Margarita Simonyan — How mainstream propaganda works

The Western media’s starkly different reactions to the murders of two opposition figures – Russian politician Nemtsov and Ukrainian journalist Buzina – is a case study in biased reporting.

Following the killing of a well-known Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov, US media outlets released over 100 articles, stories, live broadcasts and reports concerning Nemtsov’s relationship with the Kremlin, the progress of the investigation, as well as statements by Russian and foreign public officials – all in the space of just four days. The rate at which the stories were published only increased with each day that passed. Nemtsov’s funeral procession was extensively covered by CNN, Fox News, CBS News and ABC.

Following the killing of a well-known Ukrainian opposition figure Oles Buzina, leaders within the US media published about 20 articles in four days, the majority of which were short newswire notes. There were a handful of opinion pieces, too. Only Radio Liberty decided to report Buzina’s funeral on April 19 and even this was miniscule in content: a one-minute video and a few words about Kiev suspecting Russia being behind his death!
It’s all quite simple and highly effective.

May they both rest in peace. Senseless victims of a mad world.

(This is the whole editorial.)

I had the same thoughts. What she doesn't mention however is that the Western media immediately went off on "Putler" did it with zero evidence other than it happened in view of the Kremlin. Similarly, the Ukrainian spin on the assassination of Oles Buzina was also that Putin did it, and the Western media also picked up on this ridiculous claim.

RT

How mainstream propaganda works

Margarita Simonyan | Editor-in-Chief

In 2005, at 25 years old, Margarita was named Editor-in-Chief of RT, the first Russian round-the-clock English-language news channel. Later on, after the launch of RT in Arabic (Rusiya Al-Yaum) and RT in Spanish, she became Editor-in-Chief of the whole multilingual television news network. Margarita Simonyan is also the first Vice-President of Russia’s National Association of TV and Radio Broadcasters (NAT).

Impressive.

New Cold War: Ukraine and Beyond — Italian daily La Repubblica breaks Western media silence over assassinations in Kyiv

Italy’s second largest newspaper, La Repubblica, has broken Western media’s silence over the latest wave of political murders in Ukraine. It describes a “a ruthless sweeping away of every form of political opposition taking place in Kiev”.

In an unusually frank assessment by mainstream Western media of Kiev’s post-Maidan regime, the Italian daily La Repubblica has denounced “a ruthless sweeping away of every form of political opposition taking place in Kiev”. The paper was reacting to yet another assassination in Ukraine — this time of a popular journalist Oles Buzina on April 16. 

Not shy of calling a spade a spade, the article leaves no doubts as to what is happening in Ukraine, right from the headline: “Pro-Russian journalist murdered in Kiev. The third political homicide in 24 hours.” 

The captions describe Oles Buzina as a “journalist and writer very well known in the Ukrainian capital”. His murder is described as an “execution on his door step”. 

“Somebody is systematically killing all those opposed to the Ukrainian government borne from last year’s ‘revolution’,” the article reads.Noteworthy here are the inverted commas into which the Italian newspaper puts the word ‘revolution’, thereby putting in doubt the democratic nature of the regime change in Kiev. 

The article by the newspaper’s Moscow correspondent Nicola Lombardozzi then quotes President Putin as saying that this is “one of the many crimes of the new Ukraine”. 

One would be hard pressed to find anywhere in Western mainstream media other articles like this, which report Putin’s statements without the slightest attempt of casting his words in a somewhat negative or misleading way.

Media silence is an aspect of media propaganda.

The Western press was almost unanimously in an uproar of fake outrage of "Putin's" assassination of Boris Nemtsov. Nary a word has been reported on the multiple deaths of opponents of the Ukrainian regime and very little of the military destruction targeted at civilians in Donbass.

New Cold War: Ukraine and Beyond
Italian daily La Repubblica breaks Western media silence over assassinations in Kyiv