The Islamic Party Guide to Media Control

There is no denying that the pen is often mightier than the sword, and that before and alongside every shooting war there is a propaganda war being waged. In the battle for the hearts and minds of people the media play a pivotal role, and it is legitimate therefore to where there loyalties lie, with their readers or with their financers. Media publication today is big business and stretches across national borders. There is no such thing as impartiality. As aptly put by John Swinton during his retirement speech from the New York Times in the 1930s, when asked to respond to a toast to an independent press: ”What folly is this toasting an independent press. Everyone present here tonight knows there is no such thing as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who would dare to write his honest opinions, and if he did, you know before hand they would never appear in print. I am paid 250 dollars a week to keep my honest opinions out of the paper I am connected with. Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar work. The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth, to lie outright, to pervert, to vilify, to fawn at the foot of Mammon, and sell himself, his country, and his race for his daily bread: We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are jumping jacks they pull the strings, and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are the property of these men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
But the picture need not be doom and gloom. Might is not always right, and the more arrogant those who have usurped these power bases become in assuming that have total control, the further removed they become from reality. The internet has opened up new channels of information, for example, and has provided individuals and groups with source material to challenge the official view. Governments and media moguls alike will eventually have to face up to a stark choice: to listen to the public or to become increasingly isolated from them. Here, lobbying is the key, and to assist in the task this issue also contains advice and contact details to help you make your point.