7 ms·

Spiegel and Guardian aren't part of a state-sponsored program with an explicit goal of destabilization. It's not difficult to understand & imagine what the dif

Spiegel and Guardian aren't part of a state-sponsored program with an explicit goal of destabilization. It's not difficult to understand & imagine what the difference is between both creating story lines & hyping / targeting those stories for maximum damage versus straight journalism. The US interferes with elections and those states combat those attempts. Other states interfere with US elections, and we must combat those attempts as well. Welcome to the game, not playing is not an option.

truxus 9y ago
Well put. Glad there are rational people in the discussion.
infodroid 9y ago
The problem in the case of the Twitter announcement is that it appears dishonest. RT/Sputnik were not the source of the fake news stories that marred the US election, and yet are taking the blame for it. While the real producers of fake news aren't mentioned and get a free pass: https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became-a-global-hub-for-pro-trump-misinfo https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became... https://www.wired.com/2017/02/veles-macedonia-fake-news/ https://www.wired.com/2017/02/veles-macedonia-fake-news/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38168281 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38168281
- nickbauman 9y ago
  RT/Sputnik is part of an integrated state propaganda machine which is indeed the source of the election interference. You cannot separate them.
  - grandalf 9y ago
    Yet somehow this "integrated state propaganda machine" manages to write better journalism about many issues of concern to the least powerful Americans than the American press. I don't disagree with your characterization, but I'd also characterize cable news, the NYT, WaPo, etc. that way. These big "news and entertainment" companies do not offer any meaningful political dissent whatsoever.
    - travmatt 9y ago
      And yet they don’t have journalists resigning and calling them propaganda, or resigning because they were assigned to leave the US and work in Crimea. There’s a clear difference when the journalists themselves can’t stomach what they are doing.
      - grandalf 9y ago
        Well, that's if you consider them to be journalists rather than actors and actresses. At least the ones on television have zero journalistic acumen.
        DonHopkins 9y ago
        Are you going to provide those specific examples of Rachel Maddow's Emmy-award-winning reporting on the Flynt water crisis being biased and inaccurate, and those specific examples of RT's coverage of the Flynt water crisis being unbiased and accurate? You're the one who demanded specific examples, but then failed to provide any yourself, after being asked repeatedly. What is your evidence that Rachel Maddow is an actress and not a journalist? What is your evidence that Rachel Maddow has zero journalistic acumen? Specific examples! By the way, have you looked up the definition of whataboutism yet, to which you have openly confessed of being guilty? It's not a "buzzword". It's not "juvenile". And it definitely doesn't mean "Counter-factual scenarios that reveal your opinion to be illogical and cherry-picked for some emotional reason" as you falsely claim. It's a logical fallacy particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda, comrade.
        travmatt 9y ago
        Distract/Deflect/Deny
        grandalf 9y ago
        I'm not sure if you are serious or if you are trolling. It is you who are making the claim that needs to be supported by evidence. Namely, this is the claim that RT's journalism is obviously sub-standard compared to US media/entertainment journalism. You also seem to be willfully misunderstanding why I brought up the Flint Water Crisis, which was simply to point out an example of the kind of embarrassing story that RT seems to focus on when reporting on US domestic issues. I brought up the Flint Water Crisis simply because it's one that most people are familiar with and the importance of journalistic coverage of the situation is obviously important to the democratic process. I don't think Rachel Maddow is relevant at all to this discussion. If her coverage of the Flint issue was exemplary, that's great. It is not germane to my use of the Flint example at all. The fact that you and most people are aware of the Flint Water Crisis is because it happens to be one of the rare stories like this that did get significant big media coverage. Thankfully, Maddow determined that covering the story would not alienate her advertisers! As for your dogged effort to keep this discussion about whataboutism and the minutia surrounding its definition, I have reviewed the definition and it seems to be relevant only to debates where there are two sides and one side uses the technique as a logical fallacy in an attempt to persuade or in order to distract from the truth of his opponent's argument. The remarks I made that led to my being accused of whataboutism were some questions I asked about scenarios that seem to me to warrant a similar approach to determining the harms/benefits of journalism. Please re-read that last sentence again several times as it is critically important to my point. I am not asking those parallel questions to distract attention from the claim you make that RT's reporting has caused destabilization, simply asking you to clarify (by applying your analytical approach to some similar scenarios) a more general rule for categorizing journalism as being harmful or helpful through the lens of political "stability" (a term which is highly loaded and rarely used without significant bias). I understand how the technique you describe as whataboutism is sometimes used in a persuasive argumentation scenario argued by two partisans. But in this case you are the only partisan. I consider the Russian government and the US government fairly morally similar, and I'm not interested in arguing the minutia of how the US is slightly better, because I don't disagree. My concern is whether RT helps or hurts the marketplace of ideas and the search for truth in the American political discourse, and my argument is that it helps in many obvious ways, while the specific harms that you and others claim exist cannot be supported by links to specific articles, etc. The many articles about embarrassing aspects of the US are very easy to find on RT, and I view those as helpful to American democracy rather than "destabilizing". Since you seem to be one who views "stability" as a good thing no matter what, I was hoping that you would clarify when journalism that can be perceive to create destabilization is good vs when it is bad. Your simplistic view seems to be that regardless of all other factors, if the journalism was done by a journalist whose salary is paid by a foreign government, the journalism is bad and unhelpful, no matter any other factors. But by this definition the VOA is also all bad and unhelpful, so I think it's a pretty useless definition. Again, since I think you might be trolling, I don't want to spend too much time trying to be thoughtful in my reply. In my view, propaganda is everywhere, and the reader must understand how to filter it from the truth. That is a core responsibility of citizenship. I'll often cross-reference NYT stories with a similar story in the Globe and Mail, since omissions are much more likely to stand out than when comparing the version found in the WSJ, which may cater to a different American political constituency.
gph 9y ago
Agreed, but I think what you call straight journalism has largely turned into creating & hyping story lines, especially outlets like the Guardian and equivalent sources on the right. It's not as egregious and they're motivated by money/views/prestige instead of destabilization to fulfill geopolitical goals. But the media (especially the infotainment outlets) can be fairly destabilizing and unhealthy in their own right. Russia was exploiting an environment that our media had already established and prepped for them.
- zzalpha 9y ago
  and they're motivated by money/views/prestige instead of destabilization to fulfill geopolitical goals. Exactly the point. Look, there's this thing in western jurisprudence called "mens rea". It's what differentiates, say, first degree murder from manslaughter. In this case, RT and Sputnik are clearly motivated by the desire to manipulate the US election. As you've already conceded, those other outlets are not. As a result, these represent different acts, and therefore it is not unreasonable for them to warrant different responses.
wallace_f 9y ago
You're calling out RT for being state-run, but some of ours are almost just as bad. They just convinced you they aren't(1,2). And what you're suggesting is that Twitter take sides in this, support US propoganda and suppress others... How is this different than RT? Some are starting to talk about some of our mainstream journalists as belonging in a "special kind of journalistic hell(3)." 1-https://theintercept.com/2016/09/18/washpost-makes-history-first-paper-to-call-for-prosecution-of-its-own-source-after-accepting-pulitzer/ https://theintercept.com/2016/09/18/washpost-makes-history-f... 2-https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/exclusive-documents-expose-direct-us-military-intelligence-influence-on-1-800-movies-and-tv-shows-36433107c307 https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/exclusive-documents-... 3-https://www.salon.com/2016/09/20/betraying-snowden-theres-a-special-place-in-journalism-hell-for-the-washington-post-editorial-board/ https://www.salon.com/2016/09/20/betraying-snowden-theres-a-...
bostik 9y ago
> not playing is not an option What a strange game. The only move to win is to cheat.
grandalf 9y ago
> an explicit goal of destabilization. Please define the word destabilization. Does that mean changing the status quo? Would the NYT be guilty of destabilization if it published an expose revealing that officials in 20 US cities hid significant drinking water pollution from their citizens for years? Surely once published the article would destabilize politics in those cities significantly. Similarly, suppose the NYT published Donald Trump's taxes, revealing information that was likely to create a multi-year impeachment effort. Would that destabilize the US? It's hard to argue it would make things more stable. Did the NYT's publication of Judith Miller's reporting on Saddam's WMD that helped sell a war effort that killed and displaced millions of people and cost trillions of dollars cause "destabilization"? Newspapers are supposed to publish information that leads to political change. That is the point of having a free press, so that ideas can be shared that can be vetted by the public and acted upon to make society better.
- CalChris 9y ago
  Please define whataboutism.
  - grandalf 9y ago
    > whataboutism Counter-factual scenarios that reveal your opinion to be illogical and cherry-picked for some emotional reason? OK I'm guilty.
    - CalChris 9y ago
      Nope. The technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counteraccusation or raising a different issue.
      - grandalf 9y ago
        I'm asking you to clarify your view by presenting some scenarios that I consider relevant to the analysis of the main issue we are discussing. Your point would be a lot stronger if you are able to convey a consistent world view for analyzing those scenarios, or by explaining how the scenarios are different. I mention them because I think they are similar and ought to be analyzed similarly, but I'm open to persuasion.

truxus 9y ago

Well put. Glad there are rational people in the discussion.

infodroid 9y ago

The problem in the case of the Twitter announcement is that it appears dishonest. RT/Sputnik were not the source of the fake news stories that marred the US election, and yet are taking the blame for it. While the real producers of fake news aren't mentioned and get a free pass: https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became-a-global-hub-for-pro-trump-misinfo https://www.buzzfeed.com/craigsilverman/how-macedonia-became... https://www.wired.com/2017/02/veles-macedonia-fake-news/ https://www.wired.com/2017/02/veles-macedonia-fake-news/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38168281 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-38168281

nickbauman 9y ago
RT/Sputnik is part of an integrated state propaganda machine which is indeed the source of the election interference. You cannot separate them.
- grandalf 9y ago
  Yet somehow this "integrated state propaganda machine" manages to write better journalism about many issues of concern to the least powerful Americans than the American press. I don't disagree with your characterization, but I'd also characterize cable news, the NYT, WaPo, etc. that way. These big "news and entertainment" companies do not offer any meaningful political dissent whatsoever.
  - travmatt 9y ago
    And yet they don’t have journalists resigning and calling them propaganda, or resigning because they were assigned to leave the US and work in Crimea. There’s a clear difference when the journalists themselves can’t stomach what they are doing.
    - grandalf 9y ago
      Well, that's if you consider them to be journalists rather than actors and actresses. At least the ones on television have zero journalistic acumen.
      - DonHopkins 9y ago
        Are you going to provide those specific examples of Rachel Maddow's Emmy-award-winning reporting on the Flynt water crisis being biased and inaccurate, and those specific examples of RT's coverage of the Flynt water crisis being unbiased and accurate? You're the one who demanded specific examples, but then failed to provide any yourself, after being asked repeatedly. What is your evidence that Rachel Maddow is an actress and not a journalist? What is your evidence that Rachel Maddow has zero journalistic acumen? Specific examples! By the way, have you looked up the definition of whataboutism yet, to which you have openly confessed of being guilty? It's not a "buzzword". It's not "juvenile". And it definitely doesn't mean "Counter-factual scenarios that reveal your opinion to be illogical and cherry-picked for some emotional reason" as you falsely claim. It's a logical fallacy particularly associated with Soviet and Russian propaganda, comrade.
        travmatt 9y ago
        Distract/Deflect/Deny
        grandalf 9y ago
        I'm not sure if you are serious or if you are trolling. It is you who are making the claim that needs to be supported by evidence. Namely, this is the claim that RT's journalism is obviously sub-standard compared to US media/entertainment journalism. You also seem to be willfully misunderstanding why I brought up the Flint Water Crisis, which was simply to point out an example of the kind of embarrassing story that RT seems to focus on when reporting on US domestic issues. I brought up the Flint Water Crisis simply because it's one that most people are familiar with and the importance of journalistic coverage of the situation is obviously important to the democratic process. I don't think Rachel Maddow is relevant at all to this discussion. If her coverage of the Flint issue was exemplary, that's great. It is not germane to my use of the Flint example at all. The fact that you and most people are aware of the Flint Water Crisis is because it happens to be one of the rare stories like this that did get significant big media coverage. Thankfully, Maddow determined that covering the story would not alienate her advertisers! As for your dogged effort to keep this discussion about whataboutism and the minutia surrounding its definition, I have reviewed the definition and it seems to be relevant only to debates where there are two sides and one side uses the technique as a logical fallacy in an attempt to persuade or in order to distract from the truth of his opponent's argument. The remarks I made that led to my being accused of whataboutism were some questions I asked about scenarios that seem to me to warrant a similar approach to determining the harms/benefits of journalism. Please re-read that last sentence again several times as it is critically important to my point. I am not asking those parallel questions to distract attention from the claim you make that RT's reporting has caused destabilization, simply asking you to clarify (by applying your analytical approach to some similar scenarios) a more general rule for categorizing journalism as being harmful or helpful through the lens of political "stability" (a term which is highly loaded and rarely used without significant bias). I understand how the technique you describe as whataboutism is sometimes used in a persuasive argumentation scenario argued by two partisans. But in this case you are the only partisan. I consider the Russian government and the US government fairly morally similar, and I'm not interested in arguing the minutia of how the US is slightly better, because I don't disagree. My concern is whether RT helps or hurts the marketplace of ideas and the search for truth in the American political discourse, and my argument is that it helps in many obvious ways, while the specific harms that you and others claim exist cannot be supported by links to specific articles, etc. The many articles about embarrassing aspects of the US are very easy to find on RT, and I view those as helpful to American democracy rather than "destabilizing". Since you seem to be one who views "stability" as a good thing no matter what, I was hoping that you would clarify when journalism that can be perceive to create destabilization is good vs when it is bad. Your simplistic view seems to be that regardless of all other factors, if the journalism was done by a journalist whose salary is paid by a foreign government, the journalism is bad and unhelpful, no matter any other factors. But by this definition the VOA is also all bad and unhelpful, so I think it's a pretty useless definition. Again, since I think you might be trolling, I don't want to spend too much time trying to be thoughtful in my reply. In my view, propaganda is everywhere, and the reader must understand how to filter it from the truth. That is a core responsibility of citizenship. I'll often cross-reference NYT stories with a similar story in the Globe and Mail, since omissions are much more likely to stand out than when comparing the version found in the WSJ, which may cater to a different American political constituency.

gph 9y ago

Agreed, but I think what you call straight journalism has largely turned into creating & hyping story lines, especially outlets like the Guardian and equivalent sources on the right. It's not as egregious and they're motivated by money/views/prestige instead of destabilization to fulfill geopolitical goals. But the media (especially the infotainment outlets) can be fairly destabilizing and unhealthy in their own right. Russia was exploiting an environment that our media had already established and prepped for them.

zzalpha 9y ago
and they're motivated by money/views/prestige instead of destabilization to fulfill geopolitical goals. Exactly the point. Look, there's this thing in western jurisprudence called "mens rea". It's what differentiates, say, first degree murder from manslaughter. In this case, RT and Sputnik are clearly motivated by the desire to manipulate the US election. As you've already conceded, those other outlets are not. As a result, these represent different acts, and therefore it is not unreasonable for them to warrant different responses.

wallace_f 9y ago

You're calling out RT for being state-run, but some of ours are almost just as bad. They just convinced you they aren't(1,2). And what you're suggesting is that Twitter take sides in this, support US propoganda and suppress others... How is this different than RT? Some are starting to talk about some of our mainstream journalists as belonging in a "special kind of journalistic hell(3)." 1-https://theintercept.com/2016/09/18/washpost-makes-history-first-paper-to-call-for-prosecution-of-its-own-source-after-accepting-pulitzer/ https://theintercept.com/2016/09/18/washpost-makes-history-f... 2-https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/exclusive-documents-expose-direct-us-military-intelligence-influence-on-1-800-movies-and-tv-shows-36433107c307 https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/exclusive-documents-... 3-https://www.salon.com/2016/09/20/betraying-snowden-theres-a-special-place-in-journalism-hell-for-the-washington-post-editorial-board/ https://www.salon.com/2016/09/20/betraying-snowden-theres-a-...

bostik 9y ago

> not playing is not an option What a strange game. The only move to win is to cheat.

grandalf 9y ago

> an explicit goal of destabilization. Please define the word destabilization. Does that mean changing the status quo? Would the NYT be guilty of destabilization if it published an expose revealing that officials in 20 US cities hid significant drinking water pollution from their citizens for years? Surely once published the article would destabilize politics in those cities significantly. Similarly, suppose the NYT published Donald Trump's taxes, revealing information that was likely to create a multi-year impeachment effort. Would that destabilize the US? It's hard to argue it would make things more stable. Did the NYT's publication of Judith Miller's reporting on Saddam's WMD that helped sell a war effort that killed and displaced millions of people and cost trillions of dollars cause "destabilization"? Newspapers are supposed to publish information that leads to political change. That is the point of having a free press, so that ideas can be shared that can be vetted by the public and acted upon to make society better.

CalChris 9y ago
Please define whataboutism.
- grandalf 9y ago
  > whataboutism Counter-factual scenarios that reveal your opinion to be illogical and cherry-picked for some emotional reason? OK I'm guilty.
  - CalChris 9y ago
    Nope. The technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counteraccusation or raising a different issue.
    - grandalf 9y ago
      I'm asking you to clarify your view by presenting some scenarios that I consider relevant to the analysis of the main issue we are discussing. Your point would be a lot stronger if you are able to convey a consistent world view for analyzing those scenarios, or by explaining how the scenarios are different. I mention them because I think they are similar and ought to be analyzed similarly, but I'm open to persuasion.