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Russophonia in Western media and true nature of Western press freedom
Russophonia in Western media and true nature of Western press freedom
14/7/16
If
there is one country in the world that garners media coverage bereft of even
the most basic journalistic standards, it is Russia. Over the past month, the
Russian government has been accused of hacking the DNC, orchestrating the
Brexit, tacitly supporting the candidacy of Donald J. Trump, and much else.
Even about attempting to ruin the European football championship when violence
erupted between fans of Russia and England at the in France, with both sides
blaming one another for starting it. UEFA, the European football governing
body, warned both teams that, should violent fan behaviour continue, the teams would face
exclusion from the tournament.
On
Saturday British daily newspaper The Guardian reported
that senior U.K. government officials suspected the Kremlin was complicit in
sanctioning the violence in a form of “hybrid war” and were therefore
investigating links with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s administration.
The
Kremlin has condemned as “Russophobic hysteria” reports that the U.K.
government suspects fan violence at Euro 2016 is endorsed by Moscow, Russian
news agency Interfax reports. This is just another example
of what some people are capable of in their Russophobic hysteria.
On June 14, The Washington Post’s Ellen
Nakashima published what, at first sight, looked to be a blockbuster scoop, a
Watergate scandal for the cyber age. The report
alleged that the Democratic National Committee’s computer
network was compromised by Russian hackers who stole caches of DNC opposition
research on Trump. According to Nakashima, the Russian hackers were so thorough
that they were able to access the DNC’s e-mail and chat traffic. Yet the firm
that supposedly spotted the hack, Crowdstrike, admitted it was “not sure how
the hackers got in.” They were definitely sure, however, that it was the
Russians.
The American media, needless to say, jumped all over the
story. The New York Times swiftly followed up with
a story which proclaimed: “D.N.C. Says Russian Hackers Penetrated Its Files,
Including Dossier on Donald Trump.” The dogged media critic Adam Johnson of
FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) compiled a
list of headlines that appeared in major media outlets within 24 hours of
Nakashima’s scoop,
• Russian Government Hackers Broke Into DNC Servers, Stole
Trump Oppo (Politico, 6/14/16)
• Russia Hacked DNC Network, Accessed Trump Research (MSNBC,6/14/16)
• Russians Steal Research on Trump in Hack of US Democratic Party (Reuters, 6/14/16)
• Russian Government-Affiliated Hackers Breach DNC, Take Research on Donald Trump (Fox, 6/14/16)
• Russia Hacks Democratic National Committee, Trump Info Compromised (USA Today, 6/14/16)
• Russian government hackers steal DNC files on Donald Trump (The Guardian, 6/14/16)
• Russians Hacked DNC Computers to Steal Opposition Research on Trump (Talking Points Memo, 6/14/16)
• Russian Spies Hacked Into the DNC’s Donald Trump Files (Slate, 6/14/16)
• What Russia’s DNC Hack Tells Us About Hillary Clinton’s Private Email Server (Forbes, 6/15/16)
• Russia Hacked DNC Network, Accessed Trump Research (MSNBC,6/14/16)
• Russians Steal Research on Trump in Hack of US Democratic Party (Reuters, 6/14/16)
• Russian Government-Affiliated Hackers Breach DNC, Take Research on Donald Trump (Fox, 6/14/16)
• Russia Hacks Democratic National Committee, Trump Info Compromised (USA Today, 6/14/16)
• Russian government hackers steal DNC files on Donald Trump (The Guardian, 6/14/16)
• Russians Hacked DNC Computers to Steal Opposition Research on Trump (Talking Points Memo, 6/14/16)
• Russian Spies Hacked Into the DNC’s Donald Trump Files (Slate, 6/14/16)
• What Russia’s DNC Hack Tells Us About Hillary Clinton’s Private Email Server (Forbes, 6/15/16)
And there was more to come. A self-described “former spook”
took to the pages of The New York Observer on June 18 to declare that
not only do “Kremlin hacking efforts extend far beyond the DNC” but that the
Islamic State’s hacking operation, the so-called Cyber Caliphate, is actually,
you guessed it, the work of the Russians: “[T]he Cyber Caliphate” said theObserver,
“is a Russian false-flag operation.”
Nor is that all. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow got in on that act
and went on what can only be described as a rant in which she accused the
Russian president himself of being behind the DNC hack. “These hackers,” Maddow
proclaimed, “were dispatched by the Russian government, by Vladimir Putin,”
even though Nakashima’s report said no such thing. The report merely said that
one of the hacking operations is “believed to work for the GRU, or
Russia’s military intelligence service while CrowdStrike is less sure
of whom” the other hacking operation “works for but thinks it
might be the Federal Security Service, or FSB” [emphasis added].
The problem, of course, is that there is no hard
evidence linking the Russian government, much less Vladimir Putin personally,
to the DNC hack. Indeed, Nakashima followed up her original report on June 15 by
noting that a hacker who goes by the moniker Guccifer 2.0 had claimed credit
for the DNC hack. In an interview with
Vice Motherboard, Guccifer 2.0 claimed to be Romanian, not Russian.
None of the foregoing can come as a surprise, given that
unproven allegations against both the Russian government and the Russian
president have been a flourishing American media industry for several years.
And if there can be said to be an industry leader, it is The Washington Post.
In addition to its coverage, such as it was, of the DNC hack, the Post has
published one story after another regarding Donald Trump’s alleged affinity for,
and ties to, the Russian Federation.
On June 17, the Post published a piece that
purported to explore “Trump’s
financial ties to Russia and his unusual flattery of Vladimir Putin.”
The report alleged that Trump’s “relationship with Putin and his warm views
toward Russia” are “one of the more curious aspects of his presidential
campaign,” because “the overwhelming consensus among American political and
national security leaders has held that Putin is a pariah.” How the reporters
square this with Secretary of State Kerry’s regular meetings with Russia’s
foreign minister or President Obama’s periodic phone conversations with the
“pariah” himself was left to the reader’s imagination.
Nevertheless, the report in guilt-by-association style
warned readers that “Since the 1980s, Trump and his family members have made
numerous trips to Moscow in search of business opportunities,” thereby implying
that Trump may be, after all, the Manchurian Candidate of the Post’s
fevered imagination. For all his many faults as a businessman, is Trump so
different from other major American and Western business leaders in trying to
pursue business opportunities in Russia? Who could imagine the Post holding,
say William Browder’s past business experiences in Russia against him?
Still more alarming, according to the Post, is
that “The Russian ambassador to the United States, breaking from a tradition in
which diplomats steer clear of domestic politics, attended Trump’s April
foreign policy speech” in Washington. The tradition they are referring to
remains unclear, but if it exists, it is one that American ambassadors
frequently break. For example, the US Ambassador to Ukraine, Geoffrey Pyatt,
attended anti-government protests in Kiev alongside US Assistant Secretary of
State Victoria Nuland in December 2013, while there are numerous reports of then–US
Ambassador to Syria Robert S. Ford making appearances at anti-government
rallies throughout Syria in 2011.
A day later, June 18, the Post published a
piece by Ishaan
Tharoor, who cited the previous day’s Post report
on the alleged affinity between Trump and Putin and noted that the “former
reality TV star would perhaps also tacitly approve of some of Putin’s other
comments.” Perhaps. Also. Tacitly. In the words of George W. Bush’s CIA
director, George Tenet, that’s a “slam dunk.”
Even before the results of the Brexit vote were known,
journalists were making much of Russia’s supposed involvement in the matter.
Neocon scholar Max Boot took to the pages of—where else?—The
Washington Post on June 19 to warn readers that “Nigel Farage, leader of
the UK Independence Party and a leading pro-Brexit voice, has harsh words for
Brussels but nothing but kind words for Moscow.”
And following the Brexit vote, the media went into overdrive
in trying to tie the result to the actions of the “operative in the Kremlin.” A
representative piece comes courtesy of the ever-jejune BuzzFeed, which declared
“The Big Winner Of Brexit Is Vladimir Putin.” Former US ambassador to Russia turned Washington
Post columnist and Hillary Clinton foreign-policy adviser Michael
McFaul told BuzzFeed that “Brexit’s greatest winner is Putin.” According to
McFaul, “For years now, he has sought ways to divide Europe, including both the
EU and NATO, hoping for a collapse of unity in Europe just as the USSR and the
Warsaw Pact did a quarter century ago.”
Meanwhile, the UK’s Guardian claimed Russia
and, for good measure, Iran, were “delighted” by the Brexit result. But far
from being “delighted,” the Russian president repeatedly stated Russia’s
neutrality during the week preceding the vote and is quoted in the Guardian report
as merely saying that the Brexit may have “positive and negative consequences”
for Russia.
Meanwhile, in addition to its coverage of Kremlin-inspired
football hooligans, The Telegraph published an article that
enters into the realm of science fiction, claiming that “Russia aims
to develop ‘teleportation’ in 20 years.” Well, beam me up,
Scotty. Yet the text of the Telegraph report says no such
thing, only that a “strategic development program” has been “drawn up for Vladimir
Putin” that “would seek to develop teleportation by 2035.” Nowhere
is it said that the Russian government is actually pursuing such a thing.
All of this would, of course, be amusing, if the
geopolitical ramifications weren’t so dire. The incessant barrage of factually
challenged, evidence-free accusations that paint Russia and its president in
the worst possible light have helped give rise to the perilous state of affairs
in which we find ourselves.
And while Russia continues to support the separatist
fighters in eastern Ukraine, NATO and American troops have been massing in
western Ukraine on yet another “training exercise.” Meanwhile, the forthcoming
NATO summit in Warsaw is less than a week away. And though responsible voices
like German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier have decried NATO’s
penchant for “warmongering,” it seems the closer we get to the upcoming summit,
the further divorced from reality the media’s coverage of Russia becomes.
Misinformation from Western media has eroded the
possibility of any détente between the United States and Russia and has put the
two nuclear superpowers on a collision course on the ground in eastern Europe,
in the skies over Syria, and on the Baltic and Black Seas. In times like these
the public would be better served by less sensationalist, more fact-based
coverage of Russia and its government. Don’t use press freedom as a propaganda
tool to go against other states like that./.
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All comments [ 11 ]
Western media outlets also often don’t cover Vietnam fairly. They play up Vietnam’s weaknesses, exaggerates its potential as a regional threat, and ignores its successes.
Western journalists (and bloggers) understandably often take deep satisfaction from exposing the corruption, megalomania, and banalities of authoritarian regimes -preferably great powers like China, Russia and Vietnam.
Yeah, they always claim themselves as symbols of press freedom and call Vietnam violating freedom of press.
Western-led media tend to be biased against third world countries and communist others—portraying them as a bad ones.
I don't totally believe in any presses even the U.S. or Western ones, they all are tools of the authorities.
The one-two punch of censorship plus propaganda has discredited Western journalism in the eyes of many Chinese.
The term “Western media” itself deserves scrutiny. It’s vague and monolithic, making it convenient as a pejorative label but difficult to pin down for analysis.
U.S. media, for its part, is indeed more likely to run certain kinds of articles — those covering the new, the sensational, and especially in recent decades, the negative.
It’s not just politicians who get all the flack; U.S. news is infamously gloomy in its coverage of, well, everything.
The popularity of the belief that Western media is biased against Vietnam demonstrates a truth that authoritarian regimes know well: propaganda works.
Poor Putin, he has to encounter not only the West but also the "press freedom".
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