the facts right or providing reliable information. On Ethiopia reporting, they do not even pretend to give lip service to accuracy and impartiality.
Indeed, in reporting on Ethiopia, the New York Times has transformed ethical journalism into “ethnical” journalism. But almost all of the major Western legacy old guard corporate media practice journaLIEsm on Ethiopia.
In February 2021, I exposed the damned journaLIES of the Bloomberg editorial board.
It is an oxymoron to talk about a “mastermind” in the context of the names Susan Rice and Antony Blinken, the presumptive U.S. Secretary of State.
The ironic truth is that Susan Rice is Antony Blinken’s brain. Susan Rice does all of the thinking for Blinken on Ethiopia. Blinken reminds me of the talking cymbal-banging windup monkey toy I used to play with in childhood. You wind up that monkey and it chatters and clangs the cymbals over and over.
Susan Rice winds up Blinken and he clangs and chatters: Ethiopian government must take immediate, concrete steps to protect civilians. There must be an immediate end to hostilities and the withdrawal of outside forces from Tigray, including Amhara regional security forces and Eritrean troops.
The international community must facilitate independent, international, and investigations into reported human rights abuses and violations and hold those responsible accountable. There must be full and unhindered humanitarian access in Tigray.
Western legacy media as sponsors and practitioners of “soft terrorism”
There are “soft terrorist targets” which are easily accessible and relatively unprotected making them vulnerable to terrorist attack. How about “soft terrorists?”
The Western legacy media and their ilk that traffic in the demonization of Ethiopia are nothing but a gaggle of “soft terrorist”. Terrorism is a weapon of warfare; indeed it is technically called “asymmetric warfare”. There are armed terrorist warfare and psychological terrorist warfare.
While the terrorism of everyday life is marked by brutality and violence, the “soft terrorism” of the Western legacy media on Ethiopia aims to assault the psyche of the Ethiopian people and government by a relentless campaign of fake news, hyped lies, damned lies and disinformation.
The Western media believe they can exploit ethnic and sectarian vulnerabilities in Ethiopia to influence, and indeed, determine outcomes.
Their reports on Ethiopia are intended not to inform or help alleviate suffering but spread fear and confusion and reinforce prejudices so that conflict and strife spreads throughout the land. They prey on ethnic and sectarian divisions in Ethiopia to generate emotional responses that could result in violence and instability.
The psychological terrorism of the Western legacy media on Ethiopia aims to achieve three objectives:
1) Negatively influence Western public opinion about Ethiopia, particularly policy makers so that they can take punitive action;
2) Psychologically terrorize the elites in Ethiopia (who in turn will terrorize the masses) by provoking fear, anxiety, uncertainty; and
3) Erode public support for the government of PM Abiy Ahmed and force regime change in Ethiopia.
To this end, the Western legacy media systematically spread disinformation to create fear, loathing, dread, anxiety and panic in the civilian population.
Through a campaign of disinformation, they aim to arouse hopelessness and despair among Ethiopians. They aim to convince Ethiopians only the WHITE KNIGHT ON A WHITE HORSE can save them!
The legacy media stories about “ethnic cleansing”, “human rights abuses”, etc. are not motivated by genuine concern for the welfare of Ethiopians.
The bleeding-heart liberal editors and reporters of the legacy media believe just as Donald Trump does Ethiopia and the rest of Africa are nothing but “s**t hole” countries. Of course, the dishonest S.O.B.’s do not have the guts to admit it publicly!
They write about “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide” not out of genuine concern for the suffering of Ethiopians but to grab the attention of the reader with exaggerated claims so they can feed them toxic political information about Ethiopia.
The legacy media, of course, coordinates closely with the powers that be in their countries. Not only that, but they also believe they are an unofficial arm of U.S. foreign policy and enforcers of U.S. hegemony.
They believe African countries are still Western colonies to be managed by remote control from the U.S. Congress, the World Bank, etc. That is why they feel comfortable barking out orders and commands to the Ethiopian Government and demanding the U.S. Government take punitive action.
That is amply evident in the fact that the New York Times was able to “obtain an internal State Department report” unavailable to any other news organization even after publication. Fake news is a powerful tool of psychological terrorist warfare because it aims to break the will and determination of the target country through propaganda and disinformation.
The Western legacy media have long labored under the assumption that they have the power to change political events in non-Western societies because they are “powerful”, “respected” and control elite public opinion in their countries. They believe if they are sympathetic to one group or another, their support tips the scale.
In their Ethiopia reporting, they pretend to be on the side of the underdog and give voice to the voiceless. In their messianic zeal, they make little effort to verify their stories on Ethiopia.
Their stories stand out for lack verification and leave out critical elements of context such as the fact that the TPLF set the whole thing in motion by attacking the Northern Command of the Ethiopian Defense Force.
Indeed, they have openly sided with the TPLF which not only started the war by attacking and massacring and maiming thousands of federal troops in the Northern command but is also singularly responsible for the misery that befell Tigray. Indeed, they have become the spin-meisters for the registered terrorist group TPLF.
Instead of verification, they do information filtering and selective reporting. In other words, they invent facts (fake news) by making attributions to anonymous sources. They use a much lower standard of verification on Ethiopia reporting than what they would use for their regular publications.
As Prof. Jon Abbink summarized; many leading Western media and news websites focused on the aftermath and the effects of the fighting in Tigray Region and its population, easily shifting sympathy towards the perceived ‘underdog’ (TPLF). This was followed by hastily written statements by foreign policy makers in EU, USA and UN circles, leading to an emerging policy narrative whereby essential details of the context, the nature of the adversaries, the reasons of the conflict were sidelined.
These Atlantic community spokespersons shifted to ‘blaming’ the federal Ethiopian government and ‘demanding’ all kinds of measures from it. Notable was the international community clamouring for ‘unlimited and full access’ for humanitarian aid to ‘prevent famine’ and demand a halt to all hostilities. But meanwhile it did not deliver much aid itself and did as if making it conditional on the federal government following their orders.
Part of the international media, several academic associates and researchers who saw access to their research sites blocked, and diverse TPLF associates in various international organizations continued to fuel the flames of this approach, next to the ‘digital activism’ and the production of fake news reports by pro-TPLF persons in Ethiopia and especially in the Tigrayan ‘diaspora’ in the West.
The Ethiopian Herald April 25/2021
