The Fanonite
The Fanonite was set up in response to BBC‘s skewed coverage of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in summer 2006. BBC‘s partisan coverage of the Middle East has been amply documented by the Glasgow University Media Group and Spinwatch, two research units with which I have had an association. Nevertheless, it came as a surprise that after the GUMG study, Bad News From Israel, and BBC’s own independent review — which found its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict “incomplete” and “misleading” — it should put its credibility on the line to serve as a surrogate of the Israeli ministry of information. The rest of the mainstream news media wasn’t faring any better. Letters of complaints to the editors were bearing little result, and one publication actually responded by allowing the subject of my complaint to smear me in the next issue. It was then that I decided to keep all such correspondence public and make my criticisms available to all who are skeptical of the media’s sins of commission and omission.
Research Interests
History and politics of Pakistan and the Middle East (special focus on Iraq and Israel-Palestine); Human Rights; Political violence; Conflict resolution; Propaganda and Lobbying; Social Media; Globalization; Political Islam; Neoconservatism; and Social Network Analysis.