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Comment by ari_elle | Hacker News Reader

RT - Question more (as long as it is against the USA, not Russia)

It's funny that Russia Today always points out the flaws in the USA while having a not really well functioning democracy at home.

Let's release some FSB information for a change?

I am not thinking RT is the root of all evil though. It's definitely a valuable source for information, if you take it with a grain of salt.

[Funny also that they are one of the big media outlets for Assange or Wikileaks/Whistleblowers in general, that are with their information indirectly targeting mostly American Intelligence] - one of the reasons btw why Assange is a hypocrite

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What is your point? If we want a balanced view of the world, and most news sources push government propaganda (including NY Times, Washington Post, etc., which are like press agents for the executive branch), then we need to combine multiple vectors of propaganda to discern some truth.

That is exactly what i said!

"It's definitely a valuable source for information, if you take it with a grain of salt."

I don't think that you should absorb any information without critical thinking of course, but just said, that especially news from RT about American Intelligence Failures you should be careful with.

And my observation: There is more USA government critical thinking in the NY Times than on RT. So imo they are more based on ideology, while the NYT is of course too, but not that much.

Not sure how much of this is true, but the story currently unfolding in Russia is fascinating to observe: http://www.euronews.com/newswires/1701658-russian-activist-s...

Summary: Anti-Putin activist fled to Ukraine to seek UN protection, stepped out of the UN office to get lunch, got abducted by some people who transported him back to Russia, got a confession out of him and turned him over to prosecutors... Reads like something from a Cold War novel.

A previous HN comment about RT as a source, with back-and-forth follow-up comments below:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4247829

Thank you :)

I suspect Russian media bias is not so fundamentally different from American media bias. The two complement each other neatly I think; reading both side by side is enlightening. Al Jazeera is another good one to throw into the mix (and their international reporting of "non-partisan" things is superb).

With the subtle difference that Russian journalists who get too out of line get murdered.

Obviously the realities of life as a reporter are dramatically different, but the result, the resulting biases, share parallels, even if not in magnitude or severity. The topics that each adore or ignore are roughly mirrors of each other, with the exception of a handful of topics.

There are journalists in the US who back the "Russian" or "anti-US" point of view. Maybe they're not mainstream, but they're free to voice their opinions.

BTW, this article reeks of off-topic to me.

I am talking about only general trends in media.

As an avid RT watcher it's pretty obvious when they are trying to promote a certain angle. For example, there was some protest against a pro-soviet monument in Ukraine and RT portrayed it like all the people who were against it were Nazi sympathizers. They also were denigrating the Georgian government under Sakashvili in the lead up to the little war they fought with Georgia in 2008.

The U.S reporting is pretty decent though. Anybody who has a problem with the way things are going in the U.S they will give a microphone to so sometimes the quality of the interviewee's presentation degrades somewhat. However, on the plus side, they would never consider patriotism or national security as an excuse not to report on something in the U.S as domestic channels would.

>Let's release some FSB information for a change?

Ever hear the phrase "don't shit where you eat"?

My point exactly.

Because they never would - therefore they are strongly driven by a political agenda (/influenced by a political mindset), not reporting bad things about the democracy "at home", while constantly commercializing Intelligence Failures of and Whistleblowers in the USA.

And like i've also mentioned:

- still valuable source of information, if you are able to identify this agenda and are applying your logic accordingly

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