To what end? They were mercenary group operating under Moscow’s auspices and Belarus is friendly and already being used as a staging post. If they wanted them there they’d just tell them to go there. This makes them look weak and drew troops out of Ukraine while they’re actively trying to invade it.
Intel from sources within the Bellarus government suggests that they need at least all of the Wagner personel to invade your mothers butt. Poland as a staging area is convenient.
Washington Post is an american propaganda outlet when it comes to foreign policy articles. You might as well be linking VOA or RT.
That whole mutiny is fishy AF. There were rumours Prigozhin was betrayed by his deputy and informed the Kremlin. The CIA said they knew a week in advance. There was only a minor skirmish between a jet and a convoy on the way to Moscow where 12 soldiers died.
I don’t understand what happened there or how the guy who tried to overthrow the government is still walking free. I’ve never heard of this in history before. The whole thing smells.
This will sound catty, but it's not intended as such: do you have any news outlets you view as pretty close to reasonable/down-the-middle (if that's even possible)? I don't disagree about WaPo, I'm just curious what others read.
No not really unfortunately, I think every media outlet is biased. Le Monde Diplomatique is my favourite media outlet and I still think it’s biased. I’m critical of all media when I read it and I think that’s the only way to be in the age of disinformation. It’s really funny to me that people rely on websites to tell them if media outlet is biased or unbiased because it’s apparent that those sites themselves are biased.
IMO It’s better to read theories, different takes on history, and then approach new news under different mental frameworks when trying to assess the reality of situations. But generally a political economic framework (ie power structures) is how I approach news articles for international events.
It’s really funny to me that people rely on websites to tell them if media outlet is biased or unbiased because it’s apparent that those sites themselves are biased.
Are they, though? They can’t all be biased and they can’t all be lying at the same time, especially when they provide a transparent analysis of their findings that you can click on. And even then, you don’t just blindly trust what a remotely credible website says because they could be mistaken, or things may have changed. Nobody’s promoting that you blindly trust a website, but we know that the website has built a reputation through their verifiable work until proven otherwise. And even then, an inkling of your own criteria and discretion is always adviced which should go without saying.
I think it’s weird to brand anything and everything as state-owned or irreparably biased to the point of not being able to trust anything or anyone. It’s exactly the other side of the coin to the post-truth world you sneered at. We see with the alt medicine movement all the time. They trash postigious institutions out of ignorance and then mislead those who don’t know which side is up. What you’re saying could be just as dangerous.
That said, I also find it deeply cynical that pretending that the golden hammer to all this is an abstract personal “political economic framework” because a lot of us do work hard to rein in order and truth. For this I point to the crowd source that has built Wikipedia, the open source community, the so-called skeptic movement, and so many others that work in cooperation all the time for the good of humanity. Why is news and politics the exception? Good will is out there and it does exist.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, don’t let any fool out there tell you that the only ground you can step on is the one you built for yourself. If you don’t trust a source, so be it, but be specific why instead of trashing everything altogether indiscriminately.
To me, the only ground you step on is the one you build yourself is the only way to read the news. Maybe it’s extra work and it’s cynical but I’ll read an article about something, say a riot in Haiti. Then a couple months later I’ll read that it wasn’t actually a riot, but it was a peaceful protest and mercenaries employed by the government started shooting at people to break it up. The media reported it as a riot and never followed up that it was a peaceful protest. Turns out the President of Haiti is allied with the west for exploitation of labour and resources of that country. So now most people think that Haiti is just disorganized and needs strong western leadership, meanwhile the opposition is being repressed and the media is supporting the western narrative by not following up on the “riot”. That example is what I mean about not trusting anything I read until I’ve read different takes on a situation and considering my own skepticism. But it’s a fair point that not all state owned media is bad, but I would just never trust a state owned media for any foreign/international issue for not having a slant in favour of the reporting state.
I’m not exactly with the other guy, but it’s extremely important to realize that ALL sources are biased. The Washington post and the New York Times both function as propaganda. They often serve as the mouthpiece of the United States Department of State or Defense, and are happy to cultivate public support for military conflicts that are in the interest of the American ruling class.
This is well documented in the book Manufacturing Consent by Noam Chomsky. You can also listen to the podcast Citations Needed to gain a better understanding about how this works in the modern day.
An example you may be readily familiar with is the Iraq War, in which US government officials repeatedly lied to the public and started a meaningless war, without any real journalistic pushback. This lead to an atrocity affecting millions.
I read the CBC for international news and that has served me pretty well. Canada doesn’t really have a strong international position to introduce bias in (other than being a Western country and all the biases inherent in that). In cases where Canada does have a stake (typically regarding trade with the US/China), I read something from Reuters/AP/Bloomberg because wire services tend to be less biased in general. Alternatively, BBC is decent for news that don’t relate to ex-colonies. For a non-Western perspective, Al Jazeera is pretty alright. For a US-perspective, the NYT is alright too.
Every media outlet is biased. Typically, you get less bias as you stray further away from people who can directly or indirectly profit off of portraying an event in a certain way.
Wherever your privately-owned media source is domiciled will have a bias towards that country in international relations. For example, WaPo will have a strong bias towards the US in anything relating to a conflict between the US and Russia. So will the NYT. They will never report objectively on these events because reporting with bias will get more people to agree with their writing and (eventually) lead to greater profit. These companies are profit-oriented, so this is to be expected.
This is, in general, different for government-owned media such as VoA, RT, and CCTV. These entities are controlled by the government (and, in fact, often allow for direct executive control by the President). Naturally, we expect these to be far more biased, particularly for countries that are on polar opposites of the geopolitical spectrum such as the US and Russia. These entities will generally avoid criticizing the ruling party.
Al Jazeera would fall into the above category, except Qatar isn’t exactly relevant on the global stage… it doesn’t matter if Al Jazeera never criticizes the Emir because nobody cares about the Emir.
In contrast, government-funded public broadcasters such as CBC and BBC are typically not controlled by the government and operate as entirely independent entities without direct executive control. They do often criticize the government and the country and are not driven by profit. These broadcasters still have bias towards the country they are domiciled in, but to a lesser degree than privately-owned media as they lack the profit incentive. They also have less bias than government-owned media, as can be shown by their willingness to talk shit about the government.
However, they are still biased by the people who work there, leading to the CBC to have a slight Liberal-leaning bias while the BBC has a slight Conservative-leaning bias. Notably (and perhaps most amusingly), they are criticized as being biased from all parties, which may be the strongest argument for their impartiality.
All this is to say that all media is biased. However, you can avoid a decent amount of bias by selecting news entities that are not based in a country that would have a strong opinion either way. For example, while the US has many issues with Russia, Canada/the UK/Qatar do not (other than the basic Western/European/Middle Eastern biases). They are likely to have more moderate and fair reporting on the conflict which, while still biased, are likely to be closer to the facts.
Basically, I wouldn’t trust any US reporting on Russia/China, nor would I trust any Russian nor Chinese reporting on the US. The reporters are always going to pander to their target demographic. Instead, I would look for international reporting from countries with strong freedom of speech protections that are not as strongly implicated in the issue.
It is silly to compare Voice of America (an excellent journalistic institution with a great reputation), to the Washington Post (overall pretty good), to Russia Times (literal state propaganda). These are all very different sources and painting them with the same brush is just factually incorrect.
I apparently think about it more critically than you do. All journalism is not propaganda; some is good in fact, and we can determine which is good and which is bad. And I at least have sources, whereas you have, uh… brain damage I guess?
Also that’s a laughable and total misunderstanding of Voice of America’s history, mission, and goals. It has a reputation basically everywhere as being as close to objective and reliable reporting as you can get outside the BBC. I guess you’re just assuming it’s bad based on its name, which is not great on the critical thinking front!
I don’t disagree with you about VOA not being 100% propaganda, but I think the thing that RT and VOA do share in common is that they are state-funded. With that being said, WaPo (just like the BBC) isn’t state funded so it’s still a poor comparison.
The BBC is quasi-state funded; its relationship with the government is not entirely cut-and-dry, since it is funded through a government act (though not directly by the UK itself).
What matters is whether the state has controls that prevent it from interfering with its media sources, and whether the those sources have missions respecting journalistic integrity. For the VOA and BBC this is entirely true, both have charters specifically mandating them to do that and their respective governments have very clear “hands-off” laws and policies (or did until Trump, the story does get a little complicated for the VOA recently).
RT on the other hand just publishes Putin’s marketing emails.
I added productive statements already; I’m still literally the only one in this thread that’s cited anything. Are you afraid of researching your stances and backing them up? Because there is a troll here, and it is not me.
I’ve written papers where I just cited the articles that supported my arguments and didn’t do a full analysis of the literature. It’s a common practice in academia. Logic is better at convincing people.
Well, your logic has been spectacularly unconvincing. And my continual exhortations for you to offer a single shred of evidence in support of your position have gone ignored, so… honestly my conclusion is you indeed have no evidence and no logic. Why are you even still replying if you have nothing to offer other than conspiracy theories and bad takes?
I’m just entertained you’re spending more time arguing than me than searching out a counter to your own argument. I do my research on both sides of an issue before sharing my opinion. You’re just hiding behind a few links and foaming at the mouth that I haven’t shared any links. Maybe if I’m bored this weekend I’ll go through my KMS and find some citations for you since this isn’t the common sense I thought it was.
They aren’t hiding though, you just keep saying how you write papers and make all these claims then barely back them up. I’m considerably more convinced of their argument than yours.
I cannot conceive of how someone would find their ad-copy arguments convincing compared to the citations offered throughout the thread by others, myself included. Nonetheless, here’s another [PDF], and another but again I want to point out that their arguments are worthless, so the sources are beside the point. Do people really believe again that the US was broadcasting to “combat Soviet disinformation” in the Cold War rather than merely promote its own agenda, including its own disinformation, along with casting doubt on whatever inconvenient things were said by the Soviets, accurate or not? Have we fallen back into such a pathetic level of naivety about US institutions because Trump’s garishness made Democrats rally around the flag? Come on. It’s literally openly an arm of US diplomacy and publishes “editorials” that are point-for-point the State Department line on any given topic, which makes sense because it’s literally part of the State Department!
Ok, fine. Let’s operate under this assumption. Find me an article from the VoA that is critical of the current President.
I can find articles from the BBC that are extremely critical of Rishi Sunak (and Boris Johnson when he was still in office). I can find articles from the CBC that are extremely critical of Justin Trudeau (and old Stephen Harper). Any truly unbiased non-propaganda media outlet could surely find something to criticize about the ruling President, right?
Again, this isn’t about reporting facts that, by your opinion, look bad for Biden, but about political analysis (that VoA does do) that is negative for Biden.
For example, articles like “Justin Trudeau drops into another pitfall of his own making” or “Why won’t Rishi Sunak give Partygate verdict on Boris Johnson?”, which has classic quotes like “‘Cowardly cop-out’” and “A scandal in plain sight”
An independent journalist agency has no problems making such claims. VoA does.
I think this is goalpost shifting frankly. I can find more articles on VoA that are critical of Biden. The fact that they don’t include sensationalized titles doesn’t mean they’re less critical.
I concede it’s a stretched argument but WaPo is known for hiring ex-State Department/ex-CIA staff onto its editorial board. I’m too lazy to find source but say something that gets me riled up and I’ll find the source out of spite.
Suggesting I have Brain Damage and then doubling down on your argument that VOA is as good as another state-owned media outlet that promotes its own nation with a history of imperialism, colonialism, and a bunch of other atrocities. I’m not sure if you think you’re convincing me or anyone beyond your echo chamber of anything or just like to read your own words as reaffirmation of your own beliefs. Either way it’s useless.
lol you didn’t even bother clicking the link did you?
VOA is part of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), the government agency that oversees all non-military, U.S. international broadcasting. It is funded by the U.S. Congress.
I mean, ditto for not bothering to exposit your point earlier
But then:
The United States Agency for Global Media (USAGM) … is an independent agency of the United States government that broadcasts news and information. It is considered an arm of U.S. diplomacy.
In the United States government, independent agencies are agencies that exist outside the federal executive departments (those headed by a Cabinet secretary) and the Executive Office of the President. In a narrower sense, the term refers only to those independent agencies that, while considered part of the executive branch, have regulatory or rulemaking authority and are insulated from presidential control, usually because the president’s power to dismiss the agency head or a member is limited.
And while it’s true that Obama restructured the agency to operate under a single CEO appointed by him and Congress in 2008 rather than a bipartisan board, and was briefly caught serving some arguably innocuous political ads on Facebook to Americans violating the Smith-Mundt Act (brief pause to applaud the US for protecting its citizens), its reach and influence is largely limited to countries that have strict censorship laws.
I’ve yet to see something even remotely comparable to the egregious ethical violations that RT practices on the daily. Most of the times I’ve seen it mentioned online is by people using the big scary word propaganda to discredit whatever they publish. And when push comes to shove, all they have to show for it is “well, it’s government-funded” and act all surprised when their headlines are milder than they had imagined, or cry out that their content is sending subliminal messages to advance Western Ideals for Democracy because they didn’t like the wording. And to that I’d like to say, y’all have worse reporting coming from within the house from more than one outlet. This is a weird scapegoat to single out solely for its funding. Actually point out something it has done instead if we’re gonna keep ourselves honest here.
Oh sorry, read the first paragraph on that page. You don’t need to read anything else. Usually when someone shares a link I read the first few sentences if there’s no further explanation.
Voice of America (VOA) is the largest U.S. international broadcaster, providing news and information in more than 40 languages to an estimated weekly audience of more than 326 million people. VOA produces content for digital, television, and radio platforms. It is easily accessed via your mobile phone and on social media. It is also distributed by satellite, cable, FM and MW, and is carried on a network of more than 3,500 affiliate stations.
That’s the first paragraph. What are you talking about?
Why would the government support one of its own appendages acting for decades against its own interest in public reporting? Can you show me a single case of it seemingly acting against the interest of the government to which it belongs? Because all I see on the front page right now is speculation on what Russia “Could Be Preparing”, talking about how China’s “Dismal Foreign Minister Reflects Turmoil”, one about “Chinese Spy Ships” oh and the Chinese economy “Facing New Difficulties,” along with a Russia/DPRK story. idk, it seems to toe the line pretty strictly.
I can give it the most marginal credit in terms of headlines for a few articles down the page
I’m surprised they aren’t more defensive of DPP, but then reading the article I see that the angle is apparently attacking the KMT and taking the new third party, the TPP, as a viable alternative that is still generally following western interests and hilariously promises to promote a “color revolution” in Taiwan along with class third-positionist nonsense about “divisiveness” that liberals always seem to fall for. TPP seems most in line with the “de-risking” line favored by the Biden administration rather than the more extreme “delinking” or the left wing “actual diplomatic engagement”.
I’m surprised this isn’t framed in a more threatening manner, let’s see how it opens:
PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA — Cambodian officials say renovation work on a naval base in the coastal city of Sihanoukville is nearly complete, but U.S. officials have voiced suspicions the facility, being upgraded by China, will be used exclusively by China’s military.
Suspicions about China’s intentions for the Ream naval base were raised after satellite imagery showed that a major pier capable of anchoring aircraft carriers had been constructed on the site.
There we are. The rest is slightly softer but continues a tone of fearmongering.
Can you show me a single case of it seemingly acting against the interest of the government to which it belongs?
You’re asking for a very tall order considering that, having listened to US news most morning for the past three years, I can’t recall of a single mainstream US or foreign news outlet that has done that. Not even DW does that from Berlin. I don’t think that’s how the mainstream news operates, tbh.
But if you ask, “do they report critical news on the US”?
Then the answer is yes. It’s largely criticizing Gov. Abbott’s move as unethical and dangerous, which is true. I even checked other largely unbiased news sites like NPR and their reporting is on par. (Don’t even try to pretend that NPR is another shill news outlet. Spare me the eye rolling.)
along with class third-positionist nonsense about “divisiveness” that liberals always seem to fall for
I honestly find your entire assessment more biased, nit-picky, and exaggerated than the article itself.
I’m surprised this isn’t framed in a more threatening manner,
It’s the second time you act surprised that they didn’t meet your expectations of an overt propaganda channel.
but continues a tone of fearmongering.
Does it, though? I’m not saying it can’t be subtle, but let’s browse Newsmax or any of the extremist, domestic news outlets for a second and draw a comparison for what it really could be, and then reassess if it really fits the shoe.
You’re asking for a very tall order considering that, having listened to US news most morning for the past three years, I can’t recall of a single mainstream US or foreign news outlet that has done that. Not even DW does that from Berlin. I don’t think that’s how the mainstream news operates, tbh.
That’s really the point of what people are arguing, that these are interested parties that clearly promote certain agendas pertaining to respective national interests. If you agree, then that’s most of the meaningful discussion concluded, imo.
But if you ask, “do they report critical news on the US”?
Then the answer is yes. It’s largely criticizing Gov. Abbott’s move as unethical and dangerous, which is true. I even checked other largely unbiased news sites like NPR and their reporting is on par. (Don’t even try to pretend that NPR is another shill news outlet. Spare me the eye rolling.)
I am unimpressed. You are making the very common mistake of “critical of any individual or group within the US” being the same as “critical of the US”. I can point you to a thousand stories of Orange Man Bad (a large portion of which are correct, albeit meaningless, for the record) from CNN or MSNBC, but that is because what they are doing is partisan reporting from within the frame of Republican vs Democrat politics. That the Dem-aligned outlets say the Republicans are bad and the reverse does not mean they are in any meaningful sense criticizing the US. In fact, this can easily result in whitewashing the US, as happened constantly under Trump, whether it was rehabilitating the war criminal Bush or indeed pretending VoA used to be impartial, a huge portion of these attacks rest on a framework that the object of criticism does not represent the agenda of the US and what its systems seek to preserve but is instead a rogue, an infection, or in some other manner foreign to or against those interests.
I honestly find your entire assessment more biased, nit-picky, and exaggerated than the article itself.
It’s media criticism, and what I had to say was mostly regarding the overall argumentative arc of the article rather than trying to hit on small details out of context. Is my assessment at all incorrect? Obviously I included a sardonic joke about diplomacy being communist, but besides that.
Also, I’m not a fucking journo! I’m not pretending to be reporting on international news for the pure sake of keeping my audience informed on political developments, I’m just some asshole commenting. I also, unlike that journo, have a significant hostile audience that I am writing in the context of. That guy doesn’t give a shit what China thinks of what he is writing. Your comparison is apples to oranges.
It’s the second time you act surprised that they didn’t meet your expectations of an overt propaganda channel.
Did you not see the five or so headlines that made up basically the entire front page? I talked about those first to establish a baseline (there was one neutral one and one on basketball that I left out).
Does it, though? I’m not saying it can’t be subtle, but let’s browse Newsmax or any of the extremist, domestic news outlets for a second and draw a comparison for what it really could be, and then reassess if it really fits the shoe.
This is an anemic argument and you show that you know it. No, it’s not stormfront, but that’s because it has an extremely different audience and a different set of liabilities than stormfront (and obviously a neoliberal ideology rather than a Nazi one). If you thought the argument you were saying was worth anything, then I can just say “What’s your issue with Fox? OANN is way further out there. What’s your issue with OANN? Breitbart is way further out there. What’s your problem with Breitbart? It’s a little edgy but nothing like the unhinged rants at InfoWars. InfoWars? Please, they look like liberals compared to stormfront.”
These are different factions with different audiences, different styles, and different ideologies. Being able to point to something more vulgar is no defense, especially because – as others have stressed in this thread – that creates a huge, multi-layered bias towards establishment media relaying a centrist, neoliberal message! The place that happens to be America’s political center has no particular reason to correspond with what an informed and “impartial” observer would conclude except by cosmic coincidence, because the American center (as with any country’s political center) is historically arbitrary and constantly changing! We can’t just tacitly assume that the establishment ideologies are what are most reasonable and the fairness of all other things must be measured against that. It’s part of this myopia that I explained at the top of this comment about how people are so stuck in partisan shitflinging and those sorts of issues that they have no idea of what “impartial” could even mean! And I say this as someone who thinks there is no such thing as “unbiased,” that there are stronger framings for what is theoretically a pillar of your ideology, which I oppose, than what you have put forward.
You cannot escape your own perspective, your own circumstances and interests, but you can do a better job than you currently are of stepping outside of the bubble of Mainstream American Political Discourse and investigating what people from other countries not aligned with the US say, or even a more serious investigation of what fringes within America say.
Oh, and out of pure spite, I will inform you that NPR is a zionist rag that does nearly whatever the Democrats want. It’s laughable to call it unbiased, even if we pretend such a thing is real. They are partisan hacks and apologists for the neoliberal project with a progressive veneer faintly glossed overtop.
A statutory corporation is a government entity created as a statutory body by statute.
It doesn’t matter what language you try to couch it in, “state funded”, “editorial independence”, whatever. It was founded by the state, is funded by the state, and is a government entity. If it quacks like a duck.
As a brit, it absolutely is state-run in every way except the technicallity of the employees not being government workers and having a semi-indepdent structure, it is undeniably linked to the british government by nature, history, and practicality.
It absolutely is not state-run; VOA and RT are and the BBC is not. Obviously it’s not totally cut and dry but to claim it’s state run is simply a misunderstanding of its history and charter. As I said earlier, words actually mean something.
I know it’s tough to believe, but government-funded things aren’t necessarily bad. To discover if they’re bad you have to do more research than seeing who funds them!
VOA earned credibility around the world on the basis of its honest journalism, even when its stories conflicted with US policy. “Some might argue that as a government-funded network, the voa should always be expected to portray US policies as righteous and successful,” wrote former VOA Director Sanford Ungar in Foreign Affairs in 2005. “But experience demonstrates that the VOA is most appreciated and effective when it functions as a model US-style news organization that presents a balanced view of domestic and international events, setting an example for how independent journalism can strengthen democracy.”
As anyone who’s ever lived, worked or served overseas will tell you, the Voice of America (VOA) is an invaluable and highly respected source of news and reliable information in a world too often flooded with misinformation and propaganda.
So certainly you have some sources for your claim that it’s US propaganda, right? It’s based on more than just the name and you continually asserting it?
I honestly could go on; are you claiming that literally all English-language reporting on the VOA (including a fair amount of critical coverage that still talks about its journalistic integrity) is participating in some kind of conspiracy to support its reputation?
Certainly you have evidence of that? Even a single source?
But obviously not. You have no interest in things like “evidence,” and asking you to support your absurd assertions is simply a waste of time.
Is your answer to everyone that questions your preferred media outlets narratives on foreign events that they believe in conspiracies? You seem to employ a lot of hyperbolic and binary thinking in your arguments. Have you taken a critical thinking or philosophy course in university before?
Since you keep replying and won’t let the argument go, I’ll find something you can access for free. But if you want a longer read that will shatter your worldview about mainstream american media outlets like the NYT and WaPo (since your worldview is so insular it will be easy) www.amazon.com/…/1594516839
“Basically” is a weasel word here. Give me a clearer standard before challenging me to falsify it. My point is merely that a general consensus between major outlets in America, Canada, Britain, Australia, South Korea, and Germany is not “basically everywhere” and in fact I suspect the general trend in media reception of “people whose interests its ideology align with like it, those misaligned dislike it” holds true here as well
Was that the point of my comparison, or was it simply to illustrate that politics is weird and the hand of justice slow?
There are many explanations for why Prigozhin is still free that aren’t “the entire thing was fiction.” The OP contains one, in fact, which is that Putin is hedged in by his own system of cronyism.
Can you point out where I said it wasn’t? I’m just saying the severity of what happened in Russia is completely incomparable to what happened in the US. You’re talking about a fully armed military with sophisticated mechanized weapons and armor versus some Facebook rednecks with Trump flags.
While he didnt have a private army, he had hordes of angry armed people that he pointed toward the capital. He knew he lost the election and was trying to steal it with fake electors and the storming of the capital. While it’s not the same situation, he definitely DID try to overthrow the government and he IS still walking free.
I mean… The proud boys aren’t far off of from being Trump’s private army. And he did give them the marching orders to head into the capital building. Sure they don’t have tanks but I think the comparison still holds. In fact, I would argue they were closer to success than Wagner was.
For the love of god, listen to some Citations Needed and stop self-congratilating your media literacy because some fucking dork with a website tells you the New York Times and Washington Post aren’t biased.
I’d thought that even the most liberal people on nü-Lemmy had at least read some Chomsky (or even watched the documentaries based on his work), but I guess we aren’t even there yet.
I think it’s hilarious people are telling me I need some nuance and research, when I’m the one arguing there are differences between these sources and we need to evaluate them individually. And the person I responded to is arguing they’re all the same because, well, Journalism Bad I guess!
For the love of god read the comments before you reply.
“Bad arguments” is a pretty rich take coming from you. You’ve done nothing but continually, in defiance of logic and facts, assert total nonsense… and then turn around and claim that I’m the one that has bad arguments.
Literally, at least I have something. All you’ve got is a mushy, unfactual “enlightened centricism” that says that actually all media and all fact checkers are liars. Which is an utterly moronic take, and as I have demonstrated all over this thread, totally unsupported by actual facts.
And the person I responded to is arguing they’re all the same because, well, Journalism Bad I guess!
If you only consider corporate media and western state-run and state-sponsored outlets to be purveyors of “Journalism,” then let me emphatically say yes, Journalism Bad.
mediabiasfactcheck, the site that squashes two complex spectrums (left vs right, unbiased vs biased) into a one dimensional line, making no distinction between centrism and being unbiased.
Propaganda in the loosest definition just means reporting in a biased manner to push a political agenda. You can be 100% accurate with what you say and it still can be considered propaganda due to the manner in which it is presented.
While WP or VoA, in contrast to RT, don’t outright lie or deceptively create fake stories, they do have a pro-USA bias. That’s why it’s a hyperbolic statement. It was just meant to elaborate on the distrust for the article.
They might, but being state-run is actually no guarantee of bias! Some state-run media is certainly very biased (RT). Others less so (VOA). This might surprise you but you have to do things like “research” and “consider the source,” in addition to determining where its funding comes from.
“Actually being state-run is okay when our guys do it”
Before you whine, let me add that RT is a rag, though every now and then it has a good article and sometimes covering things western outlets refuse to is a good thing (like the recent-ish stuff with Seymour Hersh), but to say that VoA isn’t notoriously propaganda or that BBC articles aren’t mostly rightwing drivel is unhinged neoliberal bullshit.
(BBC does have some good TV programs, but those are fiction and documentaries, the news is awful)
“Actually being state-run is okay if those journalistic institutions can be independently verified to offer high-quality, objective reporting, based on nothing more than an analysis of that reporting – especially with regards to that institution’s stances of its government’s actions.”
Not sure why this is so hard for you all. Like, actually, in order to determine if a news source is good, we have to – shockingly! – examine the output of that news source. By this metric, the VOA and BBC are pretty good… uh, single Tweets notwithstanding.
I think people find it pointless because you’re surely going to dismiss counterexamples as edge cases and remembering all the various horseshit we’ve seen over the years to compile it and then be told we’re cherry-picking is not how anyone wants to spend their free time, so it’s much more efficient to work from first principles. I’m sure I couldn’t quote some old Soviet news article to you, could I?
The BBC and CBC are public service broadcasters with a primarily domestic market, while VoA and RT are state-controlled international broadcasters. The sources of funding are different, the target market is different, and the entire management structure is different.
The President can dictate through executive order to the VoA, but the Prime Minister cannot dictate what the BBC or CBC does (and, often times, these public service broadcasters are happy to lambast the governing party).
We’ll look at an example from another US state media outlet: Radio Free Asia
In 2014, Radio Free Asia wrote a story claiming North Korean students were forced to get the Kim Jong Un haircut. The story spread like wildfire. It was on all the news stations, all the talk shows, Kimmel, Colbert, John Oliver. TV commercials riffed on it. The whole American media ecosystem was unanimous, everyone believed this shit. Regular people on the street could tell you about it.
Then it came out that Radio Free Asia made it up. Someone at Radio Free Asia sat down and deliberately wrote a false story with the intent to deceive the public, and then Radio Free Asia published that story as fact in order to smear an enemy of the United States.
Radio Free Asia, like VoA, has excellent scores on all the media bias and fact-checking sites. This is because they sprinkle their bullshit carefully. RFA’s hit pieces are mixed in among hundreds of ordinary, mundane, reputable current events stories. You go to the site and you see headlines like you might see on any other site. But when you go digging, you start to find dozens of unsourced claims about China and North Korea mixed in. The rest is just reputation laundering to support the bullshit.
If you asked an intelligent person, “how would you publish propaganda,” RFA is the format they would come up with.
I briefly researched this and it looks like the initial version of the article (as described by the Washington Post) was indeed wrong. The Diplomat claims RFA updated the English translation of the article and made it more accurate:
The instruction for male students to get the same haircut as their leader is not based on any directive from Kim but on a recommendation from the ruling Workers’ Party, according to a North Korean from North Hamgyong province near the border with China.
So I’m not sure the takeaway is “someone sat down and wrote a bullshit story with the intent to deceive the public,” so much as “an article stub appears to have gotten into the wild and was corrected in translation.”
Certainly it’s easier to believe RFA made an error and/or mispublication here than they’re just publishing propaganda, right? Unless we’re saying the standard for a US-backed media source is “zero errors, and any errors are intentional propaganda.”
But let’s assume that’s true: they don’t make any errors and this is indeed propaganda. Why did they publish it? What would be the utility of false haircut propaganda, except to tip their hands that they are a propaganda outlet, which would certainly make its utility as a propaganda outlet worthless? Wouldn’t they want to get this story right so you believe the really big important stuff?
If you asked an intelligent person, “how would you publish propaganda,” you’d just do it like Russia Times: just straight-up repeat the state’s lies and never bother reporting anything close to the truth. I think the multilayered conspiracy theories required for the assertion that institutions intentionally seed their stories with propaganda are difficult to swallow, and not particularly well-supported. Like there’s no evidence RFA intentionally lied here, at least none that I can find.
Of course, I also think you should be cautious of media sources in general and it’s a fine idea to keep in mind who pays RFA’s bills. But the way to judge whether a place gets it right or wrong is to examine its history and accuracy; dismissing it outright because the US funds it is intellectually lazy.
They changed one unsourced claim to another unsourced claim. Neat.
Why did they publish it?
Because it vilifies an enemy state, which is convenient when you want public support for sanctions against that enemy
If you asked an intelligent person, “how would you publish propaganda,” you’d just do it like Russian Times: just straight-up repeat the state’s lies and never bother reporting anything close to the truth.
Uh, if they’re just going to publish total outright lies, why not just claim they eat babies or something equally horrific? Villifying the state via haircut shaming is certainly not how I’d go about it.
Could you explain why you think this?
Well yeah: it’s easier to do and gets the same results in the end.
Journalists are actually people. Let’s assume that care about what they do and want to do it with integrity (as most of us seek to act). Convincing them to constantly lie and compromise their work for political reasons seems like a lot of work, and they’d just wind up quitting and writing scandalous tell-alls anyway. So why bother to begin with? It’d just cause drama and is frankly a dead-end for your goals in any event. Just hire a bunch of hatchet job propagandists whose explicit goal is lying. Then everyone’s happy and you’ve made your life much much easier.
Of course, you miss out on “truthful articles” that fool people into believing you’re a good institution. But most people will see that you’re publishing intentional lies and have fired your good journalists anyway, so no one is going to believe you’re a reliable journalistic institution even if you cram in some incisive, hard-hitting truths. Again, it’s just a waste of time and effort; people who are smart enough to do the research will see through you in any case. So, just go straight for the propaganda.
There are plenty of people (right here in this thread) who will falsely equivocate between your propaganda and actual journalism anyway, so it’s not like you’re even sacrificing that much.
Why not just claim they eat babies or something equally horrific?
They do publish many horrific claims.
gets the same results in the end
No it doesn’t. When your outlet is obvious propaganda, fewer people believe you. RFA’s sheen of reputability was a huge factor in the haircut story’s enormous reach in western media.
Hire a bunch of hatchet job propagandists
…the sort of people who would write this disproven haircut story and dozens of other goofy unsourced claims they’ve published, yes. You can even tell them to write normal stories too just to mix it up.
Convincing journalists to lie seems like a lot of work
Not if some or all of your journalists are US intelligence — Radio Free Asia began as a CIA front operation (google it), and might still be one.
Of course I looked. An anonymous source is actually fine, especially when reporting on a regime known for torturing sources.
You’re right that fewer people believe it; but again, it is obviously propaganda when it is and it’s not a secret. So again why bother with the fig leaf when no one will believe it anyway?
And certainly you have a source for your absurd conspiracy theory that the CIA actually runs RFA, right?
Wikileaks publishes leaks. Their sources provide falsifiable documents, transcripts, photos, and footage — actual evidence we can follow up on. The Panama Papers were evidence. 2.6 terabytes of data. 11.5 million documents. Edward Snowden gave us evidence. He didn’t just say “the NSA totally spies on you dude, trust me bro.”
absurd conspiracy theory that the CIA actually runs RFA
Conspiracy theory sure, but how is it absurd? They’re state funded, the CIA acknowledges it created them, they print a lot of unsourced claims about America’s enemies, you can’t find any information about their authors, etc. Ultimately I’m not sure it matters. Unsourced disproven bullshit is unsourced disproven bullshit, CIA or not. Either way, we can point to Radio Free Asia as an example of less-than-trustworthy US state media.
If we need extraordinary evidence for the haircut story, the monumentally much more unlikely, conspiratorial, and unsupported assertion that actually the CIA controls the RFA definitely needs falsifiable documents, transcripts, photos, and footage. Actual evidence, as you say. For which, as you know, there is precisely zero.
I mean, at least the haircut story has an anonymous source. You don’t even have that.
Because you are okay literally believing CIA conspiracy theories with no evidence. There’s no common ground here; I do believe you’re engaging in good faith, but you don’t seem to have any interest in what might be factual or true.
Which I guess your lack of sourcing anything should have told me awhile ago. Oh well, more fool me.
I believe it’s plausible. I give reasons why. You think it’s implausible, and you give no reasons why. You’re also really condescending while doing it.
Yeah, flying to North Korea and paying the government to get a restricted and guided tour of some barbershops doesn’t really prove anything though, does it? Except that these people are apparently perfectly fine forking over good money to the DPRK to get spoon fed literal propaganda and support their tyrannical regime at the same time.
This video is shockingly disingenuous and I have serious doubts about the credibility of its authors entirely separate from the above. There is actually a difference between prison camps and prisons; that they don’t know this doesn’t make it less true. North Korea tried to invade and subjugate South Korea. The fact that both America and North Korea have nukes does not somehow excuse North Korean attempts to acquire them and terrorize South Korea and Japan. (Yes, despite the fact America has detonated them. In what sense do past American atrocities make North Korean aggression okay?)
These people need to do much more research into what’s actually going on and has been going on in North Korea. Basically it seems like standard “well anything that America sanctions must actually be awesome” contrarianism.
North Korea tried to invade and subjugate South Korea. The fact that both America and North Korea have nukes does not somehow excuse North Korean attempts to acquire them and terrorize South Korea and Japan. (Yes, despite the fact America has detonated them. In what sense do past American atrocities make North Korean aggression okay?)
Talk about shockingly disingenuous. There was no divided Korea until the U.S. arrived, with the dividing line being drawn by two U.S. officials with no precedent to get Seoul in their occupied territory (Patriots, Traitors and Empires, p. 73). The American zone of South Korea was called a “police state” by Roger Baldwin, chief of the American Civil Liberties Union; before the Korean War, the south had 70,000 leftists in concentration camps (Korea’s Place in the Sun, p. 223); by December 1949 the anti-communist National Security Law in the occupied South had been used to arrest 188,621 people (Ibid., p. 348); the U.S. military literally trafficked Korean women for r*pe in continuation of Japanese colonial comfort stations (Patriots, Traitors and Empires, p. 33;. look up the Jeju Massacre for me as well.
“Korea is a major responsibility which we [Amerikans] as a world power have voluntarily assumed. . . . We have committed here some of our most excruciating errors… Opinion polls show that 64 out of every 100 Koreans dislike us” — Mark Gayn in New York Star, Nov. 1947
“[There is] growing resentment against all Americans in the area including passive resistance… Every day of drifting under this situation makes our position in Korea more untenable and decreases our waning popularity… The word pro-American is being added to pro-Jap, national traitor, and collaborator” — John R. Hodge (U.S. Army Officer) (Korea’s Place in the Sun)
Here’s some examples of Japanese colonial collaborators and officials promoted in the ROK:
Paek Son-yop, also from the Kwantung Army, was the first four-star general in the south Korean army
Paek In-yop (Kwantung), commander of south Korea’s 17th Independent Regiment
Park Chung-hee (Kwantung), south Korean Army, south Korean President (1962-63)
Kim Chae-gyu (Japanese military officer), head of south Korean Central Intelligence Agency (KCIA)
Kim Sok-won (colonel, Japanese Imperial Army), lead the 1948 6/2 parade consisting of 2,500 Japanese army veterans through Seoul (the manufactured capital of SK)
Mate I don’t know if you’ve ever bothered to watch visits to NK but they’re not quite what you seem to think they are. There is a considerable amount of things that people do there, the downside being that they are all supervised.
Like, just watch some? You’re perfectly happy to swallow everything from literal propaganda outlets but you’re unwilling to actually watch first hand accounts of any visitors? You are only willing to consume things filtered through a media lens? Why?
“These people” have actually visited. You have not. You’re not even ALLOWED to visit because your government makes it illegal to. Wtf is up with that? And you’re the one that thinks you have more information than people who are not prevented from visiting and making their own minds up first hand?
The only edgelord here is the person that is vehemently calling VOA fair and unbiased while simultaneously calling the first hand accounts of actual real visitors to the country propaganda. You’re out of your mind. You’re the most propagandised person I have ever had the displeasure of talking to actually.
I think it’s hilarious you’re scolding me for not considering a badly edited 20 minute video filled with total propaganda and misinformation more canonical than, you know, actual reporting about North Korea and conditions there. Irony is truly dead.
This is just tankie apologia and badly done at that. If you can’t see that you’re blind.
Why don’t you go back to Lemmygrad? Our instance is unfederated with that so we don’t have to run into idiots like you.
Yes I’m quite aware that some instances are full of authoritarians that like to restrict the speech of any political opposition to their left. Actually engaging with any arguments we make ends quite badly for you when you cite the CIA and its propaganda while we cite actual primary sources so you simply take the authoritarian position of eliminating left wing speech instead. An action Mccarthy would be proud of.
Voice of America was put under the command of the USIA (US Information Agency) whose job was literally propaganda.
The US archives state the following:
306.2 Records of the International Information Administration (Department of State) 1945-53
History: Office of the Coordinator of Information established as an independent agency by Presidential order, July 11, 1941, to collect and analyze information bearing upon national security. Foreign Information Service established within OCOI to oversee shortwave propaganda broadcasts (Voice of America, VOA),
Interesting find! There were also 48 states when that was written though, so we should probably take its current-day accuracy with a grain of salt.
Indeed, the nature of VOA has changed over time. During the Cold War it served to bring accurate news to countries behind the Iron Curtain and fight Soviet propaganda. (The Soviet government jammed it during this time.) Obviously this mission has changed since then as well since the Soviet Union no longer exists.
Ultimately its current reputation of journalistic objectivity does not depend on nearly century-old records but on what we can see today; dedicated journalists and accurate reporting.
Ah yes the propaganda outlet started for the purposes of propaganda and staffed with people all doing the job of propaganda has surely not continued to employ people ideologically aligned with performing propaganda ever since! Nooooooo. Somewhere along the line must have fired every single member of staff and built a reputable new outlet from the top down. Surely!
To quote a reagan fuckhead - “Personnel is policy”.
Ultimately its current reputation of journalistic objectivity does not depend on nearly century-old records but on what we can see today; dedicated journalists and accurate reporting.
You are not immune to propaganda. And you should seriously take a moment to read the shit you are writing and ask yourself how much of it is you repeating propaganda. You sound like you’re literally writing PR copy.
I mean, France was once ruled by an Emperor; does that mean it still secretly is? Or did, like, something change in the last two hundred years in that regard? Do you think Napoleon is still secretly in charge there too?
You’re right personnel is policy though. And if you did any research whatsoever instead of posting nonsense on the Internet, you’d see that the journalists who work at the VOA are actually journalists, not propagandists. It’s not hard, the facts are out there. Maybe you should pursue them instead of indulge in baseless conspiracy theories.
But I’m easy to convince! Feel free to link me evidence that the VOA is still American propaganda and not real journalism. Surely reputable sources and good evidence are easy to find? I mean, if this was written a hundred years ago, there must be something else between then and now?
Of the two of us I am the only one that has done any research at all. As I am the only one who bothered to see what language the US uses for its own media outlet.
Your research consists of looking up propaganda sites that suit you, and parroting whatever they say regardless of any critical thought that might suggest they’re not reliable. You don’t think for yourself. At all. All you do is defer all of your thinking to these ““sources”” when they’re not primary sources and are literally obviously spouting easily falsifiable shit.
What research was that exactly? Watching a literal propaganda YouTube video and deciding it was the truth? You know that video was in English too, right? Doesn’t that mean it’s been compromised by the CIA?
Anyway… you clearly just have no idea what you’re talking about and have no ability to discern fact from fiction. For crowing that I need to stop being propagandized, I’m the only one here that appears to have done anything even actual research and employing critical thought.
It seems like there’s no reason to doubt the US Archive’s internal records on this regard. You say surely things have changed, but there’s little in the way of compelling evidence that that’s the case, right? Propaganda doesn’t mean an absence of factual reporting, it means slanted, biased reporting, and it’s not exactly a stretch by any means to suggest that VOICE OF AMERICA might have an agenda in their reporting, right? Pretty much every country that disseminates its own media employs propaganda because it’s a proven means of control. I understand you respect the service they provide but consider the purpose of propaganda, its intended effect, and how it might be influencing your stance on this matter.
There’s a ton of compelling evidence that VOA is not propaganda.
I linked a bunch of media bias and fact checkers earlier: in case you missed them, heretheyareagain. So… yeah, it seems from the available evidence it has in fact changed in a hundred years.
Unless, of course, you think that every media fact checker is wrong. In which case, again, it must be easy to provide some kind of source or evidence that either they are, or that VOA is in fact merely propaganda.
I said propaganda isn’t necessarily at odds with facts, and for what it’s worth I saw the bias reports, but they’re talking about Left/Right bias and we’re talking about nationalistic bias. Propaganda isn’t an inherently left/right concept. There’s also no reason to suggest I think “every media fact checker is wrong”, you’re arguing against something no one here has said.
Other people have said it, apologies for pinning it on you. :)
Those don’t talk just about left/right bias, but also about accuracy and correctness, which is more why I was referencing the fact checkers.
I guess this depends on what you mean by “propaganda” to a certain extent. The usual usage of the term is to refer to information that is simply biased or misleading, advanced in service of a particular political point of view. In that definition, I would say VOA is not propaganda; it reports truth, even when the truth is uncomfortable to the United States or its government.
That said, it is certainly doing so in espousing the values of freedom of journalism and information and hoping to inculcate those values in its listeners by virtue of example. If you think that mission is itself American nationalistic propaganda then I guess yeah, you could say VOA is propaganda. I don’t think this is a commonly-accepted definition of the term however.
My understanding of propaganda doesn’t require the information to necessarily be misleading (don’t get me wrong, blatant propaganda frequently is), just presented with an intention to promote a certain group’s interests. I can see where the contention comes from, and I’m sure we could both have a lengthy discussion about it, but I don’t think it’s really the time or place, and it sounds like we aren’t too far off from understanding one another anyways. Hope you have a good day/night wherever you are!
I don’t understand what happened there or how the guy who tried to overthrow the government is still walking free.
You know you don’t understand what happened there, but you still assume he tried to overthrow the government. That’s highly implausible. A much simpler explanation is that he wanted to quit on his own terms before it’s too late, but needed the other party to start listening and, ideally, enter the negotiations with a handicap. Judging by the reports that he got his audience (a claim too embarrassing to make up for no gain), that seemed to work.
That’s a big pitfall with analysing Russia: rationalizing stuff happening there to fit a reasonable plan, or at least a coherent overarching narrative, while the plethora of actors constituting Russia couldn’t care less about your narrative. They’ve been improvising with no clear plan for at least a year, on all levels, and it’s a miracle we still occasionally see patterns in their collective actions.
I don’t know how you can admit that you have zero understanding of the subject and attack the article in the same post. It’s quite good and aligns well with many other sources of information and analysis.
Many on the local level could not believe the Wagner rebellion could be happening without some degree of agreement with the Kremlin, the security officials said
The other side of ruling with an iron fist and micromanaging people. If you stop doing that, these people then just think this is all part of what is supposed happen and are unable to act on their own without explicit orders.
I think there were a lot of players up and down the ranks waiting to see which way the wind blew before casting for any given side.
With so many concerns that the coup had backing from either Putin or other power blocs, a whole lot of side players would have wanted to back a winning pony and were waiting on early outcomes. Equally, with Putin not providing decisive action, I'm sure that invited meaningful concerns that this was some sort of double-dealing or the beginning of a Putin-backed purge.