Sometimes, surprisingly often, Western “journalists” just tell straight lies. A very common device is turning a singular into a plural. For example; in this story Guardian freelancer Liz Cookman is writing a story about supposed mass abduction and “grooming” for the military of “Ukrainian” children for the Russian army. She writes: “The findings follow a Guardian report last week in which children from occupied regions of Ukraine described being forcibly taken to such military-style camp”. There is a link to the previous story, (also by the same author; she is quoting herself as a source, rather oddly, not saying something like “in my previous story”), which concerns two children who were sent to a holiday camp in Russia. (The article never explicitly tells us who sent them, but all the signs are that it was their parents). The first article is clear. One child liked the camp; the other didn’t. It is the second who is a source in the story; she says that the other, her brother, was “indoctrinated”. One imagines that he does not see it like this. The claim in the second article about the previous article in which “children from occupied regions of Ukraine described being forcibly taken to such military-style camp” is simply not true. One child, not plural, not children. And a very big question mark over “forcibly”; no actual account of a “forcible” act is actually presented. This, unfortunately, is simply lying. If you write an article, one goose was slaughtered and a week later you say “in my previous article about geese being slaughtered”, you are lying. No two ways about it. These lies were passed by the Guardian’s editorial team.
As a side point; there is a very nice example in the first article of a certain kind of “we always win logic”. Consider this comment from a source in a NATO linked think tank:
“These people were Ukrainian and now they see themselves as Russian,” she says. “They are just proof Russia’s indoctrination policy works.”
This is about young people in Eastern Ukraine who are signing up for the Russian army. With this kind of circular argumentation you never have to consider the other side. If a young person in the contested territories identifies with Russia rather than Ukraine this is just proof that the indoctrination works. This is no more intellectually credible than saying that if the woman survives the ducking she is a witch.
The UK’s Daily Mail, while being about the only UK media outlet which still does real investigative journalism, also has recourse to straight lying. This article [1] was published by their “Senior Foreign News Reporter”, Kevin Adjei-Darko, on 22 September. Readers are informed: “The drones struck an elderly couple’s home and demolished its roof.” However; already by 18th September Poland has admitted the house was hit by one of their own defence missiles. One can agree with the Polish argument that the fault lies with whoever was responsible for the drones, but still – getting basic facts right is a basis of reportage. You can’t just make things up; at least, if you do, you are not doing journalism. I regularly find untruths of this kind in the Daily Mail. The test for what to write often seems to be ‘does it pass the propaganda test’, not ‘does it correlate with known facts’.
Another tactic, of course, is simply entirely one-sided presentations. This piece is by the Guardian’s Shaun Walker. It is about teenagers and young adults in Ukraine being recruited by, presumably, Russian secret services, to carry out sabotage operations in Ukraine. It is pretty awful and sad. How awful those Russians are. Poor, innocent, Ukraine. However; the, (indeed tragic), reality is that both sides appear to be doing this. This is a very good piece of reporting in the New York Times, which describe just that. Both sides. There is nothing wrong with Walker’s article per se. It is good piece of journalism; well written, with quotes from relevant actors, one of the young people themselves, and a security source. The issue here, is really, at the editorial level; by publishing just this half of the picture, the Guardian allows the view to form, that this is just something which Russia does. We see the same with accounts of civilian casualties of air raids. The Western press is full of accounts of civilian casualties of Russian air raids. The information typically appears to be provided by Ukrainian authorities. One suspects that in many cases there is indeed a military target nearby and they are keeping quiet about that. One such case concerned a supposed attack on a trolley bus which was widely presented as a direct attack on civilians. On closer inspection it turned out that there may have been a valid target – a conference hall hosting a military assembly, was in the street. This was the claim from the Russian Ministry of Defence. And, I think, the existence of the conference hall, at least, was not disputable. [2] The trolley bus was probably an unintended result. I rarely watch Russian TV but when I have, I have seen stories which emphasise civilian casualties of Ukrainian attacks in Donbas. I guess it is to be expected that the media largely falls into line behind nationalist aims during a war. But; we can still hope that journalism can transcend this and really supply objective information. Articles like the NYT one above are confirmation that isolated pockets of truth-telling still exist in Western media.
Notes