Rupert Read , an academic and Green Party politician , has written that Media Lens tends to talk up the numbers of victims from western actions but minimise those of regimes in conflict with the west , such as those of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Slobodan Milošević . He has written that the editors use dubious source material on fatalities in the conflicts in Syria from Aisling Byrne and Robert Dreyfuss , which serves " tacitly to increase the credibility of Assad 's black propaganda " . David Edwards responded that Pilger , David Peterson and others , responded positively to their alerts on Syria and that " We have received literally one negative response – from Rupert Read " . The cartoonist and writer Martin Rowson in June 2012 , suggested in '' Tribune '' that the Media Lens editors indulge in " shilling for tyrants " , following an exchange with them on Twitter in which the editors accused him of depicting a bloodstained Bashar al-Assad after the Houla massacre , without having evidence of the Assad regime 's responsibility for the atrocity and for using only his " ' cartoonist 's hunch ' " as proof . They asked Rowson on Twitter : " Would you rely on a ' hunch ' in depicting Obama and Cameron with mouths smeared with the blood of massacred children ? " According to Rowson though , accusing them of advocating literalness in his work : " despite my repeated requests , they still wo n’t or ca n’t tell me why they do n’t also demand my evidence for alleging that Merkel Angela Merkel and Lagarde Christine Lagarde have really truly desecrated corpses "
Houla massacre
Houla massacre
Media Lens