Chris Mitchell, the former editor of The Australian, has accused the world’s media at large of wanting Iran to win the current war with the US and Israel.
Mitchell, who somehow reminds me of a bulldog, was out there this week, castigating journalists for believing any statement made Iranian officials. US President Donald Trump has claimed that Washington is negotiating with Iran, but a majority of the media has tended to believe what Iran has had to say.
Mitchell doesn’t like this. Essentially, a man who loves to claim he is a journalist is asking newspapers to take sides and barrack for one side, rather than report fairly on the ongoing stoush.
Ranted Mitchell: “The Nine papers in Australia, most commercial broadcasters and the ABC last week reported Iran’s denials that it was negotiating with Trump, based on statements from Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and the speaker of its parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf.
“The Iranians would say that. Several layers of the regime have been eliminated and it is unlikely anyone privately talking to the US via intermediaries would admit to it given what the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps might do to them.”
His entire column is taken up arguing that reports which tend to favour Iran are wrong and those that favour Israel and the US are more inclined to be correct. In true Murdochian style, he does not provide any evidence to buttress his claims.
“Analysis of the war should not gloss over miscalculations by the US and Israel,” he writes.
“Equally, the rush to doomsday pessimism undermines journalism’s credibility and ignores the plight of ordinary Iranians and the Sunni Gulf States.
“If Trump derangement syndrome rules in much of the coverage, outright hostility to Israel’s right to defend itself dominates reporting of its war aims in Lebanon, where Benjamin Netanyahu is determined to drive Iran’s Hezbollah proxy from positions south of the Litani River, perhaps even occupying southern Lebanon.”
The fact that Israel has invaded another sovereign country, Lebanon, is lost on Mitchell. In his world, Israel is just exercising its right to defend itself. He fails to notice that Israel first attacked Iran without any provocation and did the same to Lebanon, a country which was just minding its own business.
The ABC, a favourite target of The Australian, was not forgotten either. “The ABC, like Britain’s BBC, is always on the lookout for innocent Lebanese civilian victims but seems unable to find innocent Israelis affected by Hezbollah rockets across northern Israel,” Mitchell wrote.
“Remember, 60,000 Israelis had to leave their homes in the country’s north for almost two years before the November 27, 2024 truce.”
One is left wondering what would satisfy Mitchell. Banner headlines praising Trump and Netanyahu? Hagiography of the sort indulged in by the compliant American media? But then this is par for the course with Mitchell. I pointed out something similar in 2021 when the subject he was dealing with was electric vehicles. Looks like it is similar when it comes to war.