Since several readers have asked me for some clarification of my enigmatic conclusion about the domestic and international considerations that have driven the editors of CNN and the BBC on the one hand and of Russia’s Vesti on the other hand, to deliver coverage of the Gaza conflict that is ‘counter-intuitive,’ I can offer the following remarks:
There are a lot of possibilities to explain subjectively what CNN and the BBC are doing. Objectively what they are doing is re-establishing their credibility as news as opposed to propaganda providers. And I think this is really in play with regard to the BBC. One of their senior journalists who has his own program calls it “Unspun” and repeats in the trailer-adverts that he is delivering news without spin. Why would he be saying this if it were not obvious that everything the BBC has been saying about Russia for the past 20 months is “spun” and is being rejected by viewers.
This is all the more timely for these broadcasters now that the lies they have been disseminating about the Ukraine war are overturned by the latest news from the supreme Ukrainian military commander Zaluzhny in his widely cited interview in The Economist. Now, finally, we read in mainstream that the Ukrainian losses in the war may approach 400,000 dead, not 70,000 as official Kiev claims and that the kill ratio till now may be 10:1 or 12:1 in Russia’s favor.
The media in the West are being given more space to do actual journalism on the Ukraine war now that Washington is looking for the exit ramp.
Actually my intention was to focus on the Russian news coverage when I said domestic and international considerations are in play. First, Russia does not want to be sucked into the Middle East conflict. It has its hands full with the Ukraine war. So it wants to project neutrality. Second, domestically, it does not want to inflame anti-Jewish, anti-Christian feelings among its big Muslim population.
Though I did not mention it till now, the Chinese broadcaster CGTN, like Vesti has been very restrained in its reportage on the Gaza war. The notion within the Biden administration that under pressure from the United States China can be persuaded to counsel restraint on Teheran should Israeli atrocities overstep all bounds is as delusional as the notion by these same supposedly strategic thinkers that China can be persuaded to stop backing Russia in its Ukraine war.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2023
Translation below into German (Andreas Mylaeus)
Nachbemerkung zu “Was im Fernsehen läuft…”.
Da mich mehrere Leser um eine Klarstellung meiner rätselhaften Schlussfolgerung zu den nationalen und internationalen Erwägungen gebeten haben, die die Redakteure von CNN und BBC einerseits und des russischen Senders Vesti andererseits zu einer Berichterstattung über den Gaza-Konflikt veranlasst haben, die “kontraintuitiv” ist, kann ich die folgenden Anmerkungen machen:
Es gibt viele Möglichkeiten, das, was CNN und BBC tun, subjektiv zu erklären. Objektiv gesehen geht es ihnen darum, ihre Glaubwürdigkeit als Nachrichten- und nicht als Propagandasender wiederherzustellen. Und ich denke, dass dies in Bezug auf die BBC wirklich der Fall ist. Einer ihrer leitenden Journalisten, der sein eigenes Programm hat, nennt es “Unspun” und wiederholt im Trailer, dass er Nachrichten ohne Spin liefert. Warum sollte er das sagen, wenn es nicht offensichtlich wäre, dass alles, was die BBC in den letzten 20 Monaten über Russland gesagt hat, “einen Spin hat” und von den Zuschauern abgelehnt wird.
Dies kommt für diese Sender umso mehr zur rechten Zeit, als die Lügen, die sie über den Ukraine-Krieg verbreitet haben, durch die neuesten Nachrichten des obersten ukrainischen Militärbefehlshabers Zaluzhny in seinem viel zitierten Interview in The Economist widerlegt werden. Jetzt lesen wir endlich im Mainstream, dass sich die ukrainischen Verluste im Krieg auf 400.000 Tote belaufen könnten, nicht auf 70.000, wie offiziell von Kiew behauptet, und dass das bisherige Verlust-Verhältnis 10:1 oder 12:1 zugunsten Russlands sein könnte.
Die Medien im Westen erhalten mehr Raum, um echte journalistische Arbeit über den Ukraine-Krieg zu leisten, jetzt, da Washington nach einem Ausweg sucht.
Eigentlich wollte ich mich auf die russische Berichterstattung konzentrieren, als ich sagte, dass nationale und internationale Erwägungen im Spiel sind. Erstens will Russland nicht in den Nahostkonflikt hineingezogen werden. Es hat mit dem Ukraine-Krieg alle Hände voll zu tun. Daher möchte es Neutralität demonstrieren. Zweitens will es innenpolitisch keine antijüdischen und antichristlichen Gefühle unter seiner großen muslimischen Bevölkerung schüren.
Obwohl ich es bisher nicht erwähnt habe, hat sich der chinesische Fernsehsender CGTN ebenso wie Vesti in seiner Berichterstattung über den Gaza-Krieg sehr zurückgehalten. Die Vorstellung innerhalb der Biden-Administration, dass China unter dem Druck der Vereinigten Staaten dazu gebracht werden kann, Teheran zur Zurückhaltung zu raten, wenn die israelischen Gräueltaten alle Grenzen überschreiten, ist ebenso illusorisch wie die Vorstellung derselben vermeintlich strategischen Denker, dass China dazu gebracht werden kann, Russland in seinem Ukraine-Krieg nicht mehr zu unterstützen.
Gilbert Doctorow 
“that everything the BBC has been saying about Russia for the past 20 months is “spun” and is being rejected by viewers”
We stopped watching the BBC Worldnews sometime around the Maidan, when their reportage was in straight contrast to what I saw was happening in Ukraine on the internet, shown by independent reporters on the ground.
The difference in their showing Ukrainian tanks starting move in and to shell the donbas civilians, while their was no mention of that in the BBC reports. The difference between the not mentioning of Yanukovich prohibiting the self defence of the security forces during the Maidan, and the “unexplained” sniper shootings that were without evidence placed on the feet of the Ukrainian government, when strangely a similar amount of civilians and the police forces were shot and often killed.
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I hope that there are many more like you, Peter. However, I think, unfortunately, that we are still in a minority in Europe. Things may of course change in the future when the AFU runs out of soldiers, the Neo-nazi government in the Ukraine eventually falls, and all the past lying becomes more obvious.
Russia will inevitably not cater to western wishes for a frozen conflict and a negotiated cease-fire, after its previous experiences with the Minsk agreements, and will surely demand at a minimum referendums in two or three more of the south western oblasts, a new government in Kiev which will sign treaties of binding neutrality for at least 100 years, non membership of NATO and possibly also the EU, a declaration of friendship and co-operation with Russia, an unencumbered gas pipeline to Hungary, handing over for trials of war criminals, permanent and final renunciation of all oblasts wishing to join the RF including Crimea, and legal action against countries which have illegally sequestered Russian assets.
In the longer term, depending on how much of the rotten, traitorous and criminal upper echelons of the EU can be got rid of, I expect the EU to fall apart, divided between the east (apart from maybe Poland and the Balts – but who cares about the latter) and the west which may still cling to the US, despite the mounting evidence that it is going down into the dustbin of history. This process may be initiated by the comparison between Hungary and Serbia benefitting from cheap Russian pipeline gas through a reformed Ukraine, and the expensive and probably fluctuating and always expensive US tanker-supplied LPG to the rest of the EU
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PS Thanks as usual to Mr Doctorow for his eminently readable and informed articles.
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