The Real Hull

The media have paid a lot of attention to the Jean Charles de Menezes case recently. We seen them repeat claims that Metropolitan Police lied and mislead the public.

Theyconveniently ignore the fact the media was full of misinformation it self. The claims commonly attributed to the Met originally came from the media themselves not the Met.

These eye witness accounts were reported by the BBC not the met.

• "I saw an Asian guy. He ran on to the train, he was hotly pursued by three plain clothes officers, one of them was wielding a black handgun." [bbc.co.uk]
• he just sprinted away as soon as the doors opened. [bbc.co.uk]
  
• and "He [the suspect] had a baseball cap on and quite a sort of thickish coat - it was a coat you'd wear in winter, sort of like a padded jacket." [bbc.co.uk]

Those witness statements are now heavily disputed by the very people that sensationalised them in the first place, the media! The very same media that is currently trying to stir up a frenzy of recrimination against the Met.

Their intent seems to be to incite hatred of the Police, or just maybe they are trying to cover up their own fabrications and gross distorts of the truth.

Traditionally journalists are the arbiters of what can be said and what cannot said. Journalists had more power to censor opponents than politicians. Journalists invented the term 'Politically Correct'. Journalists could dismiss those that disagree as green inked cranks. Journalists steadily distanced themselves from opposing views and came to believe they are omnipotent.

Journalists are human they not infallible, they make human mistakes, they suffer from human fallibility. In the past there there was no way to effectively challenge what journalists reported, what journalists believed.

The Internet and Blogs in particular have changed that situation, it has given the ordinary people a voice, a voice that can be heard from one side of the world to the other.

Welcome to the Information age.