On Wed, Jul 6, 2016 at 7:41 AM Zenaan Harkness <zen@freedbms.net> wrote:

My frustration is primarily with people who think that the US media are somehow "independent" just because they're not directly funded by the government. But at least government funded media sources have to work hard to *appear* independent, because they don't get the presumption of independence. The result is that you hear BBC asking much harder questions of MPs than you see asked to, say, the President by US media.

The only real solution is to find sources that truly *are* independent, because they have no special access, don't embed with military units, don't get invited to White House press conferences, etc. Find the outfits the politicians refuse to talk to.

In any case, though, I'm not sure I'd choose Putin as a spokesperson against sycophantic media. He's just missing the good ol' days when the government mostly controlled what reached Russians' ears.

There are two sides to every story, but usually both sides are wrong. And the midpoint between them is wrong too. The real story is off on some axis perpendicular to the line between the two sides. To paraphrase Chomsky since I've so far failed to find a quote that concisely sums up the point, if you want to control what the public thinks, narrowly define the parameters of the debate and then ensure that there's vigorous debate within those parameters. This is what the Western MSM vs Russian media sounds like to me. It's all just nationalistic nonsense.