– Real Media to distribute 20,000 copies of spoof Daily Mail on 16 March to start a week of action leading to launch of alternative news website
– Occupy Rupert Murdoch to protest in front of the media empire’s HQ 23-29 March
– Campaigners want to draw attention to concentrated media ownership and bring to the fore how the corporate news twists issues such as inequality, NHS privatisation and war
[email protected](Real Media)
20,000 Daily Mail look-alikes, containing stories the paper owned by Viscount Rothermere Jonathon Harmsworth would never report, will be distributed in London and Manchester Monday 16 March. The action marks the start of a week of action against corporate control of the media.
Real Media, the group behind the stunt, will also plaster Manchester and London with posters that highlight themes ignored by much of UK’s media. “Billionaires control our ‘democracy’”, “Funding both sides of the war on terror: everyone loses except UK arms companies”, the mock headlines read.
Every day of the week 16-21 March the campaigners will highlight crucial issues ignored by the corporate-dominated press:
· Monday 16th: corporate influence undermining democracy
· Tuesday 17th: climate change
· Wednesday 18th: austerity increasing inequality to record levels
· Thursday 19th: privatisation of healthcare and other public services
· Friday 20th: the arms industry’s interests driving the war on terror
· Saturday 21st: human rights
Kam Sandhu, spokeswoman for Real Media, said: “These urgent issues should be at the centre of public debate, particularly in the lead up to the election, but they are sidelined, trivialised and ignored by biased media looking to deceive the public at large and protect the interests of a privileged few. This media wishes to see us sleepwalking into ecological and economic disaster whilst churning out vitriolic rhetoric attacking immigrants, benefit claimants and other groups. It protects the powerful and takes aim at the powerless.”
“Information and well-executed journalism is fundamental to democracy. The doctored version of the truth presented by much of the mass media shows a contempt for these values. There is another way, and the public are already looking to other sources of information and alternative media for more truthful, inclusive and representative news. Real Media is going to be a positive step towards the kind of media we all deserve.”
The week of action is to catalyse the growth of non-corporate media: in early April, the group will be launching a website that aggregates different independent news platforms.
Following Real Media’s week of action, the group Occupy Rupert Murdoch will be hosting a week of action by the new HQ of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire at London Bridge.
For more information see:
realmedia.press @RealMediaGB
www.occupythemedia.org.uk @occupy_murdoch
