Robert Parry: Wretched US Journalism on Ukraine

[Karmadillo]

https://consortiumnews.com/2015/02/09/wretched-us-journalism-on-ukraine/

Wretched US Journalism on Ukraine
February 9, 2015

Exclusive: The U.S. news media has failed the American people often in recent years by not challenging U.S. government falsehoods, as with Iraq’s WMD. But the most dangerous violation of journalistic principles has occurred in the Ukraine crisis, which has the potential of a nuclear war, writes Robert Parry.

By Robert Parry

A basic rule of journalism is that there are almost always two sides to a story and that journalists should try to reflect that reality, a principle that is especially important when lives are at stake amid war fevers. Yet, American journalism has failed miserably in this regard during the Ukraine crisis.

With very few exceptions, the mainstream U.S. media has simply regurgitated the propaganda from the U.S. State Department and other entities favoring western Ukrainians. There has been little effort to view the worsening crisis through the eyes of ethnic Russian Ukrainians living in the east or the Russians witnessing a political and humanitarian crisis on their border.

?f0ee9e

Frankly, I cannot recall any previous situation in which the U.S. media has been more biased – across the board – than on Ukraine. Not even the “group think” around Iraq’s non-existent WMDs was as single-minded as this, with the U.S. media perspective on Ukraine almost always from the point of view of the western Ukrainians who led the overthrow of elected President Viktor Yanukovych, whose political base was in the east.

So, what might appear to an objective observer as a civil war between western Ukrainians, including the neo-Nazis who spearheaded last year’s coup against Yanukovych, and eastern Ukrainians, who refused to accept the anti-Yanukovych order that followed the coup, has been transformed by the U.S. news media into a confrontation between the forces of good (the western Ukrainians) and the forces of evil (the eastern Ukrainians) with an overlay of “Russian aggression” as Russian President Vladimir Putin is depicted as a new Hitler.

Though the horrific bloodshed – more than 5,000 dead – has been inflicted overwhelmingly on the ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine by the forces from western Ukraine, the killing is routinely blamed on either the eastern Ukrainian rebels or Putin for allegedly fomenting the trouble in the first place (though there is no evidence that he did, as even former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger has acknowledged.)

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[grasswire]

1. kick for Robert Parry

'Nuff said.

[Ramses]

2. Another excellent article

Thank you

[newfie11]

3. Thank you!!!

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

4. In war, truth is the first casualty. Aeschylus

[NuclearDem]

5. Speaking of wretched journalism on Ukraine...

[Duckhunter935]

6. yep

[Tommy_Carcetti]

7. Parry uses the word "coup" eight times in that article.

But you know, he wants us all to be aware of, like, propaganda and stuff.

[Duckhunter935]

8. yes no bias there

[pampango]

14. "If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it

yourself. "

[JonLP24]

17. It is so obvious that it was a coup

The President after being elected wanted "early elections" for Parliament before the term limit was up which preventing parts of the country from voting, turnout was low 32% in parts they could & from what the report said on exit polls most felt there wasn't a candidate or party that represented their interest. Then the Parliament voted the Prime Minister out of office and the same President dismissed 5 Constitutional Court judges for violating their "oaths".

The guy that was kicked was certainly corrupt but so are the people kicking him out. The country is rated as the "most corrupt in Europe" a kleptocracy and a lot of the key figures in the current government are very wealthy and/or very successful in the oil & gas business but he was kept out for continuing trade relations with Russia while not gungho in joining NATO. He actually seemed to indicate he would go with the "Euromaiden's" demands until before the coup d'é·tat when a smoke bomb was thrown into the room when he signed an extension on the treaty with Russia. Basically, Euromaiden side of the divide want to cut Russia out which is something most other European countries aren't willing to do especially regarding their natural gas.

On edit -- I very clueless regarding what is acceptable or what isn't regarding politics in Ukraine from the people's POV but more than a few reports the vote to remove him fell short of the 70% required by either the 1996 or the 2004 Consitution (there is also an issue regarding which one is in effect but both have the 70% thing and also little background is avaliable regarding the dismissal of Constitutional Court judges but could you imagine Republicans voting out Obama & dismissing Supreme Court judges for "oath violations" if they refused to go along. Just apply that, it is obvious what it is. It isn't easily explained by the other members have more integrity because there are too many too count Obligarchs in the new government or who are influential to those in charge (a lot of them don't even live in Ukraine--Switzerland appeared to be the most common of those).

[Tommy_Carcetti]

21. Here's the thing about the vote to remove Yanukovych and the threshold.

The Yanukovych situation was extraordinary and not necessarily contemplated by the constitution. The removal vote was for more typically contemplated scenarios, i.e. the "high crimes and misdemeanors" type of impeachment we have here in the US.

This was not your typical impeachment scenario, however. Yanukovych had fled Kiev. And this wasn't just a business trip Yanokovych was on--he had packed up his things and apparently the capital left for good. As far as I would know, a president cannot unilaterally change the location of the nation's capital. So if it were Yanukovych's stated intention to govern from, say, Donetsk, he couldn't just do so on his own accord while parliament continued to do business in Kiev.

So what Ukraine was facing was an absentee president, and as a result, a gaping power vacuum. That's why parliament took up the issue almost immediately. And it bears further nothing that the issues with the numbers of the removal vote are not with the margin of voting (the vote was 380-0). The only questions were a matter of procedure, as some of Yanukovych's allies either boycotted the vote, or they themselves had left the capital. (It should be noted that 36 members of Yanukovych's own party did vote to remove him.) And given that there were 450 total seats in parliament and assuming every abstention would have voted "no" on removal, there would still be an overwhelming vote to remove by an 84% margin.

The main procedural issues with the removal that I can see is that removal under the constitution appears to have required a drawn out process of impeachment before the final vote is had. However, again, that's figuring in "normal" circumstances, not emergency ones. If, say, Yanukovych had merely been charged with corruption or some other impeachable offense and he had stayed in Kiev, and the next day the parliament voted to remove without going through normal impeachment measures, there would a much more pressing concern. But that's not what happened. Because Yanukovych had fled Kiev--and very shortly thereafter, the entire country--there was a power vacuum issue that needed to be addressed.

[Duckhunter935]

26. Thank you for a very good explanation

This is never told by the Putin side. I like the part where it took several days for him to have the movers come in and wrap and pack his more precious belongings. He then flew out at night and left the office unoccupied. Even his supporters were confused as there was no no one to give orders as the President. The Rad relieved him and put in a place holder until new elections could be held in 90 days. They were and were found to meet all international norms. They were observed by hundreds of international observers and were found to be free and fair. The only problems were mainly in the east where the "pro-Russians" threatened poll workers and voters and destroyed voting equipment.

[nashville_brook]

9. k and r

[SidDithers]

10. ...

Pot meet kettle.

Sid

[MattSh]

13. ...

[Tommy_Carcetti]

20. I think the OP forgot an "is" in the post title. nt

[Cayenne]

11. Bah, Putinista propaganda!

[reorg]

12. well, CNN recently adjusted certain labels

or maybe it was just sort of a Freudian slip?

[reddread]

15. practice makes perfect

all the nationalized media required was a compliant client base who pay for their information regardless of veracity.

[JonLP24]

16. I'm glad he mentions this

For this & ISIS resolution (how many more migrant workers are going to be exploited?--is one of the real world results I see).

I hope in an Ukraine thread and a lot of the "Putin apologist" over claims that are mostly true which you can find Western reporting similar issues. Ukraine is the most corrupt European state. Verifiable IMF extortion and you can read Shock Doctrine for detailed reporting on IMF history in the type of economic policies which are required in exchange which has mostly been crash & burn a few people became very rich. I just end up getting sucked in, being insulted & hiding from my "My Posts" tab but here I go again.

On the media issue. It is by far the worst I ever seen. (I remember Al Jazeera was basically treated as obvious propaganda but even the truth makes American foreign policy look bad--I wish people knew more of it before jumping a war which assumes every single soldier & leader will show honor, respect, integrity etc though a lot of people in this country practically wouldn't care if we dropped a nuke anywhere over there except maybe Israel. It is a lot like the media here after running up to Iraq war 2002-2003. I remember watching Phil Donaghue's last TV show on MSNBC, getting fire for basically being an anti-war media personality. I actually watched A LOT of C-SPAN and The Daily Show those years. I have never watched C-SPAN as much as I did in those years. But this is 100,000x worse.

You notice all over the world the reporting is very biased. 60% of Germans that were polled said they didn't trust their own media's reporting regarding Ukraine in comparison, such as an auto-strike--30-40% of Germans didn't trust the reporting.

I watched a VICE episode though not all the way to the end but the VICE crew is there trying to find out exactly who shoot the airplane down in Eastern Ukraine and what known facts are. Both sides immediately blamed the other but the wreckage was left there un investigated for weeks (there were also battles taking place there as well). There was this man & you have no idea where he stands on this or that, he basically hits all the middle-aged working man stereotypes. Driving a truck during the daytime, flannel, nothing flashy but he says he hopes they found out whoever did it & prosecute him but they way it was said he didn't clearly rule out Ukraine shooting down the plane.

The thing that sucks isn't Russia looking bad or this or that regarding who are the good guys. It is that there is a significant share of the population living in a kleptocracy legitimately upset with. Western media mentions the guy that was kicked out was corrupt but they fail to mention (omission is one of the biggest tactics in propaganda, lying, manipulation, etc). Also media & targeted from both sides, a lot of what Ukraine does is quickly blame Russia for the atrocities when some of them actually were actually them. They were also quick to blame Russian media for this so they banned RT & others as well as attacked reporters but clearly there is an information war going on. Very obvious, Ukraine blames "Russian propaganda" right away & play that note over and over but it is also convenient since honest reporting would detail how very corrupt it is overall & the marginalizing & discrimination of minorities that go on there.

The media should be out there explaining context, the grudges & resentments that date back way before WW II, the territory disputes, etc but no they very narrowly focus on a bad guy much like they did with Saddam.

[woo me with science]

18. K&R

[jeff47]

19. Hey Robert? Where's that proof that the US shot down the airliner?

You said it was coming soon.........

[sabrina 1]

22. Another excellent article by Parry.

I eg, have read here that it is Eastern Ukr who are 'killing Ukrainians'. Totally ignoring the FACT that there are no military invaders from Eastern Ukr. attacking Kiev or any other region in that country.

Kiev however, sent the Ukr Military to attack the Eastern region of the country because they didn't want their country to be ENSLAVED to the IMF.

The first aggressive move from the Coup Govt was to BAN the language of the people of Eastern Ukr. The first and obvious step in the intention to bully and oppress them into acceptance of that enslavement.

Crimeans read the writing on the wall after that and sought protection by voting to annex themselves to Russia. Watching what is happening now, proves how smart a move that was.

Our media is nothing but a propaganda arm of the MIC, and the neocons who push for war.

[woo me with science]

23. kick

[bvar22]

24. DURec for Robert Parry, one of the best.

But my point is that American journalists should not be U.S. government propagandists. Their job is not to herd the American people into some “group think” corral. A good journalist would want to present the positions of both sides with some evenhandedness.

Yet, that is not what we have witnessed from the U.S. news media on the Ukraine crisis. It has been nearly all propaganda nearly all of the time. That is not only a disservice to the American people and to the democratic precept about an informed electorate. It is a reckless violation of professional principles that has helped lurch the world toward a potential nuclear conflagration.


(quoted from linked article which I encourage everyone to read whether or not you like Parry.)

[woo me with science]

28. ^^^^^^^^^^^^

[NuttyFluffers]

25. :) good read!

thanks! kick

[Octafish]

27. War Party Rules

Remember that "Scripted Press Conference" on the eve of the Iraq invasion?



Zombie Toadies, every one in the White House Press Corpse who participated.

http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a030603pressscripted&scale=0#a030603pressscripted

[malaise]

29. But but but

Brian Williams lied



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