Huffington Post renews smear campaign against UK Professor Piers Robinson
By
Julie Hyland
10 December 2018
A smear campaign against Professor Piers Robinson, chair in politics, society and political journalism at the University of Sheffield, has been renewed with an article in the Huffington Post.
Robinson is one of a small number of academics and independent journalists to challenge the official narrative around the “war on terror,” especially regarding the civil war in Syria. Along with Professor Tim Hayward (environmental political theory, University of Edinburgh) he is a founding member of the Working Group on Syria, Propaganda and Media (WGSPM). Established to facilitate “rigorous academic analysis” of media reportage of the Syrian war, it investigates the role of propaganda more broadly in shaping public perception of conflicts and its connection to western geo-strategic objectives.
Earlier this year, on April 14, Robinson, Hayward and others were viciously attacked by Rupert Murdoch’s Times newspaper as “Apologists for Assad working in British universities,” and as “Assad’s Useful Idiots.” This was in response to the WGSPM shining the spotlight on the role of the western-backed Syrian White Helmets and its leading role in allegations that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was using chemical weapons in the conflict. Just hours before the smear appeared, Britain and France had joined the US in launching air strikes on Syria—citing one such alleged chemical attack in Douma on April 7.
Around the same time, the Huffington Post ran a series of smears targeting Robinson, Hayward and investigative journalist Vanessa Beeley—all penned by senior editor Chris York. In May, York again smeared the three as “pro-Assad activists” in an article on…