Thread by @andersostlund

The debate about how Russian and Chinese propaganda is washed into real news by western news outlets has moved forward in Sweden.
Credit to @ghokmark and @patrikoksanen for addressing it.
expressen.se/debatt/sa-pave…

https://twitter.com/wisemanswisdoms/status/1473943009930665986

@ghokmark @patrikoksanen The problem has been going on for a long time. In 2014 it was a disaster, now it's a little bit better but not good enough. Media who wants to be taken seriously MUST review and investigate its sources. Is @Reuters really credible when it reports news from TASS as if true?

@ghokmark @patrikoksanen @Reuters Is "press conference" really a good word to describe what Putin is doing today? Selected journalists, questions approved in advance, no critical follow up questions. Wouldn't "propaganda performance" be a better word to describe the event?

The word "referendum" is still in use about Russias all-fake, under the gun, performance when before they formally occupied Crimea. For the average reader in a democracy "referendum" make something sounds legit. Is that a suitable word for something all fake?

I recently wrote a big Swedish newspaper with some criticism. They had used a source that had appeared on RT more than 130 times without mentioning this in the article. Instead some credentials going back almost 20 years was used. The average reader probably believed the article.

Swedish radio @sverigesradio has the bad habit of referring to Ukraine's government as the "Kiev government" when reporting about the war. Using that phrase gives the impression there is another legit, competing, government in Ukraine. Who has recognized the occupied territories?

Recently Putin said he had driven a taxi in the 90s. This was reported by TASS and Reuters picked it up. Swedish media used Reuters as source. But did anybody really know if Putin's statement was true? Putin -TASS-Reuters-Readers. A potential lie was washed into credibility.

The headline could be Putin: "I drove taxi to support my family". Source: Reuters. The average reader might not reflect about how often Putin lie and even if so Reuters is still considered reliable by many readers. Nobody had taken the time to investigate the statement made.

When Trump was going at it some American media kept records of how often he lied, why not do the same with Russia? Could be a long list but why give false credibility to somebody who has been suspected of lying many times.

About the war in Donbass. Is it really some independent separatists fighting a war with Ukraine with some Russian support? Who controls the fighting? Could Russia stop the war immediately if it wanted to or could the separatists overrule Moscow and continue the war?

If Russia has the final say I think saying "Russia is fighting a war against Ukraine but some of the soldiers have been locally recruited" is better. When reading media one gets the idea that the separatists quickly built Europe's biggest arms factories in Donbass in 2014.

Luckily a Dutch court is about to establish if Russian weapons and troops shot down MH17 from Ukrainian territory in 2014. I hope that should settle it. A court in the Netherlands should overrule Kremlin propaganda.

Then there is the "coup" in Kyiv in 2014. Was there a "coup"? Nobody told Yanukovych to leave, nobody threatened him at gunpoint. He decided to leave. The parliament later replaced him because he didn't fulfill his duties. It was legal, it was legit. No coup.

Nazis took over Ukraine's government in 2014 is less often reported now but in 2014 Western media actually reported about far-right extremists in the government. On July 25th 2014 Volodymyr Groysman was appointed Prime Minister of Ukraine. He is Jewish.

So under the Poroshenko government we had a Jewish PM and now we have a Jewish President but the far-right extremist story is still reported. Why not report about what ideology the Kremlin has instead? How should that one be classified?