How truth is manufactured in the West

POSTED BY: SIGNYM
UPDATED: Sunday, May 3, 2026 22:46
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THGRRI

Sunday, December 13, 2015 7:27 AM

Russia’s TV talk shows smooth Putin’s way from crisis to crisis


“They invited about six Syrians — all pro Assad!” he said after the show, referring to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, a Russian ally. “All praising Putin for ‘saving Syria.’ All thanking Putin for being the greatest president on Earth.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russia-television-talk-sho
ws-smooth-putins-way-from-crisis-to-crisis/2015/12/12/a151fa5a-6c4b-11e5-91eb-27ad15c2b723_story.html

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SHINYGOODGUY

Sunday, December 13, 2015 1:01 PM

Oh, I forgot.....when you say it, it's Gospel. Forgive my ignorance..............
1000 apologies. Only you, in your infinite wisdom are able to discern truth, fact from fiction, a lie from solid evidence. Only you get the TRUTH from reliable and correct sources.

Listen, I know that us peons are unable to discern propaganda from the REAL news, so please have pity on us poor souls. After all, we does the best we can. Enlighten us Oh Guru of the absolute truth......gaze into your crystal ball and show us the righteous path.

Sorry, I slipped into Auraptor mode. I have to tell you though, I learned from the best in the business: James Aronson, he who founded the National Guardian, he who taught at Hunter College, he who in 1981 was invited to teach in China at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. He who graduated from Harvard and the Columbia School of Journalism. One of the most respected professors at Hunter and a hell of a man, and a hell of an author and newsman.

Maybe I should shut up, because I have no desire to debate the issue any further. Suffice it to say that short of being there at the moment, and not even then because of our bias, the report will always be slanted one way or another. Of course, nothing is actually 100% true, as we all have our points of view. Although when common sense comes into play, anything goes.


SGG

Quote:

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Originally posted by SIGNYM:

Quote:

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KPO- on any day, son, I can read western media and find another whopper. And I just found one. Look, here it is, in Reuters:

Quote:

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Islamic State militants have made more than $500 million trading oil with significant volumes sold to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and some finding its way to Turkey, a senior U.S. Treasury official said on Thursday.

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Because, yanno, US government officials would never lie!
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-usa-oil-idUSKBN
0TT2O120151210
-SIGNY

And you know this How, exactly!?
Let me see, a blanket statement that governments lie - Quelle surprise!
SGG

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How do I know this?

Because, among other things, it is presented ENTIRELY WITHOUT EVIDENCE. You, like G, KPO, and THUGR, don't even have the good sense to notice when you're dealing with 'allegation" versus "evidence".

Now, I have read reports and seen pictures posted by others - aside from Russia- which details the number of oil tankers trucks going from Syria and Iraq to Turkey. The reporters have calculated the amount of oil, followed it to Turkish refiners and to Turkish ports, and watched ship-to-ship transfers offshore etc. There is nothing like that in this article which, internally, doesn't even make sense.

Here, let me analyze the article for you.

Quote:

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Islamic State militants have made more than $500 million trading oil with significant volumes sold to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and some finding its way to Turkey, a senior U.S. Treasury official said on Thursday.

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Okay then. As it stand, this is a bald, and somewhat garbled, allegation. An accusation with NO PROOF.

First of all, how does he know the value of the oil being sold? He would have to know both the volume and the prices of the various markets that its being sold into. That would require deep knowledge of Syrian state finances, Turkish finances, and other prices on the illegal market - information that I doubt that he has.

But, taking his statement at face value, and assuming a 50% (or more) discount from legal per barrel prices... If illegal oil is being sold at

$20 a barrel (or less) that means
250,000,000 (or more) barrels of oil sold, or
131,000 (or more) tanker trucks of standard USA size (about 8000 gallons)
11,000 (or more) tanker trucks a month
370 (or more) tanker trucks a day

That's a lot of tanker trucks! That would be visible by drone, or even by satellite! Where are they all going?

"SOME" is going to Turkey.
A "SIGNIFICANT VOLUME" is supposedl

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1KIKI

Monday, December 14, 2015 12:46 AM

... you claim that you could go back into Russian media and find a lie within the past week? I challenged that on the basis that you don't even READ Russian media, you make a POINT of not reading anything other than KPO-approved sites, so HOW WOULD YOU KNOW? Shall I put that particular claims onto the pile of baseless KPO claims, or are you going to back it up?

I think you should put it in the predictions thread. But that's assuming kpo understands the difference between claims and facts - something he seems completely unable to do.

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JAYNEZTOWN

Monday, December 14, 2015 6:00 AM

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SHINYGOODGUY

Monday, December 14, 2015 1:27 PM

"from the white House (or in your case Downing Street) to your local animal shelter, universities to think tanks, and reporters behave like dutiful stenographers, writing all of it down. Sometimes participants STAGE events for in-field reporters. But real investigative reporting hardly even happens. I think I've been making the point that the responsibility for disinformation is SHARED."


So, basically you're saying that reporters get paid to "copy" what they're fed and move on to the next assignment. No checking or corroboration, no digging to get to the facts. By the way, investigative reporting takes months or years to come to fruition. It is very deep in scope and requires sound journalistic skills. Whereas with your statement, little is called for or required to merely "copy" or
regurgitate the "news" handed down for mass consumption.

If it is as you say, then investigative reporting would not be needed since the managing editor's only job would be to hand out steno pads. But I'm confused. You see, I recently was watching Meet The Press and Chuck Todd was interviewing Trump, and he asked him about his obviously "truthful" statement that he saw, with his own eyes, Muslims celebrating in Jersey City as the Twin Towers fell.

Did Todd need to investigate to fact check his statement? Here I'll help, NO. He did, however, check the facts of his brash statement. That didn't take months or years. I suspect that he already knew the answer, but a good reporter always checks the facts. He did not come out and say that Trump lied, that would be unprofessional. He did suggest that in his statement Trump may have gotten his bearings crossed up with something else, but ultimately Todd informed his audience that no film, video or report of such an occurrence was ever submitted. Now, did the western media deliberately erase such a report? Or did they conspire to make Trump out a liar? That could be possible. Then again, Russian news is controlled by Putin's Administration, yet you seem to believe every utterance. But, of course, they don't control the news in Russia or China, or Cuba for that matter.


SGG

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1KIKI

Tuesday, December 15, 2015 1:43 AM

SGG

I've been witness to facts never showing up in US news, and facts which were 'disappeared' out of the news.

When I lived much closer to Canada I would get my international news from CBC radio in addition to US sources, so I had a good opportunity to 'compare and contrast'. At the time the US was not reporting anything about Angola, though it was reported daily by CBC, which characterized it as a 'war', and included news about US involvement. It turns out the CBC was accurate, and US news - not at all.

Historians and former diplomats who have studied the documents say they show conclusively that the United States intervened in Angola weeks before the arrival of any Cubans, not afterward as Washington claimed. Moreover, though a connection between Washington and South Africa, which was then ruled by a white government under the apartheid policy, was strongly denied at the time, the documents appear to demonstrate their broad collaboration.

''When the United States decided to launch the covert intervention, in June and July, not only were there no Cubans in Angola, but the U.S. government and the C.I.A. were not even thinking about any Cuban presence in Angola,'' said Piero Gleijeses, a history professor at Johns Hopkins University, who used the Freedom of Information Act to uncover the documents. Similarly, cables of the time have now been published by the National Security Archive, a private research group.

''If you look at the C.I.A. reports which were done at the time, the Cubans were totally out of the picture,'' Dr. Gleijeses said. But in reports presented to the Senate in December 1975, ''what you find is really nothing less than the rewriting of history.''

Cuba eventually poured 50,000 troops into Angola in support of a Marxist independence group, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola. The group held the capital in the months just before independence from Portugal, declared in August 1975.

But Dr. Gleijeses's research shows that the Cuban intervention came in response to a C.I.A.-financed covert invasion via neighboring Zaire, now known as Congo, and South Africa's simultaneous drive on the capital, using troops who posed as Western mercenaries.

In another instance of news not showing up, there was a major power surge. It knocked radio and tv stations off the air for days, fried hospital and bank computers ... and also life-support equipment in intensive care units - that I PERSONALLY know of. You see, despite the fact that it affected a million people (going by the locations of the broadcasters that were silent), it was never reported, so I couldn't tell you the full extent of the event.

And, back in the days of pappy Bush and Iraq war part uno, as I was driving in to work I heard the tally of the vote of the Arab States to let the US in. I was only half-paying attention so the tally went past me. But it was SO startling I wanted to get the numbers. But after that broadcast they were nowhere to be found, no matter how hard I searched.