In Dreams…

  Young Knives New LP & UK Tour

  Elliot Minor Back In 2025

  Emily Barker LP & 2025 UK Tour

  Political Inhumanity

  Record Reviews

  Ani DiFranco 2025 Tour

  “Let Right Be Done”

  Farah Nabulsi Filmmaker

  G3 Reunion Live LP in ‘25

  IS THIS IT?

  My Favourite Records

  Larkin Poe Live in ‘25 + New LP

  Laura Marling New Record Out Now

  Rise Against 2025 Tour

  Rag ‘N’ Bone Man New LP & Tour

  The Middle East Crisis

  Ezra Collective New LP & Tour

  Leif Vollebekk New, Great LP

  Stick In The Wheel Returns

  SO, WHAT’S CHANGED?

  “They’re American Planes…”

  Olive Tree By Olive Tree…

  Ani Di Franco In Conversation

  Gemma Hayes Returns

  Remembering Thomas Hoepker

  Joe Bonamassa Live in 25

  On Misinformation

  Joan As Police Woman LP

  Politics - Who To Trust?

  The 76 Year Catastrophe

  Black Country Communion Back!

  Within Temptation Live Recordings

  Beth Gibbons New Solo LP

  Politics Is Failing

  Ani DiFranco New LP

  Pink Floyd’s Animals Remix

  SHIT FLOATS

  Seasick Steve Alive & Kickin’

  Glen Hansard New LP/23-24 Tour

  Joe Bonamassa Live LP & Tour

  “My country, right or wrong…”

  Heart Announce Live Tours

  Anais Mitchell HADESTOWN Returns

  The Photographer’s Selection

  Gaza Nightmare Continues

  Download 2024 First Acts

  Princess Goes COME OF AGE

  Springsteen 2024 Tour

  Philip ‘Seth’ Campbell Live

  This Troubled World

  Dark Side Of The Moon 50th

  The More I Hear The Less I Know

  Great Albums: Fresh New Life

  Hozier’s New Album

  Nicole Atkins Jim Sclavunos Live

  SBT (Sarabeth Tucek) Live

  I’m As Angry As Hell!

  Magnum - A Year in Ukraine

  Alessandra Sanguinetti Interview

  The Damn Truth Live

  Newton Faulkner Live

  The Handsome Family Live

  The State We’re In Pt II

  Eric Gales Live

  The Cavalry Never Arrived

  Chvrches Live

  Andrés Peña Flamenco Star Live

  Paul Draper Live

  A Fly-Free Zone

  Liverpool Jazz Festival

  The Charlatans Live

  UK Democracy Threatened

  Rag’n'Bone Man Live

  Sea Girls Live

  Martha Wainwright Live

  Politics is Failing

  Lucy Kruger TRANSIT TAPES

  Joe Bonamassa Live!

  Rodrigo Y Gabriela Interview

  Amy Macdonald Rescheduled Gig

  Music & Brexit

  Happy New Year?

  On Barbra Streisand

  The State We’re In…

  Welcome Back! But To What?

  What Have We Done?

  A RISK TOO FAR

  Photojournalism Hero

  Samantha Fish Live

  Gill Landry Live in Chester

  Noah Gundersen Live

  David Gilmour’s Interview

  Snow Patrol Live in Manchester

  New Model Army Live

  Shakespears Sister Live

  Lamb Live in Manchester

  The Struts Live

  Sting & Shaggy Live

  Ana Popovic, Lynne Jackaman Live

  David Gray Live in Liverpool

  The Slow Readers Club Live

  Karine Polwart Trio Live

  Benjamin Folke Thomas Live

  Chilly Gonzales Live

  Gomez Live in Manchester

  John Lennon Interview

  Ray LaMontagne Live

  Satriani’s G3 Live

  Jim White Live in Manchester

  Tori Amos Live

  Bush & RavenEye Live

  Laura Marling Live

  Jimmy Eat World Live

  Roger Waters on Amused To Death


On Misinformation

mis-8

Black Is White…

Putin and Netanyahu are playing to the same misinformation playbook. Israeli press officers have quoted the following: “The Israeli army is the most moral army in the world.” In the past 8 months over 37,000 Palestinians have been killed including over 15,000 children, 49,000 injured (many seriously) and almost 70% of Palestinians homes, hospital, mosques and schools destroyed. In addition, on the West Bank over 500 residents have been killed including some waving a white flag and children throwing stones. With the government’s control of the international media and killing of 150 Gaza-based journalists, the true messages are not being transmitted to the people that matter. How many images have you seen of Israel during the conflict? And most recently Al Jazeera have been closed down in Israel. Israeli troops stand idly by watching Palestinian homes and land taken by Israeli illegal settlers with Palestinians murdered and injured by settlers. Russia’s Putin claims that he attacked the Ukraine as it posed a threat to his country and was governed by ‘nazis’. He has effectively closed down protest in Russia, jailed and murdered dissidents and negated any political opposition. He has also totally controlled the media so Russians know little of casualties (estimated to be over 500,000 Russian troops) and the illegal destruction of domestic dwellings and vital infrastructure.

mis-31

Conspiracy Theories

I could hardly believe people claiming that the Covid pandemic was false and a plot hatched by government for some unknown reason. Similarly, misinformation on vaccines, believed by many, has led to deaths and illness amongst many around the world, in addition to the increasing spread of the virus.

mis-6

The Curse of Social Media

The Internet for me has proved invaluable in finding and securing (often) accurate information. But I do not partake in any social media activity because it is commonly used to misinform and harm. What’s more worrying is its use by the young generation who are increasingly being supplied with Smart phones by parents, without adequate controls. Governments, political parties and politicians are now basing their communication and campaigning on social media channels without any means of establishing whether information provided is true or false. Increasingly, channels are being used to peddle misinformation with the supreme example being that of Trump in the USA who has built a powerful (and possibly election-winning) following based on the most transparent lies.

mis-21

The Climate Crisis

Conflict, it is sometimes said, makes good copy, and when a lonely scientist took up the right-wing charge that acid rain might not be a serious problem [which was proven to be], the press were quick to pick up his claims.

Misinformation about climate change started back in the 70s when scientists started to establish that it had started. This continued into the 80s and beyond. The primary doubters were appointed as influential advisers to right-wing governments in the USA at that time:

“He (the scientific government advisor) insisted that human activities were too small to have any impact on the atmosphere, which he called ‘the most robust and dynamic element in the environment’. He dismissed the idea of ozone destruction as a ’scare story’ based on little scientific evidence. Even in Los Angeles, struggling with a tremendous smog problem that created widespread respiratory distress during the summer, he insisted that humans were incapable of harming the environment.”

mis-20

If corrective action had been taken 40 years ago (which even Margaret Thatcher acknowledged in the early 80s), we would not now be in the midst of a climate crisis. That’s how serious misinformation can be.

“And then there are probably those with hidden agendas of their own-not just to save the environment but to change our economic system,” he (chief scientific scientist for the U.S. Department of Transportation) wrote in 1989. “Some of these ‘coercive utopians’ are socialists, some are technology-hating luddites; most have a great desire to regulate-on as large a scale as possible.”In a 1991 piece on Global Warming, he reiterated the theme that environmental threats-in this case Global Warming-were being manufactured by environmentalists based on a ‘hidden political agenda’ against business, the free markets, and the capitalist system.

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