When the dust settles, will the West’s media coverage get a passing grade, or will we find, at times, we allowed our sympathy for the Ukrainian cause to overlook matters we shouldn’t?

  • CicadaSpectre
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    3 months ago

    Did people even ask the easy questions (without being banned and censored)? Y’know… questions that would have been answered by looking at the photos of the Ukrainian soldiers and the symbols they wore? Or the posts and comments they frequently made? I’m actually curious what the “hard” questions could be, when a lot of the answers were pretty apparent.

    • eatCasserole
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      3 months ago

      I read “hard questions” here as “questions we won’t like the answers to”, which is kinda funny if that’s how they mean it, because in that case they know they won’t like the answer (probably because it’s staring them in the face) so they just avoid asking the question, and shout “Russian propaganda!” at anyone who does.

      And this little dynamic is coincidentally an answer to the main question the article is posing, already baked into itself.

      • CicadaSpectre
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        3 months ago

        Yeah… there’s always just enough self-awareness in their words that I have to wonder if they’re poor liars, or suffering some kind of ingrained mental block that keeps them from finishing the line of logic.

  • happybadger [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    3 months ago

    This wouldn’t be unusual — it’s what happened in the run-up to the post-9/11 Iraq war, when American and British media were arguably far too unquestioning of Western officials’ claims that Saddam Hussein was awfully close to having a nuclear bomb or had a huge stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.

    There was then British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s “dodgy dossier” and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s defining speech at the U.N. Security Council, where the formerly staunch critic of intervention announced Washington had solid evidence of sophisticated and illicit Iraqi weapons programs. But there was insufficient media skepticism overall, and alternative voices and awkward questions were all too often crowded out.

    Unfortunately, it seems we’re now in danger of repeating this very same mistake, as we all too quickly dub those who question current Western strategy as defeatists or accuse them of advancing Russian propaganda.

    Next 𝑔𝑜𝑜𝒹 𝓌𝒶𝓇, every propagandist who writes in support of it is immediately sent to the frontline. If they survive, they’re shot.

    • cfgaussian
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      3 months ago

      Lol. Just lol.

      But there was insufficient media skepticism overall, and alternative voices and awkward questions were all too often crowded out.

      Hm. Yeah, “crowded out” (aka blacklisted and smeared) by who? Oh yeah by the very same publications that you are currently writing for. That continue to do this even as you write this article.

      This is really rich. You’ve only now just noticed you’ve been cheerleading another war based on lies and helping to spread falsehoods and propaganda while demonizing anyone who says differently?

      I find articles like this really, truly shameless. They are honestly worse than the ones where they just lie all the time. At least with those there is no pretense. But to pretend like now all of a sudden they care about the truth? Sorry, i’m not buying it. It’s too little too late.

  • orcrist@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    The first casualty of war is truth.

    But also, such bad pronoun use is classic centrist drivel. Who is “we”? Does the author mean themself, or their publication? Of course not. They want to blame you and me … for their own reporting… which may or may not be horrible shit, they speculate, but they haven’t decided just yet.

    (I am not commenting on the war itself here. Only the sad excuse for journalism.)

    • multitotalOP
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      3 months ago

      They want to blame you and me … for their own reporting…

      Haha yeah. It’s an “are we the baddies?” moment.

  • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆
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    3 months ago

    I find it funny how the article ends up being self referential regurgitating the tropes it laments against

    There are certainly credible and cogent arguments to the contrary, such as those stating that a weakened Russia simply won’t have the wherewithal to attack NATO anytime soon, whether it wins or loses, and that Putin’s forces are clearly no match for sophisticated, well-equipped Western armies.

    • DamarcusArt
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      3 months ago

      sophisticated

      They always sooner or later let slip that they think about this conflict the same way a Brit did about the Zulu wars a century and a half ago. It’s always “civilisation vs the savages” to them.

  • PolandIsAStateOfMind
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    3 months ago

    or will we find, at times, we allowed our sympathy for the Ukrainian cause to overlook matters we shouldn’t?

    When dust settles there will be no sympathy for Ukrainians anymore. They will be again relegated to the “subhuman asiatic horde” exactly like Chechens were. And it could be even worse, millions of Ukrainians are currently working and living in EU and a lot of them will not get back after the war ends. They will inevitably be used by USA and their European compradors as scapegoat in possibly hugest immigrant scare campaign possible in order of destabilise and vassalise EU even more.