Media Lens

Media Lens
Media Lens Home Page
Screenshot from Media Lens (22 March 2013)
Type of site
Media analysis
Available inEnglish
EditorDavid Cromwell and David Edwards
URLwww.medialens.org
RegistrationNone
Launched2001; 23 years ago (2001)[1]

Media Lens is a British media analysis website established in 2001 by David Cromwell and David Edwards.[1] Cromwell and Edwards are the site's editors and only regular contributors.[2][3] Their aim is to scrutinise and question the mainstream media's coverage of significant events and issues and to draw attention to what they consider "the systemic failure of the corporate media to report the world honestly and accurately".[4][5]

Media Lens is financed by donations from website visitors.[5] The editors issue regular "Media Alerts" concentrating on mainstream media outlets such as the BBC and Channel 4 News which are legally obliged to be impartial or on outlets such as The Guardian[6] and The Independent which are usually considered left-leaning.[7] The site's editors frequently draw attention to what they see as the limits within which the mainstream media operates,[8] and provide "a riveting exposé of the myth of liberal media based on a variety of empirical case studies", according to Graham Murdock and Michael Pickering.[9]

Media Lens is admired by John Pilger, who has called the website "remarkable" and described the writers as "the cyber guardians of honest journalism".[10] Other journalists, in particular Peter Oborne,[11] have also made positive comments about the group, although it has come into conflict with other journalists. The Observer's foreign editor Peter Beaumont asserted that the group ran a "campaign" against John Sloboda and the Iraq Body Count for underestimating the number of deaths in Iraq.[12] George Monbiot wrote that Media Lens was "belittling the acts of genocide" in their defence of Edward S. Herman, who had questioned the number of deaths in the Srebrenica massacre.[13]

  1. ^ a b Clarke, Joe Sandler (6 November 2013). "Interview: David Cromwell and David Edwards - Media Lens". HuffPost. Retrieved 24 January 2018.
  2. ^ Jones, Owen (21 March 2016). "Obsessive Angry Detractors". Medium. Retrieved 21 February 2017. Media Lens, or rather two men called Dave who have appointed themselves watchdogs of the corporate media
  3. ^ "Who Are We?". Media Lens. 22 December 2016. Retrieved 10 September 2017.
  4. ^ "What is Our Objective?". Media Lens. Retrieved 14 December 2012.
  5. ^ a b Boyd-Barrett, Oliver (2010). "Newspeak in the 21st Century - Book Review". Media, War & Conflict. 3: 371. doi:10.1177/17506352100030030903. S2CID 147200571.
  6. ^ Wilby, Peter (30 January 2006). "On the margins". New Statesman.
  7. ^ Clark, Neil (15 May 2013). "The Left vs. the Liberal Media". The American Conservative.
  8. ^ Murphy, Elliot (6 May 2014). "There Will Be Tweets: Media Lens and the Death of Friendship". Z net. Retrieved 22 January 2016.
  9. ^ Murdock, Graham; Pickering, Michael (2008). Narrating Media History. Routledge. p. 169. ISBN 978-0415419154.
  10. ^ Pilger, John (29 November 2007). "The cyber guardians of honest journalism". New Statesman.
  11. ^ Oborne, Peter (2008) [2007]. The Triumph of the Political Class. Pocket Books. p. 272. ISBN 978-1416526650.
  12. ^ Beaumont, Peter (18 June 2006). "Microscope on Medialens". The Observer. See also Edwards, David; Cromwell, David (28 June 2006). "A Superb Demolition – Part 3 – Squeaky Spleen – Beaumont Strikes Back". Media Lens.
  13. ^ Monbiot, George (13 June 2011). "Left and libertarian right cohabit in the weird world of the genocide belittlers". The Guardian.