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Bradley Wilson
Bradley Wilson
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The way the Western press reports on Ukraine is not very objective despite not telling outright lies the Russian state controlled media is guilty of. What goes wrong with the Western media is that it chooses to report on only some issues, so this is then more a problem a problem of "reporting half truths" instead of reporting outright lies. So, by only reporting about the military aspects of the Ukraine crisis, many core issues of the problem are almost totally ignored.

E.g. in a big BBC report of a few days ago, only a few sentences were devoted to the fact that in a village that has been held by rebels for quite a while, most people are not loyal to Kiev, while the population used to be split 50-50 between pro-Kiev and pro-Russia sides. This is highly relevant for the dynamics of the conflicconflict, yet almost totally ignored.

So, it is possible to effectively tell lies by only telling truths, and the Western media are masters at doing that. But how can that happen if the media is free? The answer is that it happens because the media is too free. What is printed in the press is dictated too much by what people want to read about. After all, the primary objective is to sell newspapers. Sensational stories will drown out other stories, leading straight to the half truth problem.

The way the Western press reports on Ukraine is not very objective despite not telling outright lies the Russian state controlled media is guilty of. What goes wrong with the Western media is that it chooses to report on only some issues, so this is then more a problem a problem of "reporting half truths" instead of reporting outright lies. So, by only reporting about the military aspects of the Ukraine crisis, many core issues of the problem are almost totally ignored.

E.g. in a big BBC report of a few days ago, only a few sentences were devoted to the fact that in a village that has been held by rebels for quite a while, most people are not loyal to Kiev, while the population used to be split 50-50 between pro-Kiev and pro-Russia sides. This is highly relevant for the dynamics of the conflic, yet almost totally ignored.

So, it is possible to effectively tell lies by only telling truths, and the Western media are masters at doing that. But how can that happen if the media is free? The answer is that it happens because the media is too free. What is printed in the press is dictated too much by what people want to read about. After all, the primary objective is to sell newspapers. Sensational stories will drown out other stories, leading straight to the half truth problem.

The way the Western press reports on Ukraine is not very objective despite not telling outright lies the Russian state controlled media is guilty of. What goes wrong with the Western media is that it chooses to report on only some issues, so this is then more a problem a problem of "reporting half truths" instead of reporting outright lies. So, by only reporting about the military aspects of the Ukraine crisis, many core issues of the problem are almost totally ignored.

E.g. in a big BBC report of a few days ago, only a few sentences were devoted to the fact that in a village that has been held by rebels for quite a while, most people are not loyal to Kiev, while the population used to be split 50-50 between pro-Kiev and pro-Russia sides. This is highly relevant for the dynamics of the conflict, yet almost totally ignored.

So, it is possible to effectively tell lies by only telling truths, and the Western media are masters at doing that. But how can that happen if the media is free? The answer is that it happens because the media is too free. What is printed in the press is dictated too much by what people want to read about. After all, the primary objective is to sell newspapers. Sensational stories will drown out other stories, leading straight to the half truth problem.

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Count Iblis
Count Iblis
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The way the Western press reports on Ukraine is not very objective despite not telling outright lies the Russian state controlled media is guilty of. What goes wrong with the Western media is that it chooses to report on only some issues, so this is then more a problem a problem of "reporting half truths" instead of reporting outright lies. So, by only reporting about the military aspects of the Ukraine crisis, many core issues of the problem are almost totally ignored.

E.g. in a big BBC report of a few days ago, only a few sentences were devoted to the fact that in a village that has been held by rebels for quite a while, most people are not loyal to Kiev, while the population used to be split 50-50 between pro-Kiev and pro-Russia sides. This is highly relevant for the dynamics of the conflic, yet almost totally ignored.

So, it is possible to effectively tell lies by only telling truths, and the Western media are masters at doing that. But how can that happen if the media is free? The answer is that it happens because the media is too free. What is printed in the press is dictated too much by what people want to read about. After all, the primary objective is to sell newspapers. Sensational stories will drown out other stories, leading straight to the half truth problem.