Not unexpected were the Kremlin’s laments for the loss of their most quotable American. Carlson’s shows enjoyed reruns on Russian TV. Why not, when he said: “…if there is any single American who deserves scorn and indeed blame for the invasion of Ukraine, it is Joe Biden”. Or: “Ideologues within the Biden administration…wanted a regime change war against Russia.” Carlson was popular among millions of US citizens and thus a useful tool for the Kremlin.
Tucker Carlson is only one of many Western journalists to boost the penetration and reach of the Kremlin’s narrative. NewsGuard, an accuracy and credibility rating service, has identified more than 350 news sites promoting Russia’s disinformation on the invasion of Ukraine.
Readers needn’t be reminded that both Russia and Ukraine with its allies are propagating their own selective version of reality. Each side needs to appear as a trusted source of information in order to justify enormous sacrifices in human life and the depletion/cost of military resources both in Ukraine and its supportive countries.
But comparisons between free and independent press in the West (not totally in Hungary among a few others, ed.) with the Russian media are ludicrous. The latter has no choice but to parrot the official line.
The Western press has been accused of trusting only NATO and Pentagon briefs. However, most of the hundreds of Western journalists are free to report what they perceive as the facts. Personal perceptions, not government-packaged missives make up the day-to-day stories.
In fact, the 350 pro-Kremlin websites mentioned above and rabidly anti-Ukrainian news outlets have no governmental restrictions in the West. We must be reminded that the “Pentagon Papers” some half a century ago and the “Afghan Papers” recently, were published in the Western media in order to counter any possibility of official government deception. Any possible Western government attempt to stifle this reportage failed.
This said, is the ‘mainstream stream’ in the West totally unbiased and objective? Of course not. In the West, it’s been the whipping boy of both the far right and left, and also the Kremlin. RT (Russia Today), which was shut down in many Western countries after the invasion, accuses Western media of creating an illusion of truth to the public.
RT points out that the Western media told an egregious lie when reporting on WMD in Iraq. In fact, the Weapons of Mass Destruction claims, made by US intelligence sources, were received by the Western press with much skepticism before, and derision after the ousting of Saddam Hussein.
WMD refers to three categories of weapons – nuclear, biological and chemical. Thus, intelligence professionals insist that they were 66% accurate, when the last two types were found in Iraq. The main street media called this assertion flippant.
In contrast, with the aim of bolstering their own legitimacy, the Russian government is known to wield violent suppression, coercion, censorship, distortions, obfuscations, etc. Western media correspondents have found it practically impossible to function in Moscow. Facebook and Instagram have been banned with Twitter usage made difficult and the Internet restricted.
Russia’s media exists in a top-down control environment with the suppression of all dissent.
Russia is enforcing a new ‘Fake News’ law which targets those who “distort the purpose, role and tasks of the Russian Armed Forces, as well as other units during special military and other operations”. Those found guilty could get 15 years.
Russia’s media exists in a top-down control environment with the suppression of all dissent. A disturbing example of this played out in Putin’s blatantly intimidating speech in which he described two types of Russians as pure patriots and impure, traitorous scum requiring a “natural and necessary self-purification of society”.
One may ask why accusations of Western media being controlled by a ‘power elite’ aren’t taken with equal alarm? Once again, it’s a time-worn mantra of both the far left and right. Its central postulate claims that the media serves the ambitions of a power elite, comprised of political and corporate interests. The media thereby presents only those issues favourable to their objectives and sidelines others. They’re able to do this, because journalists do not control what they see and hear. It’s supposedly the intertwined government/media owners who enjoy a mutual reliance.
(An aside: This writer, having spent most of his working life with Canada’s largest media concern, having attended hundreds of editorial planning sessions, having numerous discussions with British and US colleagues, totally refute the ‘power elite’ observation. A ‘free press’ may be a hackneyed term, but in a general sense it’s a legitimate description of the mainstream media.)
Disappearing, killing, threatening and attacking journalists is not a new phenomenon in war. For Russia it’s a tactic. It’s known that the state has been involved in issuing orders and targeting Russian journalists for reporting on the Ukrainian invasion. Forty-eight journalists and media workers have been murdered in Russia since Putin assumed power in 1990. This does not include the dozens who have gone missing. In addition, Russia has killed at least 15 in Ukraine since the start of the war.
The Kremlin has also restricted access to or banned Novaya Gazeta, Moscow Times, Radio Echo, BBC Russia, Radio Liberty Meduza, RT Rain, Sky News and many others. Most of the workers have fled the country.
The above is an observation of traditional, mainstream stream media. What if Twitter was our only news source? Would this provide accurate and reliable information? The media landscape currently is much more complex. This writer will provide commentary in an upcoming piece.
The free flow of information has not been blocked by the Western mainstream stream press as some insist. This free press demands accuracy in content and keeps governments accountable. It’s a forum for diverse opinion. We have a right to demand it adheres to that role. There’s no advantage in abusing that right.
