I have long – well above ten years – been a supporter of Craig Murray’s doughty reporting and a contributor to his comment section. Indeed I re-published three of his recent articles regarding the extradition trial of Julian Assange on this blog. Today he has written a blog-piece about his inability to renew his membership of the NUJ and he details how his application has been seen and opposed by certain other NUJ members while nobody at NUJ headquarters will tell him who his accusers are. He calls for fellow-journalists to support him in defending journalists’ abilities to report what they believe to be right. The full blog-post is here.
However, whether he knows it or not, his own blog is cursed by moderators who have a fixed agenda to stifle debate, and there are few commenting there who have not felt the keen edge of their hatchets should they oppose certain issues endorsed by mainstream – like opposition to the NIST view on what brought down the twin towers, and more recently opposition to the mainstream clampdown on society over this blessed virus we are being controlled by.
One comment in response to today’s article says:
“So, Mr. Murray finds himself in a “Your comment is awaiting moderation” mode 🙂 And he’d like to know what the objection says …
Now many [of] your readers also want to know that, Mr. Murray. Hopefully you will keep us informed.”
The author of this comment really does have a point. I know of several who used to add contributions – some of whom have been stopped altogether from commenting – including me. I would have responded to the comment itself rather than write this item were I able. I suspect it is just one moderator but how would anyone outside Craig’s coterie of mods know? Does he know himself? I messaged him about this and he said he would take a look.
My recent personal journey began with a fairly innocuous comment on 3 March. After that for a while I was able to put my case to the moderator(s) whenever they removed comments but they put a stop to that and blocked me from commenting (except on sidelined threads that nobody reads). I mentioned in an open comment that I was not allowed to comment on a thread about profiting from Coronavirus which went into moderation. The comment was made 17 May and a moderator responded.
“Mod: Not quite true, John. You’re welcome to tell the blog what’s on your mind.
You might also like to comment at the Lifeboat News, which is run by a practising medic who is currently recovering from CoVid-19.”
It was quite true that I could not comment on that thread. After about three weeks I was allowed to comment again on the main thread.
On 11 July I got a message:
“MOD: Kindly DESIST from pushing your Covid-19 conspiracy nonsense “
Since that time I have not been able to comment at all, not even on the sidelined threads that nobody reads, threads created by those who themselves comment.
I cannot think that Craig Murray is aware of what is going on. In his latest blog post he writes:
“But a National Union of Journalists which excludes writers for their opinions is a contradiction.”
And:
“It should not need saying, but strangely it does, that journalists whose political opinions are very different to my own ought still to support my right to be a member of the union. It exists to defend journalists, not to exclude them.”
Well, yes, I do support that right to free-speech, but I’m not seeing it from his moderators. While Craig is sorry to have felt the need to go public regarding his application to renew his membership of the NUJ, I can empathise because now, on his site, I have joined a growing number of former contributors, who are no longer able to comment. Does he know what his moderators are up to, or have they got a free will to do as they please?
All the Goss 