Looking at it again...

Both the police and Gordon Brown are rightly coming in for criticism over claims two weeks ago about a big terror plot, with the arrest of 12 "suspects". On Comment is Free, Ewan Crawford invites the media to consider their role:

We know from previous incidents that initial police statements, either on or off the record, do not always stand up to scrutiny once the full facts are known. The big fear among journalists seems to be missing out on information that will be published or broadcast elsewhere – but is that reasonable editorial decision-making?

The BBC's security correspondent, Gordon Corera, said today that in relation to the police, lessons needed to be learned in terms of "public presentation". Surely large sections of the media should also be questioning their role in this presentation.

From senior politicians in this government – of all governments – we should expect much greater circumspection when drawing conclusions from intelligence about alleged terrorist activities. We all know the UK went to war in Iraq on the basis of flawed intelligence but once again a British prime minister has been stating as fact the existence of a plot, which we were told was based only on intelligence gathering.

And now the bad news

The mainstream press don't seem to want to report the aid convoy that George Galloway and others are taking to Gaza - unless it's bad news.

Today the Times reports that the convoy was stoned in Egypt as it waits to get into Gaza. The story refers back to an earlier one from 15 February which claim that the three members of a northern contingent of the convoy were terror suspects, seeking to leave the country "under the cover" of the convoy.

As far as I can see, that was the last time the convoy made the paper. And what a load of bollocks it was:

The men had been under surveillance for some time as part of what police described as “an ongoing intelligence-led operation”. Although details of the surveillance remain unclear, one source said the men were believed to be planning a terrorist operation abroad.

For a start, how does a convoy provide "cover" to leave the country? You either have the right travel documents or you don't. And why to the police, who have had the men under surveillance, decide to reveal this to a national newspaper? Were the men arrested just in case they might be up to no good abroad? Has it stopped them going abroad in future?

Under siege?

Media Workers Against the War are holding their annual conference Under Siege on 15 November at the London School of Economics.

The premise is that:

The "war on terror" continues to have an intensely damaging effect on the mainstream British media – and in turn on British politics.

The conference links the reporting of western-led wars with the media's treatment of muslims in Britain. I'm not sure I buy the connection but that old lefty Peter Oborne will talk about the latter point and what he has to say is very important and very welcome.

Astonishing

There has been a trial. Some men were convicted of terrorist offences. They and others were not convicted of other offences as the jury could not reach a verdict. According to the BBC

Counter-terrorism officials were "dismayed" by the verdicts in the trial linking eight men to a transatlantic bomb plot, the BBC has learnt.

The BBC's Frank Gardner said there had been "astonishment" in Whitehall as the evidence was considered to be strong.

The BBC's Frank Gardner is fast developing a career as the mouthpiece of the security services. The state doesn't get the verdict is wants and - while a retrial remains a possibility - uses the state broadcasting service to moan about the outcome and talk up the evidence.

Or perhaps the state over-egged the whole airliner plot from the outset.

Purely co-incidental

Yesterday the Guardian had a great scoop, exposing a government plan to use media outlets, volunteers, contacts and web users in a propaganda campaign against al-Quaida.

Today the BBC has had to deny - slightly unconvincingly - that a Radio 4 programme fitted the government's propaganda script very nicely indeed. Any similarity between what the government wants the BBC to say and what it says is purely co-incidental:

the BBC was quick to deny that the editorial content of the programme was influenced in any way by the Whitehall report or that it had been fed stories.

The BBC fed stories? Never!

Terrorism 4 votes

The Guardian reports comments by Charlie Black, a senior adviser on John McCain's campaign, that a terrorist attack before the election would help McCain. It's pretty cynical and may backfire but, given the shameless way George Bush played the "war president" card in 2004, it's really a statement of the obvious.

When Black talked about a terrorist attack, he did not mean bombing Iran, something neo-con John Bolton says might happen after the election. Terrorism is what other people do.

Slightly sceptical

The Guardian reports with some scepticism that China is 'claiming' that terrorists tried to crash a jet. It puts the story in the context of a wider crackdown on separatism in the Xinjiang region. Amnesty International pointed to a lack of evidence to back up the claims.

Perhaps all unsubstantiated claims of terrorist activity should be treated as sceptically as this?

Egypt "fabricated terror group"

According to the BBC, the Egyptian government has been accused of inventing a terror group to justify its renewal of emergency terror laws.

Winning the (propaganda) war on terror

The BBC reports that 62% of people believe that Britain is under greater threat of violent attack thatn at any time since the second world war. So someone must be doing something right.

But you can't find this story from the Independent on the Beeb. It's about a former British resident being tortured at Guantanamo Bay.