The half dozen stories, parroted by every outlet, are often led by an 'expose' of some member of the public - safely bereft of expensive lawyers able to defend them in a libel action. Asylum seekers, the homeless, people trying to defend their livelihoods - take your pick. The rest is little more than corporate, or government, PR dressed up as information.

Four corporations hold almost blanket control of Britain's media. In the South West of England, five corporations control 85 per cent of all titles, with the top three groups controlling 80 per cent of all weekly circulation. Since their acquisition of Bristol United Press in 1999, nearly all of Bristol's mainstream press, and a large percentage of commercial radio and cable television has been owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust newspaper group, Northcliffe Newspapers. This includes all of Bristol's daily papers (the Evening Post, Western Daily Press) and free weeklies (the Independent and Observer series) and the Venue listing magazine. Northcliffe also own Britain's largest commercial radio group GWR, as well as Eagle FM and varying stakes in a host of other so-called 'independent' radio stations. Not to mention Westcountry (cable) TV (20 per cent ownership), Reuters (31 per cent) and Teletext (40 per cent), plus ownership of the Gloucester Citizen and Echo, Exeter's Express and Echo, the Cornish Guardian, the Torquay Herald Express, the Western Evening News and The Western Morning Herald, and a host of other regional titles. The news reporting across this single board follows the company's Evening Standard (yup - that's their's too) reactionary style of reporting.


Following the 2000 Employment Relations Act which enabled workers to force union recognition on their bosses if supported by fifty per cent of a particular workforce Northcliffe sent every staff member a memo entitled 'Don't turn back the clock'. It said: 'The only [job] security any of us has is in the strength of the company, the shareholders support, our own ability and willingness to be flexible.' The threat was clear (and they even got it in before Blair did) follow the union path and forget about joining the pension schemes.'One owner, one policy, one voice, one opinion' says Barry White of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom. 'Greater concentration of ownership means less accountability and less diversity.'


On a global scale the picture is the same. In 15 years, ownership of global media has been reduced from fifty media corporations to six. In the United States, arms manufacturers General Electric and Westinghouse own NBC and CBS respectively. And you thought the war reporting was slanted here?


Enter Indymedia. No commission, no payment, no censorship (self or otherwise), no libel lawyers, no sponsors, advertisers or corporate backers to pacify. Media monopolies may have our city by the proverbial news-source, but now people in Bristol have an uncensored resource with which to share the stories that make the city tick. The press we've been given may be failing to address the concerns of Bristol's people, so now Bristol can address those concerns itself. After all you can't trust what you read in the papers can you?


Anyone, from any internet connected computer anywhere can publish stories, photos, audio and video clips, drawings, interviews, monologues, rants or other city related articles by going to the website. And anyone else can respond. The website uses an open publishing system which can be accessed and contributed by anybody. Bristol.indymedia.org's commitment to free speech means nothing can be deleted - only hidden. Posts that support racism, sexism, party politics will be hidden. (Though even hidden articles will be displayed on a page separate from the front page.)


'Spin doctors have a lot to answer for, and when papers' have productivity targets and journalists are expected to produce x amount of stories, it's easy for them to accept what's given to them by some wily PR person,',laments a far-too-forgiving Dave Toomer, president of the National Union of Journalists. 'Investigative journalism in the mainstream press has suffered.'


In essence, mainstream press investigation has been replaced by the illusion of investigation. Just as debate, has been replaced by the illusion of debate. The crowing that follows the irregular exposure of Enron style corruption, convinces us the press are on the case. But the goal posts are set in concrete, and no one steps outside. Political debate consists of two suited businessmen-come-MPs, arguing about the different techniques they would employ to take money off the poor and give it to the rich.


We are suitably impressed when Paxman says: 'Yes minister, that's all very well. But HOW are we going to maintain growth after this tax hike/cut or inflation rise/slash?'


The debate is never WHY are we going to maintain growth. Certain things are taken as read: the economy (ie the profits of big business - not the wages of nurses, or the price a small farmer can get for his crops) must be strong - consumption up (good), wages down (irrelevant), inflation down (good), social spending/public services slashed (irrelevant). The profits of big business and the right of big business to bear profit is as close to a fifth amendment as Britain will ever get. Though less crass than its gun toting American cousin, this mantra is no less steeped in blood and misery. And the media will defend it to the death. 'The question is always: 'How will this affect us as consumers?'' says investigative freelance journalist David Edwards. 'Never: 'How is this going to affect us as democratic citizens?' Newspapers are dependent on high level sources in the government and US administration. If you tread on their toes, they can cut off the supply of information.'


More than one journalist has found that asking difficult questions has led to their sources drying up. Many journalists have become excommunicated from certain national papers, because of their oppositional style of reporting. Many more just tow the line. Barry White (look if you're not going to take this seriously) of the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom points out: 'They treat it like any other industry. If you don't carry out management instructions, you're sacked.' The system of self censorship that results was described by Greg Palast in Index on Censorship as the 'curious custom of English journalists to kiss the whip that lashes them'.


Since 1949 successive Royal Commissions have raised concern that the press show 'truthfulness' (namely that they avoid excessive bias or suppression of relevant facts), 'diversity' (press, as a whole, should cover all points of view in the population) and avoid 'sensationalism' (undue attention to crime, scandal, entertainment and human interest). They fail on all accounts.


So how well informed are the British public? 'Better than they are in China,' half-jokes White. 'Not very well.' News tycoon Rupert Murdoch, when rumbled for publishing bogus Hitler diaries excused himself saying: 'After all, we are in the entertainment business' 'It's an attack on democracy,' says Toomer. 'If the bosses of these companies have vested interests in companies journalists would like to investigate. It doesn't happen.'


'Tony Blair's New Labour is, in many respects, a creation of the Murdoch press and the rest of the right wing media,' wrote John Pilger in his book Hidden Agendas, referring to how the Prime Minister has become an infrequent columnist of the Murdoch stable, and how the media boss flew Blair to his Australian Hayman Island resort to address the gathered noblemen of his NewsCorp.


The media companies will not publish what is in their interests to remain secret. The OECD managed to plot the Multilateral Agreement on Investment, a document that would render national laws useless against the movement of transnational trade, for years completely unmentioned in the press. It was not until activists published the document online that any significant opposition was established against the MAI. Even then, the press kept the lid on it, the opponents dismissed as the 'flat earth, black helicopter crowd'. The same crowd who would later rise to infamy in Seattle, Prague, Genoa and beyond.


Though only too willing to (bogusly) expose individuals, the media are less keen to upset advertisers. The mobile phone/radiation debate graces far fewer column inches than ad sales for handsets. The women's magazine, Ms, carried an article on toxic shock syndrome. A potentially fatal condition caused by tampons. A leading tampon company pulled its advertising. The magazine folded. Since September 11, at least a page of every edition of every paper has followed the 'war on terror', yet you would be hard pushed to find any significantly dissenting takes on the need for action (okay Robert Fisk in the Independent and a few letters here and there)


In 2001, Bristol's I-contact videonetwork were forced to withdraw a film on subvertising commissioned by Channel 4, as the company continually requested the removal of subverts aimed at their top advertisers.


The press, along with government and the business 'community' are involved in what Noam Chomsky calls the 'manufacture of consent'. If the people don't like what's being done in their name, they dress it up until they do. Hospitals are closed to 'save' the health service. Teachers are sacked to 'rescue' the education system. Chomsky quotes Walter Lippmann, a journalist friend of president Woodrow Wilson, who maintained a need for the 'intelligent minority' of 'responsible men' to control the decision making for 'the ignorant and meddlesome outsiders' who need to remain 'spectators'. Anyone daring to step out of their 'spectator' role is quickly made to feel abnormal. 'Who cares much about politics beyond a small elite of professional politicians,' wrote top Guardian commentator Madeline Bunting in May. 'When did you last have a row or even a brief conversation with anyone about politics.'


David Edwards points out a fitting analogy of the unification of state propoganda and press commentary, came at the height of the Balkan bombing campaign - revealed by Edward Herman and David Peterson in Degraded Capability: The Media and The Kosovo Crisis - when CNN's leading foreign correspondent Christiane Amanpour and US state department top PR officer James Rubin (now regularly cited US 'independent' commentator) were married. 'Only a fraction of one percent of bombs went astray', insisted Amanpour to her watching millions, as bombs crashed through 33 medical clinics and hospitals, 344 schools, a mosque in Djakovica, a Basilica in Nis, a church in Prokulpje, trains, tractors and power stations.'

If this is a free press. Give me silence.