Urgent Request For Support – Media Lens In Financial Crisis

10th September 2024 Alerts

Media Lens is a UK-based media watchdog. It is our response to the increasingly centralised, corporate, state-subservient nature of the mislabelled ‘mainstream’ media system (‘MSM’). We argue that the ‘MSM’, in fact, acts as a de facto propaganda system for the state, corporations (notably, the ‘defence industry’), the security services and other establishment interests. The costs incurred as a result of this propaganda – in terms of human and animal suffering, climate catastrophe and environmental degradation – are incalculable.

When Media Lens started in July 2001, we were a miniscule operation with zero funding, no office, doing what we could in our spare time. Media Lens consisted of just two writers and editors: David Cromwell and David Edwards, assisted by a tech-savvy webmaster: initially Phil Chandler, then Olly Maw and, more recently, Keyvan Minoukadeh.

Our objective has been to raise public awareness of the deep, systemic bias in the major news media; very much including those outlets we are supposed to regard as the most fair, balanced and authoritative: notably BBC News, the Guardian, the Observer and the Independent. We have been happy to also dismantle the propaganda profusions of the right-wing press.

We have tried as far as possible to root our work in rationality, hard fact, and reliable sources, while maintaining a deeply-held commitment to the principles of non-violence and compassion. In 2007, we were honoured to receive the Gandhi Foundation International Peace Award.

In the days before Facebook and X (formerly Twitter), we relied solely on our mailing list to reach readers. Initially, media alerts were just sent to a handful of friends and a few contacts with an interest in the media and human rights. The mailing list grew steadily, and we unexpectedly started receiving donations from the public. On a couple of occasions, we successfully applied for small grants provided by progressive funding organisations.

By 2003, public donations were sufficient to enable David Edwards to work full-time on Media Lens. David Cromwell joined him in 2010.

We have published hundreds of media alerts, dozens of more philosophical and spiritual ‘cogitations’, and three jointly written books via Pluto Press: ‘Guardians of Power’ (2006), ‘Newspeak’ (2009) and ‘Propaganda Blitz’ (2018). We have also written two solo books during our time with Media Lens: ‘Why Are We The Good Guys?’ (Cromwell, Zero Books, 2012) and the forthcoming, ‘A Short Book About Ego… And The Remedy Of Meditation’ (Edwards, Mantra Books, 2025). After over 23 years, Media Lens remains solely the work of the same two writers.

In 2016, on our 15^th anniversary, Noam Chomsky endorsed our work:

‘For 15 years, Media Lens has provided incisive critical analysis of media coverage of major events of current history while also offering a valuable corrective to distortion, misrepresentation, and crucial omissions.  A major contribution for those seeking a realistic understanding of what is happening in the world.’

John Pilger, who sadly died last December and whose invaluable website has just been relaunched, was a great friend and supporter of Media Lens from the very beginning. He praised our work thus:

‘At a time when journalism has become anti-journalism — the facade behind which powerful vested interests control much of our lives — Media Lens is a beacon, a whistleblower, unflagging in subverting lies, spin and hypocrisy, inspirational in its truth-telling.’

He added:

‘Not since Orwell and Chomsky has perceived reality been so skillfully revealed in the cause of truth.’

We are tremendously grateful to everyone who has supported us and anyone who continues to do so. Unfortunately, despite such valued contributions, Media Lens is now in the direst financial crisis of our existence. Funds are due to run out before the end of the year and the future looks highly uncertain.

A significant factor behind our predicament is the rise of social media. While we always had grave misgivings about using profit-maximising, global corporate platforms like Facebook and X, they did initially seem like a powerful way to reach a wider audience. Almost everybody else thought so, too, which is why almost all left-green progressives use them to send and receive information and views that challenge the ‘mainstream consensus’.

But it is no surprise that the social media ‘revolution’ has turned out to be a poisoned chalice. The reactionary corporate imposition of algorithms, shadow banning, downranking, untagging, debanking and other dissent-crushing mechanisms mean that most people who chose to follow us simply never see our posts, media alerts and cogitations. The situation has become so farcical, with posts reaching such a tiny handful of people, that it hardly seems worth our posting at all.

The public’s attention has been largely captured by corporate social media. While it might look for all the world that lively debate is taking place, progressives like us have been increasingly pushed out of the conversation. It is naturally difficult for readers to muster enthusiasm for supporting voices that are being drowned out by corporate-approved messages and who hardly appear to exist. 

Many people donate, or have donated, to us via regular PayPal subscriptions. However, currently a whole slew of these subscriptions has been ‘suspended’. This normally happens when your registered credit or debit card expires. You may not even be aware that you are no longer financially supporting us.

Please check if your PayPal subscription is still active. If not, and you wish to continue supporting us, please activate a new subscription with a new card. It is not possible to ‘reactivate’ an old subscription. Please visit our donate page to support us by credit/debit card or PayPal.

You can also support us via a standing order from a UK bank. Please contact us directly at editor@medialens.org for our bank details (which the bank has advised us we should not share online for security reasons).

We have never been comfortable issuing appeals for donations. This is especially true now, when there is an ongoing Israeli genocide of Palestinians, and a vital need to support the victims of that genocide. There are, of course, many deserving causes in the UK and abroad that also need support.

We are simply asking, if you are in a sufficiently comfortable financial position, to consider supporting our work into the future. Thank you.

DC & DE