News, propaganda and confirmation bias

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Oh, the news is real, that wasn't the point of my bear poking. I assume that since you posted the news from a Russian state news source (as opposed to literally *any* news source), that you likely prefer getting your news from the same source. Just goes to the reporting and confirmation bias discussion we were having in the Ukraine thread.
 
I get that... but I pulled it from Telegram - indy reporter Eva K. Bartlett thread.
Ah, that's different.
...
Bartlett describes herself as an "independent writer and rights activist."[4] She writes commentary pieces for Russian state-controlled RT's website.[note 1][8][9] Critics contend that her advocacy amounts to participation in a disinformation campaign aimed at lessening the responsibility of the Assad regime for the acts of indiscriminate killing during the war, and to promote pro-Kremlin content in relation to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine.[10] Her posts on social media have been tagged with the disclaimer that her writings "may be partially or wholly under the editorial control of the Russian government."[11]

Bartlett has been making videos and posts on social media from Ukraine during the Russian invasion, often collaborating with journalists from Russian state media.[12] She has been frequently criticised for spreading Kremlin propaganda and misinformation.[10]
...
8) "Analysis | As the dust on an information war settles, the truth about the battle for Aleppo". Washington Post. Archived from the original on 28 March 2019. Retrieved 8 August 2018.
9) "Why small groups of Western tourists are flocking to Syria". Newsweek. 5 April 2018. Archived from the original on 8 August 2018. Retrieved 8 August 2018.
10) Emma, Vardy (22 April 2022). "Russian propaganda efforts aided by pro-Kremlin content creators, research finds". BBC News. Retrieved 23 June 2022.
11) "Russian propaganda efforts aided by pro-Kremlin content creators, research finds". NBC News.
12) "Eva Bartlett reports from Mariupol". Retrieved 18 July 2022.

 
Wikipedia - is editable and is no source... Look up Trump

Trump's political positions have been described as populist, protectionist, isolationist, and nationalist.§ He won the 2016 United States presidential election as the Republican nominee against Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton,§ but lost the popular vote.§[a] He became the first U.S. president with no prior military or government service. His election and policies sparked numerous protests.§ The 2017–2019 special counsel investigation led by Robert Mueller established that Russia interfered in the 2016 election§ to benefit the Trump campaign but did not establish that members of the campaign conspired or coordinated with Russia.§ Trump promoted conspiracy theories§ and made many false and misleading statements§ during his campaigns and presidency,§ to a degree unprecedented in American politics. Many of his comments and actions have been characterized as racially charged or racist,§ and many as misogynistic.§
according to whom?
 
I included the footnote sources for the sentences I quoted.
 
Still doesn't invalidate her being there on the ground reporting.

There are Richard Lancaster, Graham Phillips, Brian Berletic and others reporting there who have also been broadly painted with the same 'conspiracy' brush.

It's the "cancel culture" society these days. Anyone that presents an 'other than approved' message gets disappeared.

It's the "Kill the messenger, because we said so" mentality that provokes my ire.

Anytime I hear 'conspiracy theory', or 'misinformation', or 'propaganda' it piques my interest all the more...

Funny, we never see those monikers placed on western media....
 
Still doesn't invalidate her being there on the ground reporting. ...

I never claimed that it did. I only posit that it informs her bias, and by extension, confirmation bias of folks who follow her.
 
Pusuant to my earlier post about Max Blumenthal:


I ran across this while browsing the web yesterday (on my phone):







 
Including here so it doesn't get lost, the Alex bros (The Duran):

 
Last edited:
Here's some other people who's work is being disseminated in the Urkraine thread as "independent" (click through links if you want to see footnote sources):

Patrick Lancaster is an American YouTuber, former US Navy sailor, and a self-described 'independent crowdfunded journalist' who has been embedded with the Russian army while reporting on the Russo-Ukrainian War. He has been posting video reports from Donbas since 2014 and the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict since 2020.[2][3]

Lancaster's videos have frequently been described as Russian propaganda and disinformation. He has often unwittingly exposed information of Russian war crimes, even revealing the identities of their perpetrators, and knowingly filmed staged events.[2][4]
...
In his videos, Lancaster regularly asks his viewers for money, claiming himself to be the 'only journalist', or 'only western journalist' at locations where this was repeatedly proven not to be the case. This, and Lancaster's repeated filming of staged scenes, has led to multiple accusations of his dishonesty.[5][7][8] [9][10]
...
2) Gilbert, David (9 June 2022). "Meet the US 'Journalist' Helping Spread the Kremlin's Propaganda". Vice. Retrieved 14 July 2022.

3) "From the Lancaster family: The story of an American reporter who settled in the DNR, was friends with Givi and used morgue bodies for fake news". 27 June 2022.

4) "From the Lancaster family: The story of an American reporter who settled in the DNR, was friends with Givi and used morgue bodies for fake news". 27 June 2022.

5) Paladino, Jason; van Wagtendonk, Anya (18 April 2022). "Meet Patrick Lancaster: A U.S. Navy veteran from Missouri and Russia's favorite war propagandist". Grid News. Retrieved 14 July 2022.
...
7) "The communist soldier using charity sites to fund his war". BBC. 24 July 2017. Retrieved 12 September 2022.

8) "Explainer: The pro-Kremlin propaganda "journalists" and crowdsourcing". 1 August 2022. Retrieved 12 September 2022.

9) Zadrozny, Brandy (8 June 2022). "Russian propaganda efforts aided by pro-Kremlin content creators, research finds". NBCNews.com. Retrieved 14 July 2022.

10) Waters, Nick (28 February 2022). "'Exploiting Cadavers 'and 'Faked IEDs': Experts Debunk Staged Pre-War 'Provocation' in the Donbas". Bellingcat. Retrieved 14 July 2022.


~~~

Brian Berletic (and/or his pen name Tony Cartalucci) is a contributor to Grayzone (see post #9) and Russian media sites including New Eastern Outlook and Russia Insider.



 
More on the Alex bros:


Grayzone:

 
At some point you have to realize that you are dealing with the fog of war. Here's what I'm pretty sure I know;

Obama fomented a color revolution and overthrew a standing government.
Hunter made millions in an illegitimate grift enriching his family afterwards.
Zelinsky also profited in the grift.
Those people are all in bed together.
Aid packages sent to the Ukraine were laundered and sent back to where they came from.

This laundry isn't just dirty. It has rats feasting on the vomit and feces throughout.
 
Propaganda is a subject I've read a good bit about. Always like learning how governments, religions and businesses employ techniques to bring people to act a certain way, believe certain things and spend their money on certain things.

Some interesting reading here:

 
@Goldhedge - what do those tweets have to do with the subject of this thread (propaganda)?
 
@Goldhedge - what do those tweets have to do with the subject of this thread (propaganda)?
You discredited the reporters I was posting as propaganda, so I thought you might consider Marwa for debunking as well?

I wondered if Marwa worked for RT?
 
You discredited the reporters I was posting as propaganda, so I thought you might consider Marwa for debunking as well?

Never heard of her before. Searches for "Marwa Osman" yield lots of hits that appear to be different people sharing the same name. Her (the one you brought up) twitter page says that she is a host for a TV show on Iran's state media PressTV. PressTV says the same:


...
Controversies

Pro-Iranian government bias

Press TV promotes Iranian foreign policy[21] and has been described as Iranian government propaganda.[22]

It has aired the coerced confessions of multiple prisoners, the basis for the revocation of its license to broadcast in the UK after such an incident.[23] ...

Press TV's news bulletins often feature Iranian ministers, diplomats or government officials, or guest commentators that express views consistent with the Iranian government's "message of the day."[25][26] In 2012, commentator Douglas Murray wrote that the station was the "Iranian government’s propaganda channel".[27]
...

Antisemitism

Press TV has been accused by the UK's The Jewish Chronicle of broadcasting "the most disreputable of fringe causes", such as Holocaust denial,[32] and of antisemitic conspiracy theories by the Anti-Defamation League.[33]
...
21) Moore, Matthew (29 January 2020). "YouTube deletes Iranian channel Press TV UK for flouting ban". The Times. Archived from the original on 29 January 2020. Retrieved 29 January 2020.(subscription required)

22) Freedman, Seth (13 July 2009). "The Press TV pantomime". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 11 April 2013. Retrieved 3 September 2020.

23) Sadr, Shadi (18 May 2015). "Documenting the perpetrators amongst the people". openDemocracy. Archived from the original on 15 July 2020. Retrieved 13 July 2020.
...
25) Press TV (1 March 2009). "Interview with Norman G. Finkelstein: The First Goal of Israel Is to Restore the Fear of Israel in the Arab World". Monthly Review. Archived from the original on 17 December 2012. Retrieved 12 January 2013.

26) "Iran Terms IAEA Resolution "Politically Motivated"". Fars News Agency. 28 November 2009. Archived from the original on 1 March 2012. Retrieved 29 December 2009.

27) Murray, Douglas (20 January 2012). "Push off now, Press TV, and take your conspiracy theories with you". The Spectator. Archived from the original on 23 January 2012.
...
32) Kamm, Oliver (19 March 2009). "Analysis: Press TV peddles pernicious tosh". The Jewish Chronicle. London. Archived from the original on 27 June 2020. Retrieved 27 June 2020.

33) "Iran's Press TV: Broadcasting Anti-Semitism To English-Speaking World" (PDF). Anti-Defamation League. 1 April 2015. Archived (PDF) from the original on 29 June 2020. Retrieved 27 June 2020.
...


Just a guess, but her show on PressTV likely conforms to the station's editorial standards, so yeah, it's likely that she pushes Iranian propaganda.
 
Let's get up a pmbug team (say ten of us) and go on over there and report the straight arrow stuff.

Unfortunately, I cannot go with y'all, but I will read all the reports.
 
Let's get up a pmbug team (say ten of us) and go on over there and report the straight arrow stuff.

Unfortunately, I cannot go with y'all, but I will read all the reports.
I can't go either. No passport.

Would we be considered US propagandists, or Russian?
 
Let's get up a pmbug team (say ten of us) and go on over there and report the straight arrow stuff. ...

tenor.gif
 
This is more about propaganda, than the Russia-Ukraine war, so posting it here. Tucker Carlson stuff starts after 3mins into the video.

 
Propaganda gets amplified by folks who want to believe:
In recent days an anonymously published website named Real Science hosted at goodsciencing.com (archived here) has been receiving a lot of attention, mainly because of its running list (archived here) of "athlete cardiac arrests, serious issues" and even deaths that allegedly happened since the "COVID injection" became available.

The list on Real Science appears to be mainly based on unverified media reports and anecdotes, with very little (if any) basis in actual science. As several fact checkers (including Lead Stories) have pointed out since the site started maintaining the list in November 2021, it is rife with problems and includes obviously non-related cases such as the cancer death of a curling player, a softball player's suicide and the drug overdose that killed a linebacker. These clearly have nothing to do with cardiac arrests, COVID-19 or vaccinations.

That didn't stop people like Panagis Polykretis and noted anti-vaccine doctor Peter McCullough from citing numbers from Real Science in a letter to the editor of the Scandinavian Journal of Immunology and attributing all cases on the list to cardiac arrest:
...
The Epoch Times called that letter -- using data based on anecdotal media reports -- a "Peer-Reviewed Study" in a January 4, 2023, article (archived here) and uncritically repeated the figures.

Other noted anti-vax figures like Dr. Simone Gold also amplified figures based on data from the site (archived here).
...

 
Once in a while I'll follow certain posts to their original sources. Last one I followed called themselves "2nd smartest guy in the world." Their main page was post after post about vaccine stuff and some hit pieces on Fauci.

Two thoughts came to mind:

- Someone was a bit crazy and had way too much free time on their hands.

Then I figured nah. This was too well done for a keyboard warrior to be behind it. So.............

- Has to be the work of a government. Now which gov would benefit from creating division and dissent about this (as well other topics like election integrity) here in America? C'mon now...........put your thinking caps on. Why it's Russia, Russia, Russia of course. You know................those people Trump and some repubs like to champion.

Yeah - yeah I've lost my mind. Have a terminal case of TDS. I'm a never Trumper and all kinds of other good shit. lol

Just ask "who benefits from all of this insanity."
 
These corporate MSM articles like to label and leave out details they wish to hide.

Both of those doctors are not “anti-vaxx, anti-vaccine”. They are speaking out about this recent experimental drug therapy and mandates.
 
“The main task is raising a patriot. We are rewriting all of our textbooks in all subjects.”

This was the newest directive from State Duma deputy Nina Ostanina, Chair of the Committee on Family, Women and Children to Sergey Kravtsov, the Minister of Education of Russia. The directive was seconded by her colleague, Oleg Smolin, the first deputy chair of the Committee on Science and Higher Education. Smolin added that “patriotism should not be the subject of individual lessons but rather the theme of the entire education system.”

It is unclear why Minister Kravtsov needed to be reminded of this. He constantly talks about patriotism and it is not only a matter of words. Today, Russian schools have turned into propaganda machines with the goal of “educating good citizens”. The ideology is specific. Russia has a loving president, the army and traditional family values must be honored and respected and these are the new tasks for teachers. However, not everyone is in favor of the new curriculum. The Barents Observer talked to several teachers and parents who oppose the introduction of military propaganda into the schools. Some of whom have even succeeded.

 
...
n Part 1 of the American Views 2022 report, Gallup and Knight Foundation offer insights into how Americans think about the motivations of news executives and how news is funded. Most believe that the news media put business needs ahead of serving the public. However, those who think news organizations balance civic purpose with corporate needs are more likely to have paid for news in the past and be willing to do so in the future. This finding suggests that the news media’s future financial sustainability ties directly to Americans’ perception that journalism organizations are fulfilling their democratic role in society.

Gallup and Knight have been tracking the decline of trust in the news media since 2017. Gallup’s long-term trend on this measure hit a record low in 2020, when the share of Americans with no confidence in the news media surpassed that of people with at least some confidence for the first time in 40 years.1 Furthermore, findings from the American Views 2020 report showed that Americans were "very concerned" about increasing political bias in news coverage and the perception that news organizations “push an agenda.”

Media trust continues to vary along predictable lines. Democrats express significantly more trust in news organizations than Republicans. Among Republicans, trust in news continues to decline. New data show that more independents today report distrusting news than ever previously reported. Yet, trust in local news organizations remains higher than trust in national news, as Gallup and Knight have consistently shown.2

The past five years of Gallup/Knight studies on this topic have focused mostly on the practices of news organizations linked to trust. For example, many Americans say they care about transparency, objectivity and accuracy. But if many news outlets already have high journalistic standards in place, why does trust continue to diminish overall? The focus of the American Views 2022 Part 2 report is to expand understanding of the emotional factors that drive attitudes about the news.

To be sure, distrust of information or institutions is not necessarily bad. Some skepticism may be beneficial in today’s media environment, where the number of information sources available feels infinite, advanced technology often makes it difficult to identify reliable information and journalists inevitably make mistakes in their reporting. But this study suggests that many Americans are not solely skeptical of news today — they feel distrust on an emotional level, believing news organizations intend to mislead them and are indifferent to the social and political impact of their reporting. Our analysis demonstrates that these indicators of emotional trust in news are, in fact, distinct from the opinion that news organizations are capable of delivering accurate and fair reporting.

Emotional trust is more deeply rooted and is especially important to understand in the context of the news media. This study shows that emotional trust has a strong relationship to perceptions and behaviors that could harm the critical, mutually beneficial relationship between the health of the press and the health of U.S. democracy. The more emotional trust Americans have in news, the more likely they are to say news organizations balance staying in business and serving the public well. The more emotional trust in news, the more empowered Americans feel to navigate a complex information environment. The more emotional trust in news, the more willing Americans are to pay for it. And, emotional trust in news is linked to Americans’ overall assessment of U.S. democracy.

The data presented here make a case for why the journalism industry should double down on efforts to rebuild the public’s trust — and how they can do it more effectively.
...

More (long):

 
^^^ From your link:

But this study suggests that many Americans are not solely skeptical of news today — they feel distrust on an emotional level, believing news organizations intend to mislead them and are indifferent to the social and political impact of their reporting.


Now why would that be so? Could the fact that the news media lied and misled the public when it came to their reporting on Trump have anything to do with it? After all, they (the msm) assured us for over 3 years that he was Putin's puppet.
...but then the truth came out that it was all a bunch of made up shit intended to remove a duly elected President from office.
...but now we're supposed to act as though none of that happened?
 
A tale of two media where neither deals with it's audience honestly:
... two buzzy media stories of the past week: the open letter by New York Times contributors complaining about the paper's coverage of trans topics and the revelations about Fox News hosts found in court documents from a defamation suit. These are cases of opposite but mutually deleterious ways of abandoning persuasion in dealing with ideologically uncooperative swathes of the American public.
...
... Why try to persuade when you can take the lazy, greedy route of surrendering to nonsense and lies?
...

 
.but then the truth came out that it was all a bunch of made up shit intended to remove a duly elected President from office.

Joe.................serious question.

Do you have any viable proof of this that you can actually go public with or is this simply an opinion? If you have proof will you share it?

If it's an opinion, what is it based upon?

Not looking for an argument, just facts.
 
India is going full gangsta on the BBC for reporting on a story in a way that they didn't like:

 
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