Ukraine: The Latest is a podcast by the Telegraph, and frequently features reporters returning from on-the-ground or actually on-the-ground. I’ve always found it informative. Until the Russians overran Mariupol, Patrick Lancaster reported live from there. He’s now embedded with the Russian forces that he favors, and still reporting live.
A Reporter with expertise, who knows how to analyze footage from a military perspective might have a good deal more useful information than an “on-the-ground” correspondent. Nothing should be discounted out of hand.
“This is why nobody with any sense believes any of the propaganda being spewed forth from either side.”
The thing to do is to glean the truth from the propaganda, because even a lie has to have some basis in truth, or it would not be believable. That’s what Goebbels and CNN didn’t get. Find the kernel of truth and you can then explode the lie built on that kernel.
Thanks for the FReepsplain, but I learned that as a teenager when we were stationed in the DC area and my parents told me that about how to discern what the WaPo was spewing.
I also spent several years in a war zone and watched the media twist, distort and outright lie sometimes about what was really happening. On one mission, I lived and worked very close to the Palestine Hotel near Firdos Sqare on the banks of the Tigris in Baghdad, where a majority of the U.S. media was posted. I was on that gig for a year.
DHL’s offices were in the lobby of that hotel and as the Procurement Manager on the CIVPOL Program, I had to occasionally walk over there to sign an update to our contract or work out a wrinkle.
One mid-morning, one of my employees, a couple of security guys and I approached the Palestine Hotel and all of the reporters were lined up outside the front door with their cameramen lined up across from them. They were all neatly spaced about 5 or 6 feet apart. There were CNN, Fox, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC and a couple of others. It was coming up on prime evening news time in the U.S., so we knew they were setting up for their live feeds. This was in ‘06 when things were still pretty crazy.
Being the smartass that I can be, I said, “What’s with all the press? Is something going on?” and was pleased to elicit a few chuckles from the newsies.
So I learned that day why the same blue mosque was always behind the reporters regardless of the network and why you could sometimes hear faint voices in the background of the reports.
I watched the news on AFN pretty much daily and was often disgusted at some of the spin they put on the actual events. Some were worse than others, of course.
So, I do have some knowledge on the subjects of news reporting vs reality and this is why I don’t trust the reports from the Ukrainian or the Russian side here. If the guys on the ground in Baghdad were spinning the daylights out of things, I imagine it’s only worse with people reporting from far-flung regions.