Contradicting the 'West' bashing | 42 comments (42 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

You may need to edit the whole thing just because of copyright issues. I don't know.

I can only speak for myself on the issue. I mostly (unless someone prompts me to read a particular article in French or Russian or translates it here) only read/see/hear English language news outlets. Personally, it is NPR on the radio, flip through the local news and the BBC on TV and everything I can get my hands on online. I probably take in more news than the av. person, or maybe I actually listen/read critically instead of just absorbing it. But I swear, regardless of my position on Russia, from Thursday on, there was a constant, I mean, unending barrage of fearmongering, one-sided (regardless who you blame for the conflict, you should at least be able to hear the position of both sides) news about Russia's invasion of Georgia.

This has begun to change in the past few days, as more actual information reaches more people, as people have calmed down a bit. Immediately, most people here were getting their news from places like CNN, NPR, etc. which specializing in this "the second it happens" reporting. It took a while for the voices in the wilderness to get some air time, for people to want to listen to academics and specialists and not the reporter in Gori talking about bombs. Last night and today cooler heads seem to be prevailing.

I am glad this was not the case where you live. That was the case here. Here it was for many days a fact that "the Western press would unanimously condemn Russia and generally ascribe Putin as 'evil' compared to the 'good' west." I will call it the "English language press," though. Because it was not just America. The BBC was pretty shameless.

I don't think anyone has ANYTHING to gain by inventing the issue of anti-Russia propaganda in the press. Nor, of course, is every critical thing written "propaganda." But it's there, and from my perspective, it was in force, more so than I can ever recall having seen before. It was pretty ugly.

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

by poemless on Thu Aug 14th, 2008 at 04:40:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Politik des (none / 1)

poemless:

The BBC was pretty shameless.

I have no illusions about BBC impartiality - the party line is reliably Atlanticist.

But even so - yes, shameless.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Thu Aug 14th, 2008 at 05:21:56 PM EST
[ Parent ]

some exceptions (4.00 / 2)

poemless: But I swear, regardless of my position on Russia, from Thursday on, there was a constant, I mean, unending barrage of fearmongering, one-sided (regardless who you blame for the conflict, you should at least be able to hear the position of both sides) news about Russia's invasion of Georgia.

that's what i hear as well.

nevertheless, as i am sure you have noted, Worldview is providing relatively nuanced and informative coverage.

i am not following NPR itself, but if in fact there coverage is also as one-sided as the mainstream media, that is really a tragedy, but i would not automatically pin that on an inherent bias or anti-Russian agenda, but more likely a lack of access to on the ground information and non-English media. (am i being too charitable? i really hope not.)

Cynicism is intellectual treason.

by marco on Thu Aug 14th, 2008 at 08:29:40 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: some exceptions (none / 1)

just saw you already posted that Worldview episode.

Cynicism is intellectual treason.

by marco on Fri Aug 15th, 2008 at 03:02:35 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: some exceptions (none / 0)

Worldview is great - but it is the exception to the rule.

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

by poemless on Fri Aug 15th, 2008 at 10:52:31 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Politik des (4.00 / 3)

I was personally disturbed at the almost total lack of coverage on the role of Georgia in initiating this debacle. I had not seen any myself and I had to go back and search inside individual newspapers to find such articles. That was the reason for my posts in the Wed. Open Thread:

And the press goes jingo, jango jingo...
Critical background comes rather late:

Right at the point where the population of a democracy most needs solid information, the media falls into stunned silence. When NATIONAL SECURITY is raised as an issue, apparently it it time for mass media self-lobotomy. That now includes the national programs of NPR. I was glad for the link to the Chicago PBS interview by poemless. I expect that KCRW in Los Angeles as well as Pacifica radio outlets had better coverage. Pacifica has no real budget, but at least has people who know how to search and dig. Nor are they afraid to air critical views at times of danger.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Thu Aug 14th, 2008 at 09:32:17 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Politik des (4.00 / 4)

I disagree. It has been very clear from most news sources I've seen and read that Georgia initiated the violence by invading Ossetia and brutally bombarding and levelling the capital city causing a large number of civilian casualties. It is also true, from my perspective, that there was very limited coverage of the Georgian incursion and its immediate aftermath vs. the Russian counter invasion. This could be (don't know for a fact) because the Georgian attack was a surprise to the press while the Russian action was not given the progression of events over time. The other aspect of this was that the Georgian perspective was loudly proclaimed via interviews of Saakashvili and other Georgian Government officials by the Western press. The Georgian Govt had a message to get out and the press was very accommodating. However, I heard the Saakashvili interview and frankly thought he was lying rather unconvincingly. For someone listening with interest, I doubt he did much for the Georgian side. The sad fact, however, is that most American could care less about this whole affair.

On the other hand, the portrayal of Russia as expecting the Georgia attack and as having a long and well planned response I find credible and logical. The Russians are not guiltless in this whole thing, so it is entirely within reason that they also receive their lumps in the press.

The NATO split is understandable considering that Western Europe is almost entirely dependent upon Russia for energy needs - so it likely to prefer soft talking diplomacy and less aggressive action. Eastern European countries have had decades of experience with Russian bullying so they are scared to death. Mind you, I don't believe World War III is quite the right answer either. I have always felt that isolating Russia outside of NATO and surrounding it with NATO allied countries is a lousy strategy bound to cause this kind of trouble eventually.

All in all I pretty much got what I expected from the press so it wasn't particularly egregious. Maybe I've just become jaded.

I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell. _ Blood Sweat & Tears

by Gringo (stargazing camel at aoldotcom) on Thu Aug 14th, 2008 at 10:38:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Politik des (4.00 / 4)

I am concentrating on the US press coverage and portrayal of the conflict. The LA Times, which I have read for 40 years and now follow on the web, had one article on Saturday, Aug 9, that first mentioned in the fourth paragraph that Georgia had invaded South Ossetia before Russia sent in the tanks. I found an AP article on Aug 9 from the Houston Chronicle, which I sometimes monitor, that describes Georgia's role in "trying to seize" South Ossetia, and there is the article from the NYT I cited. Nothing appeared in the Arkansas Democrat Gazette.

By Sunday and Monday, when the situation was starting to get serious, I don't recall any mention of the role of Georgia in starting the conflict. It is all Russian aggression against Georgia. Not until mid-week did I see critical coverage of the role that the Bush Administration and John McCain had played in encouraging Georgia. And still the preponderance of the coverage seems to be on Russia's actions. There is a lot more condemnation of Russia's "disporportionate" response than there is to that to which what they were responding.

First impressions can be lasting. I suspect that not many US citizens became aware of the situation until Sunday or later. By that time their first impressions didn't likely include the fact that Georgia set off this round of trouble.

The neo-cons schemes blow up in their faces, they are shown by the facts to be incompetent and impotent and yet they are not called on it. It seems to me that what coverage there was of Georgia's role was the minimum possible so that US news organizations could say: "well, we did cover it." That is not good enough for me.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Thu Aug 14th, 2008 at 11:23:23 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Politik des (4.00 / 5)

The NATO split is understandable considering that Western Europe is almost entirely dependent upon Russia for energy needs - so it likely to prefer soft talking diplomacy and less aggressive action.

This is a common misconception in the US.

Western Europe has been taking a soft approach towards Russia for decades, and you should read up about de Gaulle's France not systematically pointing its missiles at the USSR, or Willy Brandt's "Ostpolitik". That was in the 60s, for God's sake, way before Russia would sell us any energy.

It's just not written in stone that Russia should be fenced off, and we have learnt over centuries that playing the bully just does not pay in the long run - and this, the US public and politicians will eventually learn it as well.

It's just too bad they cause so much misery in the meantime.

by balbuz on Fri Aug 15th, 2008 at 01:37:03 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Politik des (none / 0)

And of course, just to make sure, the US forces its missiles down our throat.

My personal view is that today's Russia would be a far more natural, reliable and peaceful partner than the US, which are just bad news, whatever they do and where ever they go on the world stage.

by balbuz on Fri Aug 15th, 2008 at 06:19:26 AM EST
[ Parent ]

dependent on Russia (4.00 / 6)

Western Europe is almost entirely dependent upon Russia for energy needs

This is simply not true. Russia currently provides 25% of Europe's gas imports (which themselves represent about half its consumption)(note that the numbers can change significantly depending on whether you count Norway as in "Europe" or not, as it is not in the EU) and probably a smaller fraction of its oil.

The gas is a bilateral inter-dependency relationship, which had been stable for the past 40 years (until London started interfering).

Oil is a global market and Russia is only one potentially unfriendly supplier out of many.

Worries about energy dependency tend to look at future trends, whereby oil and especially gas demand goes up while domestic supply shrinks and Russian exports are expected to fill in the difference. So dependency might become an issue only if we continue our (insane) current policies.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

by Jerome a Paris (etg@eurotrib.com) on Fri Aug 15th, 2008 at 06:59:13 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Politik des (none / 1)

Can you get Democracy Now on your local NPR or college radio station? It is an excellent alternative source of info, affiliated with Pacifica. We get it here in ultra-conservative Colorado Springs, so surely it's available where you are...

...After the Soviet Union dissolved, there remained areas in which, despite the fact that new states were created, there were tensions. One of those is the Ossetia or South Ossetia, which is where we've seen the fighting, and the other one, inside Georgia, is Abkhazia. There were agreements signed in the early 1990s that sort of solidified these as semi-independent territories. In one, there is a UN peacekeeping force, and then in South Ossetia, there is essentially independence, and, you know, they sort of ran their operations separate from the Georgian government.
And then, tensions began to increase over the past few months, because the president of Georgia has promised to retake--his words--retake the--particularly South Ossetia. That was a problem, because, by now, 90 percent of Ossetians there were holders of Russian passports. They had voted to become part of the Russian Federation. There was clear movement in the direction of this enclave, closer and closer ties with Russia...

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/11/up_to_2_000_killed_as

In Chicago:

Chicago WRTE 90.5 FM Noon M-F
Chicago WZRD 88.3 FM 7am & 8am Tues-F
Chicago WLUW 88.7 FM at Loyola University 9am M-F
Chicago CAN TV, Ch. 19 7am M-F

by asdf on Thu Aug 14th, 2008 at 10:52:57 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Politik des (none / 0)

We get it here in ultra-conservative Colorado Springs, so surely it's available where you are...

Thanks for the kind thought. I live in Mountain Home, Ar. I have no local NPR. The closest is through Missouri State University's repeater in West Plains, Mo and it gets drowned out by Christian Radio half the time and is fading in and out the rest of the time. My best receiver is in my Camry. In the house I have to listen via the internet. We are supposed to get a relay station when the switchover to digital is completed, but I doubt we will get Democracy Now, which I can listen to on KPFA or KPFK, via the web. I probably should do pod casts.

But I don't worry so much about what I get. I have pretty robust bullshit detectors and reality distortion deconvolvers. The concerns I have been expressing go to what the US body politic has at their disposal for forming opinions and making decisions.

My biggest concern has been that this "adventure" would be used to raise the profile of NATIONAL SECURITY in the elections, to Obama's disadvantage. Surprisingly, it appears McCain could be vulnerable, if anyone drove home the reality of this fiasco. It looks like Move-On or other 521s will have to do the heavy lifting for his campaign on this, if it gets done

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."

by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Thu Aug 14th, 2008 at 11:38:05 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Politik des (none / 0)

There are an infinite number of good places for informed or alternative viewpoints out there. That's not the issue. The issue is those big-name, all-pervasive sources from which most people in the English speaking world get their news were neither informed or providing alternative viewpoints on this situation. I mean, I can hang out at Russian Live Journal blogs all day, listen to Pacifica and Worldview, but that doesn't excuse the fact that scored of well-paid influential journalists were not doing their jobs.

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

by poemless on Fri Aug 15th, 2008 at 10:59:08 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: Politik des (none / 0)

You may need to edit the whole thing just because of copyright issues. I don't know.

I don't know neither, but only linking, as usual when using a full article won't work for the English part. Of course I could remove the German...

Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den Menschen
Volker Pispers

by Martin (weiser.mensch(at)googlemail.com) on Fri Aug 15th, 2008 at 12:31:55 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Contradicting the 'West' bashing | 42 comments (42 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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