Comment by aleyan | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aleyan | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

Since BBC decided to talk about propaganda, I will call them out on their own coverage of civilian deaths from the war in Eastern Ukraine.

When civilians were killed in Kiev controlled areas BBC described their deaths as result of rebel activity. When however civilians were killed in rebel controlled areas, they were described as having died from shelling without perpetrators being accused but the fact that it was a rebel area highlighted. A lot more people fall into the second category than the first. Even in straight forward cases of deaths resulting from air strikes against cities, BBC did not assign blame to the government.

It was so bad, I have been tempted to go over every BBC story about the war in Eastern Ukraine and analyze for the language it used to discuss the causes of civilian casualties. Maybe I will.

EDIT: It appears I am not the only one to have noticed this particular bias of BBC. Alan Dix, a professor at Birmingham University, goes at length with examples about this issue at the BBC[1].

[1] http://alandix.com/blog/2015/02/13/lies-damned-lies-and-the-...

The media, whether Western or Russian, exists in order to rally support for the actions of the elite, usually by misrepresentation, oversimplification, and blatant lies. When Euromaidan was in progress, it was impossible to even hint that there was a presence of political groups with Nazi sympathies. You were immediately discredited as a pawn of Russian media. I have no idea why the emotional zeal. Of course, it was true, but the West needed support from the demos and downplayed anything that would hurt the geopolitical sparring match with Russia.

Ukraine in general has a history that has been unaddressed. Ukrainian collaboration with Nazis during WWII, genocide against Poles (which many continue to deny, downplay, or rationalize), and Western Ukrainian reverence for national heroes and militant groups entangled in these events (e.g., Stepan Bandera and UPA) remain taboo subjects. They're topics that will likely remain untouched as long as Ukraine is being bought over by Russia and the US.

Oh, old 'Ukraine is Nazi' card? You know that this is played mostly by Russian media? And do you know that part of Russian history where they collaborated with Nazis (how about a million-strong Nazi collaborationist army which flag Russia uses even now?) and that they invaded Poland with the Hitler?

And as for reverence - Russian praise for Stalin and Lenin, two of the most bloodiest dictators in modern history - can speak volumes about Russian soul.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com