NYT, WSJ Look to Hawks for Ukraine Expertise +

NYT, WSJ Look to Hawks for Ukraine Expertise

The antiwar Washington think tank Quincy Institute was mentioned in four news articles in the New York Times from February 24, when Russia invaded Ukraine, to November 9. Of these articles, two (7/3/22, 9/27/22) included quotes from members of the Institute that were critical of US military strategy in Ukraine. In the same time period, the Wall Street Journal published a single mention of the Quincy Institute in connection with Ukraine, in a piece (3/23/22) on Ukrainian lobbyists’ influence in the US. Meanwhile, the Journal mentioned the hawkish Center for Strategic and International Studies—heavily funded by the US government, arms dealers and oil companies—in 30 Ukraine news stories. That’s a 30:1 ratio of the hawkish think tank to the dovish think tank. CSIS appeared in the Times 44 times, according to a Nexis search, including five opinion pieces —a news ratio of just under 10:1.

Too Embedded to Explain Who They’re in Bed With

Extra! (11/22) noted the New York Times (10/4/22) describing Ukraine’s Avoz Regiment as “celebrated” rather the more accurate “neo-Nazi.” Now the Times has found a new far-right unit to fawn over: “The Bratstvo battalion has undertaken some of the conflict’s most difficult missions,” noting that “the group gave access to the New York Times to report on two recent riverine operations.”  The Times didn’t report, though, that the group was founded in 2004 by Dmytro Korchynsky, a Holocaust denier (UkeTube, 10/6/16) who has demanded, “Have the Jews apologized for participating in the destruction of Ukrainians?” He sees Bratstvo as a “Christian Taliban” (Intercept, 3/18/15).  One of the two leaders of the unit quoted in the Times article, Oleksiy Serediuk, also embraced the Taliban label in an interview with Al Jazeera (4/15/15), which noted that the officer used to be part of the Azov: “Serediuk didn’t leave the Azov because of the neo-Nazi connections, however—extreme-right ideology doesn’t bother him,” the article said. “I left the Azov because it was full of pagans,” he said. In two separate photos accompanying the Times piece, different Bratstvo fighters can be seen wearing the Totenkopf emblem popularized by the Nazi SS—but the Times takes no notice of this display of Third Reich nostalgia.

And When I Say Never, I Mean Sometimes

“Journalists should never be punished for doing their job,” says Ned Price (Twitter, 11/23/22), spokesperson for the US State Department, which is seeking the extradition of WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange for documenting US war crimes.

‘Astonishing’— But Not Too Newsworthy

“A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations and articles, even those found in the Constitution,” Donald Trump declared on his Truth Social website (12/3/22). “The explicit suggestion of suspending the Constitution was astonishing even by the standards of Mr. Trump,” the New York Times (12/4/22) reported. And where did the Times report this “astonishing” news? Page A13 of the print edition (12/5/22). The Washington Post (12/4/22) likewise couldn’t find room on its front page to say that the leading Republican candidate for president called for the “termination” of the Constitution. It did, however, provide analysis pieces like “For Trump, the Constitution Is Malleable” (12/6/22) and “Trump’s Call to Set Aside the Constitution Raises a Question: Why Now?” (12/5/22).

Extra! Jan./Feb 2023