We all get that the NYT and WaPo should be called "The Daily Mockingbird" and the "CIA Newstetter", but it goes way beyond that. We think in terms of extreme bias and propaganda, but it turns out that sometimes they just make it up out of whole cloth. And outrageously and audaciously, they go beyond "unnamed sources" and "familiar with" and all the way to direct quotes from world leaders.
We'll analyze today's example:
The first thing to notice is that it's from RT, which we're supposed to believe is some sort of Russkie mouthpiece. Well if it is, they've got a mole or two and one of them planted this story But it reads in and of itself as entirely legitimate (if you believe the propaganda about the DPRK), so why do I think it's phony?
First, note that there are no links to the source material. Where did RT get this text? (That's a rhetorical question. Someone at Langley wrote it.)
The original statements are bigger issue than you might think. General Kang would certainly have been speaking in Korean. Government officials are very attentive to translations because that's where you can turn something like "honored friend" to "little faggot", and unless someone who understands the original hears or reads it and notices the mistranslation, it can very easily go undetected.
Okay, well maybe they were just lax at hyperlinking, so let's go looking for ourselves. Most official news from the DPRK is republished in English by KCNA Watch, with original sources like KCNA (Korean Central News Agency) and the Voice of Korea.
The most incendiary and shocking news we can find about the general is from over two weeks ago:
Minister of National Defence of DPRK Kang Sun Nam speaks at military parade (KCNA Watch 7/28/2023)
Note that KCNA includes a link to their source, the Voice of Korea English Language Service. Already doing better than our RT mole. Maybe we can find something concerning the specific event, the Moscow International Security Conference. Indeed we can!
U.S. Hegemonism – “Trigger ” for War KCNA Watch 8/31/2022)
At least it's got "war", right? Well, that's from last year's 10th conference, not this year's 11th, and the story is regarding statements made by Putin, such as:
The reality corroborates that the U.S. is indeed the wrecker of world peace and a chieftain of war which dares to do anything to realize its wild ambition for world hegemony. It also illustrates that the U.S. anachronistic ambition for hegemony would never escape from denunciation and rejection from all countries aspiring to the establishment of a fair international order.
Well, we've come quite a ways from "the Norks are going to nuke!", haven't we?
The problem is, okay, the press is running through some gov supercomputer/press office approving major stories on all forms of media. Hence it is sanctioned, and or removed.
What is real today?
For example okay you can bring this up. When RT was sanctioned. There was hacks reported on it and other Kremlin/Russian papers particularly of online origin. They say it was Ukrainians but that Op was bigger.
Until stuff passing through your domain, translations, or traffic, is going through the same regulators and often filters. So when another major paper or news station covers it, it's subject to what approval and propaganda and agenda if it's covered. Sometimes it is reportedly come from. Faster rewritten. Under sanction it cannot be denied.
Prior to X, Twitter started censoring all kinds of politicans. Who called that in? It caused agendas. Politically motivated. Until more started shouting fuck off and Musk rescued it.
But unless you're a national, of that domain, you've only got this other filter. It is fickle, folly, fancy, whimsical. A narrative of what it wants, hopes, and advertises. Not what the other side has to say.
Yes you can workaround to extents and limitations. VPNs, rerouting. But unless you're a native, there's often a completely different internet and media.
I have no idea, what you meant by that?