With current German best seller “Gekaufte Journalisten” (“Bought Journalism”) telling the true story of Udo Olfkotte being paid by the CIA for twenty-five years in order to spin the news in favor of US/NATO interests, the plummeting public confidence in corporate mainstream news is more than warranted. Of course Operation Mockingbird, a CIA scheme to influence and pay US journalists in the same manner, has long been exposed and yet is seldom discussed on public airwaves. A German TV sketch comedy troupe, Die Anstalt, satirized the glaring journalistic malfeasance in the media’s interpretation of the 2014 Ukraine conflict, to raucous applause. Closer to home, CBS reporter Sharyl Attkisson revealed the white house’s manipulation of and collusion with domestic mass media, when she was screamed at by an Obama spokesman, “The Washington Post is reasonable, the LA Times is reasonable, The New York Times is reasonable. You’re the only one who’s not reasonable!”
This paper will argue that Western propaganda, in coordination with the U.S. State Department and the new Kyiv junta, has repeatedly and deceptively mischaracterized the complex events in Ukraine this past year and continues to recklessly instigate a dangerous conflict between nuclear armed Russia and NATO/United States.
It is impossible to assess the media reports concerning Ukraine without a comprehensive understanding of the events on the ground over this past year. Of particular significance is the question: who is attacking whom? The main meme that has been bulldozed by Western corporate news services appears to be that Russia has allegedly “invaded” the Ukraine in some sort of resurgent Soviet “empire” experiment. This is glaringly a case of the cart before the horse, framing the debate in terms of Vladimir Putin’s alleged intentions in nearly every major US news source. Ilya Somin writes in The Washington Post, “Russia already invaded Ukraine in a much more blatant and obvious way months ago when it occupied and annexed Crimea.”
Read More: Foreign Intervention, Copious Propaganda, Lies and the Rise of Neo-Nazis
