2,540 year ago Aeschylus said,”in war truth is the first causualty.” Even though this might be true it should not preclude us from making every attempt possible at uncovering and showing others the truth. I believe in the truth as much as I believe it is capable to be objective. Anyone who says that an “objective journalist is a myth,” is a liar with an agenda. Do we all have biases? You bet. It is in the recognition of said biases and overcoming them is how the truth emerges.
That said, the best, most balanced site concerning operational, strategic and tactical reporting on the Russo-Ukrainian Warcan be found at the Austrian Military Academy.
These two are the most recent, here and the Ukrainian Purgatory, here. Both are in flawless, if somewhat accented, English.
Perhaps we can claw back a bit of truth from the great Greek dramatists hell.
Oakchair
“in war truth is the first casualty.”
Before truth sinks under and drowns out of sight curiosity is sent graveside. Closely followed by an ego/sense of value that isn’t attached to the issue.
The other side has to be wrong. Anything that gives the other side a leg to stand on has to be false. Otherwise you’re not righteous, you’re not morally superior, your intellect isn’t more advanced. Instead you’re the same as those you’ve been demonizing and considering yourself better than.
The more you put into the “war”, the more unethical behaviors you commit because of it, the harder it is to even contemplate the issue without an emotional panic.
“War is the continuation of politics by other means.”
Russia tried with the Minks 1 and 2 agreements. But like the START treaty, NATO expansion agreement, Ballistic non-proliferation treaty, Iran nuclear treaty, Libya and Syrian peacekeeping agreement the west wasn’t trustworthy. Eventually Russia fully realized and internalized the fact that the west operates as Ian has described Trump
“For me to win, someone else has to lose;
If someone capitulates to my demands, I can still get more.
If you give in to Trump, he will be back.”
Purple Library Guy
No, while it is certainly possible to tell the truth, objectivity as such is not possible. Even if every word you say is true, what you say is always framed somehow, and you cannot tell EVERYTHING. Bias will come up in the selection of what is newsworthy. Even “recognizing and overcoming” biases results in SOME kind of bias. A bias towards centrism is still a bias; there is no empty position.
Say you’re covering a strike. If you emphasize the problems the strike causes, that’s bias against labour. If you emphasize the low wages, the unfair labour practices and the employer’s high profits and where they are going, that’s bias towards labour. If you try to strike a balance and talk about both, that’s bias towards the often untenable and untrue “The truth is always halfway between two sides” thesis so beloved of many journalists. Rather than claiming to be objective, it’s better to just say to the readers, “I believe in labour rights and politics good for the majority, and while I pledge not to lie and will try not to leave out important facts that I find inconvenient, that view will shape my coverage, so if you don’t like it read someone else’s.”
j
If you have not stumbled upon it before, here’s a shout out to Chomsky’s “What makes mainstream media mainstream”.
Sean Paul Kelley
Please tell me more.
bruce wilder
I will defend “objectivity” if not “Truth”.
“Objectivity” does not preclude having a definite point of view. Nor does it exclude having preferences. Journalists and many others sometimes misunderstand “objectivity” as a dramatic role replete with performative rituals, like putting on a white lab coat or using a stilted vocabulary.
What “objectivity” requires is a willingness, even in persuasion, to forego manipulation and deception. It requires letting the reader or listener have her own point of view different from that of the author or speaker. “Objectivity” requires foregoing subjective evaluation, substituting measurement, for example. Its framework isn’t narrative, but method. Method is what makes a stated fact an objective fact. Knowing method means knowing how a stated fact was derived from observation of real phenomenon. It is the difference between complaining the soup is “too hot” and reporting the measured temperature of the soup. For the former, “bias” may be a matter of subjective preference; “correcting the bias” would be pointless, an argument over taste.
“Unbiased” journalism which simply repeats accurately what rival politicians or propagandists say is “objective” in a ritualistic way, but accomplishes little with its performative neutrality. Having a view, if it means a polemic adherence to a specific narrative, loses “objectivity” when “facts” become factoids, selected and shaped for conformity with the pre-determined narrative.
I do not know if a narrative can be “True” but certainly a narrative can be false. At best, in pursuit of objectivity, gather objective facts first, guarding against bias in selection, and then select a narrative that is both consistent with the established facts and not contradicted by the established facts. The basic tests of whether a fact is consistent with a hypothetical narrative ought to be well-known.
As for the Ukraine War, polemics and propaganda are available in superabundance. Facts are in short supply. I am impressed by the quality of the analyses linked in the OP. The most basic kind of measurements are featured: counts. How many artillery shells? How many refineries hit? How long is the front? And, they keep to meaningful context, referencing tactics and tactical problems.
The grand strategic speculation on Russia’s position and geopolitical goals is weaker. It is easy to name the struggle as a war of attrition, but harder to articulate why, exactly, it comes down to a long, grinding stalemate, fantastically destructive along the line of contact.
Purple Library Guy
Saw an interesting bit about Canadian media today. Canadian television–or, well, visual–news media will often report racist incidents, especially if someone took video of the incident and it was kind of shocking. They will report these incidents to condemn them, which is good.
But they generally censor the face of the racist person, and conceal their identity. They don’t censor the faces or names of the victims, and Canadian news media do not generally censor the faces of criminals in their coverage. But they do censor the faces of bigots. There doesn’t seem to be any real legal reason, and it’s not something dictated by one particular racist media owner or anything like that. It’s just the custom, not to embarrass hateful bigots by revealing them doing their thing. Probably nobody thinks of this as a potentially racist approach, it’s just the done thing. Odd.
Mark Level
I had to take a several hours’ road trip yesterday, & subjected myself to several hours of NPR, elite GLiberal Consensus radio–
Mostly what I expected. Pleasantly surprised that they covered the Russian 80th Anniversary Victory Day celebrations in Moscow the day prior. Of course, best as I recall they only mentioned China’s Xi being there, not Lula, Modi, 2 guests from the EU (despite the EU trying to stop them), a prominent African and other Global South Leaders. And they had to end it with a glib, false claim that “But the Celebration was overshadowed by Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.” Overshadowed to whom? Also, there was a segment on the (absurd, DoA) Trump “Peace Talks” between Russia and Ukraine. Some evil Reactionary “Expert” from The Economist (a journal that in the 1860s said Slavery needed to be continued because if it wasn’t there would be no use for black people and they’d have to all be killed) glibly boasts that “Putin thinks he is winning the war.” There are so many lies implicit in a statement like that I’m not even going to bother to unpack it.
There is a class problem with the US Corporate Media– the State Media is staffed by complacent, smarmy Liberals in the millionaire class who are completely out of touch with the majority of the US populace. So of course their “takes” are just not relevant. Think Joe Scarborough, 2 weeks before Biden’s senility was “revealed” (everyone paying attention with a brain knew, however) that he’d interacted with Joe and “This is the BEST Biden ever!! He is brilliant! He’s giving a Master Class on the Presidency!” And Joe’s still got a job on MSDNC lying to brain-dead over60 Boomers sitting in front of the Boob Tube. They did, however, as their viewership is collapsing, fire Joy Ann Reid and every commentator that’s a person of color, it’s clear who they see their audience as.
There was one refreshing surprise, however. During a segment on the Netanyahu “Conquer Gaza” plan, they could not help but admit that the Plan to corner the 2 million surviving Gazans in the southern corner of the Strip bordering Egypt, and to either force them into Egypt, or the Sinai Desert, or mass-deport them on boats (with no ports to receive them) was a War Crime, even the economist Ghoul agreed. This was blamed on “Extremists” in the War Cabinet, as if it’s not the majority view and as if it hadn’t been the plan since 1948, or earlier. Also they were very skeptical that Israel is “succeeding” since (a) Trump has currently frozen Bibi out, for personal reasons, & (b) the Turks are fighting the Israelis while both carve up Syria. Naturally the word “genocide” was never spoken, I expect that is an NPR “standard”/ rule.
Sean Paul Kelley
Purple library Guy,
I would assume that the Canadian media blanks out the face of the perpetrator because technically he’s being alleged of a crime and until he’s convicted, the media outlet could possibly be liable for damages. Now that’s a shitty reason to do it and it shouldn’t be that way, but I think that’s probably the reason why they do it And I also think that they’re gonna blank out the person who’s perpetrating the crime they should blank out the person who is being abused.