Free Republic

Vladimir Putin uses an invisible army of social media propagandists, in addition to conventional media, to support his narrative of an out-of-control Ukraine, to spread fabrications of atrocities by Ukrainian extremists, and to unleash destabilizing rumors on east Ukraine. If Ukraine unmasks the myths of Russia’s disinformation war, Putin’s target audiences, at home and abroad, must eventually reject his whole narrative. [....] This photo circulated unquestioned, until the KyivPost (See: Moscow journalist says there was no pregnant woman in Odessa Trade Unions Building) reported its debunking by a media reviewer from Moscow, Elena Rybkovtseva. In her investigation, Rybkovtseva began with...

This administration enjoys an advantage afforded no other: a partisan media that has its back, minute-by-minute. When Jay Carney was grilled at length by Jonathan Karl of ABC News over an email outlining administration talking points in the wake of the 2012 Benghazi attack, it was not, by the reckoning of many observers, the White House press secretary's finest hour. Carney was alternately defensive and dismissive, arguably fueling a bonfire he was trying to tamp down. But Carney needn't have worried. He had plenty of backup. He had The New Republic's Brian Beutler dismissing Benghazi as "nonsense." He had Slate's...

Ladies and gentlemen, good evening.It is one of life’s verities — as the “narratives” of the fourth estate rarely fail to remind us — that journalists tend to regard themselves as the guardians and escorts of civic progress and virtue. Thus freighted with a higher mission than most, they are naturally tempted to insert themselves right into the middle of the nation’s political debates. The more consequential, the better. That may go some distance toward explaining the mess we are in these days.But for all the power of the pen, the keyboard, the microphone, and the TV cameras, it’s...

Here’s an unsolicited tip for Rep. Trey Gowdy: A smoking gun explanation for the Obama Administration’s use of false talking points has already been found. And the culprit is not a White House adviser or State Department bureaucrat. It’s the intelligence community’s reliance on the media. It’s tucked inside the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on Benghazi, which reveals a key source of the bad intelligence that made it into Ambassador Susan Rice’s famous talking points: the media incorrectly reported that before the attack on Sept. 11, 2012 there were protests outside the U.S. facilities in Benghazi when there...

House Speaker John Boehner would not say Thursday if the House GOP’s campaign arm should stop including the Benghazi attacks in fundraising appeals. Asked three times whether the National Republican Congressional Committee should be fundraising based on what they call Democratic obstruction of the Benghazi investigation, Boehner answered only: “Our focus is on getting the answers to those families who lost their loved ones. Period.” An NRCC email sent Wednesday morning included a link to “become a Benghazi watchdog” – which led to a page where supporters can donate cash. A separate website called “BenghaziWatchdogs.com” still contains a link encouraging...

Do you think Fox News is the only network that wants the Obama administration to come clean on its numerous scandals? Think again. Here are five non-Fox News journalists who are demanding answers. 1. Sharyl Attkisson Sharyl Attkisson, an award-winning investigative journalist, used to work at CBS News. When she used her talents to spotlight idiosyncrasies in the Obama administration, Attkisson claims, the network showed little interest. After being unable to pursue the "Obamacare," Fast and Furious and Benghazi scandals at the network, Attkisson chose to resign in March. In an April 20 interview with CNN's "Reliable Sources," she accused...

Andrei Kondrashov is one of 300 media professionals awarded by Russian President Vladimir Putin for their "objective" coverage of events in Crimea. Speaking to RFE/RL in Moscow, Russian state television's leading news anchor defended his award and said he saw no difference between journalism and propaganda. (RFE/RL's Russian Service) [Video]

News broke Monday that President Vladimir Putin issued a decree in April honoring more than 300 journalists for their objective coverage of the events that have unfolded in Crimea. [....] Among the reported recipients of the "For Service to the Fatherland" award were talk show host Arkady Mamontov and RT's chief editor Margarita Simonyan. [....] “These awards show that Russia's political system works on the basis of informal rules and signals. If someone does not receive such an award, this could be interpreted as a sign of disgrace,” Gatov said by phone.

A year after announcing a world record for crowdfunding for journalism, the editor-in-chief and publisher of De Correspondent shared their thoughts and lessons on start-up journalism.Last April, Rob Wijnberg and Ernst-Jan Pfauth raised $1.7 million in crowdfunding for De Correspondent, a new, online-only publication The idea was to go from 'the news' to 'the new'," said Wijnberg, De Correspondent's editor-in-chief, who was previously editor-in-chief of nrc.next. He and Pfauth, publisher of De Correspondent and former online editor of nrc.next, said they had tried to change the direction of their previous publication and failed. Instead, they took the ideas they had...

... Obama is suffering from a shortage of successes. Whatever he's doing, it isn't working. Russia is still threatening Ukraine. Syria is still mired in bloodshed. Secretary of State John F. Kerry's thankless mediation between Israelis and Palestinians seems doomed. But wait a minute. This is a president who used to say we could swing for the fences. We could repair America's relationships with its allies, enjoy a "reset" with Russia, embrace the Muslim world and make peace just about everywhere. The failures call to mind the question a famous Alaskan foreign policy analyst once asked: "How's that hopey-changey thing...

THERE has been a festival of commentary of late bemoaning the pusillanimous foreign policy of President Obama. If only we had a president who rode horses shirtless, wrestled a tiger or took a bite out of a neighboring country, we’d all feel much safer. Your Honor, I rise in — partial — defense of Mr. Obama. Let me start by asking a question I’ve asked about other countries: Is American foreign policy today the way it is because Obama is the way he is (cerebral, cautious, dispassionate) or is Obama the way Obama is on foreign policy because America is...

Two years after winning an election in which foreign policy was barely mentioned, President Obama is being pummeled at home and abroad for his international leadership. The world sometimes seems as if it is flying apart, with Mr. Obama unable to fix it. Through a combination of a few significant missteps, circumstances beyond his control, unreasonable expectations and his maddeningly bland demeanor, Mr. Obama has opened himself to criticism that he is not articulating a strong, overarching blueprint for the exercise of American power and has not been able to bend authoritarian leaders to his will. Still, too often, Mr....

WASHINGTON -- Even though their key charges have been refuted - some by their own members - House Republicans announced Friday they’ll seek to form a select committee to investigate the 2012 terrorist attacks on the U.S. mission and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya, trying anew to reap political gains in advance of this year’s congressional elections and the 2016 presidential contest.

rom the living room of Barry Diller’s Manhattan apartment in the Carlyle Hotel, it is possible, on a clear day, to see the Midtown skyline, where the Condé Nast building rises like a ziggurat from the Gilded Age of magazine journalism. The view was an appropriate one for a man who in the autumn of 2010 was about to pour millions of dollars into the dead tree business. Diller runs IAC, a portfolio of Internet companies that includes Match.com, OkCupid and Vimeo. His tolerance for risk is such that his friend David Geffen once described the fireplug of a billionaire...

The U.S. economy nearly stalled in the first quarter as weakness overseas hurt exports and frigid weather curtailed business investment. While the latest figures are "certainly eye catching, we do not find it to be representative of the underlying health of the U.S. economy," said Richard Moody, chief economist at Regions Financial Corp. "Anyone tempted to panic ... should just take a breath." The latest numbers continue a familiar pattern. The nation's economic recovery, which started in mid-2009, has been marked as much for its choppiness as its slow pace.

While the dynamic in the White House press briefing room has changed drastically from the days when minority reporters were barred, the level of diversity among reporters who cover the presidency still doesn’t reflect the makeup of the country as a whole, a panel of current and former Washington journalists said Monday. Print and television news outlets can do more to attract journalists of color to the field of political reporting and ensure that a range of perspectives is represented in the White House press corps. The importance of diversity as a means of fostering more comprehensive political reporting, rather...

The politics of Obamacare are clearly starting to shift. It’s not that the public is coming to love it — not yet, anyway. But it’s less and less of a bogeyman, with polls suggesting a majority of the public against flat-out repeal. So there’s increasing pressure on Republicans to lay out an alternative — and continuing surprise about their inability to articulate one. But this is an example of why it sometimes helps, even in straight political reporting, to understand how policy works. Here’s the essential fact about health care policy, which in turn fundamentally shapes health care politics: Obamacare...

The U.S. Justice Department on Monday said it will begin collecting data on stops, searches and arrests made in five U.S. cities to weed out possible racial biases within the criminal justice system. Attorney General Eric Holder said the data collection effort is in response to President Barack Obama's call for better relations between law enforcement and young men of color following the "not guilty" verdict in the shooting death of black Florida teen Trayvon Martin.

Opinions about Obamacare are improving even in congressional districts held by Republicans, according to a new poll. But opponents of the Affordable Care Act in those districts still outnumber those in favor of the law. The poll may draw fire from Republicans since it was conducted by a Democratic firm, Democracy Corps. The firm did not comment about how Republicans might view the results, and a representative said there would be a call to discuss the poll Monday afternoon. But attitudes about President Barack Obama’s signature health law are changing, according to the poll, which was shared in advance with...

The National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People announced Sunday that Donald Sterling will not receive an honor amid controversy over a recording said to be of the Clippers team owner making racist remarks. The Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP had been scheduled to give Sterling the group's lifetime achievement award at its May 15 banquet. At the banquet, the NAACP also planned to give its first "person of the year" awards to L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti and the Rev. Al Sharpton.