Extra! Azov: From ‘Neo-Nazi’ to ‘Celebrated’

Media branded Darya Dugina as an agent in Russia’s “disinformation war.”

Coverage of Dugina Bombing

Put Journalists ‘on Front Lines’

When Russian journalist Darya Dugina

was killed by a car bomb in Moscow

in August, CNN (8/27/22) framed her

death not as a terroristic attack on

the media but as a blow to “Russia’s

vast disinformation machine,” saying

Dugina was “on the front lines” of

Russia’s war effort. (CNN noted that

Dugina ran a “disguised English-language online platform that pushed

a pro-Kremlin worldview to Western

readers,” scolding her United World

International for not disclosing its

Russian origins—much like CNN

does not describe itself as a US-based

outlet, but rather as a “world leader

in online news and information.”)

NPR (8/24/22) called her a “Russian

propagandist” whose killing signaled

the war was coming to Russian elites

in their own territory. Foreign Policy

(8/26/22) called Dugina a “dead propagandist” whose “martyrdom” did

more to achieve her goals in death

than she could have hoped for in life.

These suggestions that journalists

who support their nation’s war aims

are fair game for assassination put

many US journalists in dangerous

positions—including name-brand

pundits like Thomas Friedman and

Bill O’Reilly who have called on the

US to commit war crimes in terms

more bloodthirsty than any attributed to Dugina (FAIR.org, 9/23/22).

Azov: From ‘Neo-Nazi’

to ‘Celebrated’

Three years ago, describing an

Australian white supremacist charged

with massacring 49 people in New

Zealand, the New York Times

(3/15/19) wrote: “On his flak jacket

was a symbol commonly used by the

Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian neo-Nazi

paramilitary organization.”

Last month, the Times ran a story

(10/4/22) that began, “Commanders of Ukraine’s celebrated Azov

Battalion have held an emotional

reunion with their families in Turkey,

Ukrainian officials said, honoring

the fighters released from Russian

confinement last month.” The story

went on to say that the group’s

fighting “has become a powerful

symbol of the suffering inflicted by

Russia and the resistance mounted

by Ukraine.”

Not a word in the article hinted at

the unit’s far-right politics, whose

founder hoped Ukraine would “lead

the white races of the world in a

final crusade…against Semite-led

Untermenschen (subhumans)”

(Guardian, 3/13/18). The group’s

insignia is closely modeled on a symbol of the German SS; an FBI report

asserted that Azov is “believed to

have participated in training and

radicalizing United States–based

white supremacy organizations”

(RFE/RL, 11/14/18).

The Washington Post,

Which Considers Itself a

Newspaper...

Reporting on Russian citizenship being granted to Edward Snowden, who

revealed massive illegal domestic

surveillance by the National Security Agency, the Washington Post

(9/26/22) referred to “the 39-year-old

Snowden, who considers himself a

whistleblower....“ Maybe the Post

should return the Pulitzer Prize it

won (Washington Post, 4/14/14) for

reporting on the revelations of the

not-sure-he’s-a-whistleblower?

‘Democracy Dies in Darkness’

Washington Post headlines compiled

by Alan MacLeod (Twitter, 10/7/22):

• The CIA Funded a Culture War Against

Communism. It Should Do So Again.

(8/22/18)

• Biden Has Requested an Increase in

Defense Spending. It’s Not Nearly

Enough. (3/29/22)

• Drone Strikes Are Bad; No Drone

Strikes Would Be Worse (5/1/15)

• In the Long Run, Wars Make Us Safer

and Richer (4/25/14)

Fitting the Narrative

“I’ll never forget when the New York

Post sent me to Penn Station to ask

New Yorkers their thoughts on fare

evaders. Not one person cared. After

I sent my notes to the rewrite desk,

I got an angry call from an editor:

‘That’s not what we wanted.’ The

reporting didn’t fit their narrative.”

—Reporter Blake Patterson, now at

NOLA.com (Twitter, 10/5/22)

‘Holding Up the Hope’

David Barsamian: Talk about the

importance of independent progressive media like Democracy Now!

and Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting.

And, may I say, Alternative Radio?

Publishers like Verso, Haymarket,

Monthly Review, City Lights and

the New Press. Magazines like

Jacobin, The Nation, the Progressive and In These Times. Online

magazines like TomDispatch, the

Intercept and ScheerPost. Community radio stations like KGNU, WMNF

and KPFK. How important are they

in countering the dominant corporate

narrative?

Noam Chomsky: What else is going

to counter it? They are the ones holding up the hope that we’ll be able

to find ways to counter these highly

harmful, destructive developments

we’re discussing.

The core method is, of course,

education. People have to come to

understand what’s happening in

the world. That requires the means

to disseminate information and

analysis, opening up opportunities

for discussion, which you’re not

going to find, for the most part, in

the mainstream. Maybe occasionally

at the margins. A lot of what we’ve

been talking about is not discussed

at all, or only marginally within the

major media. So these conversations

have to be brought to the public

through such channels.

—The Nation (10/11/22) 

Soundbites

‘High Crime’—Compared to What?

“GOP Redoubles Efforts to Tie Democrats to High Crime Rates,” the New

York Times (9/26/22) reported. The FBI estimates there were about 396

violent crimes per 100,000 people in 2021; that’s down 2% since 2020, up 9%

since 2014 (the safest year for violent crime in recent decades) and down

48%, nearly half, since it peaked in 1991. The New York Times summed

that up in its headline as “high crime rates”—because, after all, that’s what

Republicans want to tie Democrats to.

https://fair.org/subscribers/202211/0oOTzw6.pdf