How the main media play rogue media?

Many readers tend to assume that main media are responsible institutions run by responsible people, the editors, the journalists and reporters, to report news as factually and truthfully as they are as responsible people. By now, many readers must have learnt the truth, that many truths in the main media, particularly the western media, were anything but truths and many were outright lies. The main media has done the dishonourable thing, to discredit themselves by telling fabricated news, lies and half truths to mislead and to misinform to serve their agenda and political interests.

 

A very good example is the South China Sea dispute case. It was very obvious that the Arbitral Tribunal in The Hague was a private and commercial organisation set up specifically for willing parties that voluntarily elected to seek the Tribunal to mediate their disputes but not a compulsory organisation of the UN. The institutions of the UN are the ITLOS and the ICJ. But since the Arbitral Tribunal made its one sided decision on the South China Sea dispute, the main media, especially the western media or those that have vested interest to want to toe the line of the American/Japanese camp have consistently and continuously been reporting that The Hague was a UN backed institution. What does this UN backed institution mean? Is it a representative of the UN? Obviously not. The UN has its own legal institutions and the Tribunal in Hague is not one of them. So why and what is the purpose of harping this line of thought in the main media when it has no legal purpose?

 

The main objective is to create a false impression in the minds of innocent readers that it is backed by the UN and thus authoritative and not abiding by its decision is violating international law or not respecting the UN. The truth is far from it. If it is so, the UN would have made official statements to demand that China respect the rulings of the Tribunal. The UN has taken an unusual silent stand on this issue, nothing to do with it. That speaks a lot about the legality of the Tribunal and its so called "UN backed'' status.

 

What is mischievous about the main media is how they glossed over the biased, unfair and unjust constitution of the Tribunal and the whole process. The main flaw is that it is an arbitration court of choice by the parties in disputes and must be neutral to both parties, agreed by both parties, before it would be accepted to arbitrate a dispute.

 

In the South China Sea dispute, China did not agree to the Tribunal as the arbitrator or mediator. This alone would rule out its role as a court of choice.  The second important point is that both parties must choose and approve the constitution of the court, ie, appointing the judges that they have confidence to be fair and just. In this case, the judges were appointed by a Japanese unilaterally without the consent of the other party. And it was clear that the process of picking the judges was to ensure that the judges would rule in favour of the camp appointing them. And the judges were also paid by one side of the camp in the dispute.

 

How can a court constituted in such a contrived manner be fair and fit to arbitrate between two parties of which one is unwilling? The main media chose not to expose this fraud and played on as if nothing was wrong with the whole process and the appointment of the judges by one party and paid by one party. This totally exposed the evil scheme of the main media and the parties behind them to mislead its readers to believe in a scam. This is an insult to the intelligence of the readers and an injustice committed by the main media, a very shameful act for an institution that is built on the foundation of trust and honour.

 

The main media has lost all its credibility, integrity, trust and honour in the shameful way they conduct themselves in reporting distorted and one sided truth to mislead its readers. It is despicable for the main media to think it can continue to tell lies and half truths to its readers and to be able to get away with it. They could if the readers are unthinking and chose not to question the half truths in the main media. Anyone that cannot see injustice, unfairness, and fraud and go about shouting that it is right, just and fair got to have his head reexamined.

 

The main media have not stopped its untruthful reporting and are still reporting the rulings of the Tribunal as legally binding and backed by the UN despite the unfair constitution of members of the court. When the main media chose to report a kangaroo court as an honourable and fair court, it subjects the integrity and credibility of the main media to question and public scrutiny..