- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
- cross-posted to:
- [email protected]
Ukraine targeted key Russian military and industrial sites in occupied Crimea and Krasnodar Krai, striking the Saky and Kacha military airfields and the Tuapse oil refinery, Ukraine’s General Staff reported on Feb. 26.
The one problem I have with these kinds of reports DURING the war, is that I never know how much is public propaganda, and how much is real. From both sides.
Just to give an example, if you read newspapers published in England during WWII, you would be lead to believe that British troops had developed a super power night vision by eating carrots.
No, I’m serious. They legitimately reported that.
What had actually happened was British intelligence had developed radar. They were able to now track nazi bombers before they even arrived to their bombing sites. So they’d reposition their anti-air defenses, and suddenly their hit rate at night went up massively.
Then, because the Germans didn’t know what radar was, they told the newspapers “Well our boys have been eating carrots which is good for your eyesight, especially at night.”
And the papers printed that. The nazis then established studies on the effects of carrots. And silent generation parents then taught their baby boomer children to eat carrots because it would help their eyesight. Completely missing the point of what the newspaper had printed, but even if they hadn’t the whole thing was bogus anyways. Just war propaganda from a war that had ended 10 years earlier at that point.
And theres countless other examples of this. I just wanted to list my favorite one as an example of how war propaganda works in real time.
So when I see these reports, from either side, I never know how true they are. Russia in the early days was sending out reports that they had such an advantage that they were going to win within 2 weeks. Obviously that was untrue. The allies have claimed they’re destroying russian tanks faster than russia can manufacture them, and that russia would run out of old stock tanks by 2024. That obviously didn’t happen either.
Then this past summer, Ukraine claimed to have invaded Russia, and taken land of theirs. I held out, unclear if it was true. Now, months later, that appears to actually have been true.
So I’m not saying all news about the war is propaganda. I’m just saying I never know which news is.
Does anyone know a reliable source of news that filters out propaganda?
People are telling you that sources that don’t have a track record of lying are typically good sources. Beyond that, you can use the FIRMS map for reviewing if an attack has really taken place. It’s a system for detecting forest fires by satellites, but it also detects any other bigger fires. You can use it for example to see where the actual front lines are because where a lot of artillery shells explode, there’s a “forest fire” on the map. It might not show everything because if there happen to be clouds overneath, the satellites will not recognise the fire. So, it might give you false negatives, but usually not false positives.
Lol, if only there was a way to verify or critique news…
For real though, you should definitely start scrutinising your media diet, no single source will be unbiased and trustworthy at every point in time. Nor while they have the whole picture.
Start at sources with a history of credibility, watch for biases, amateur speculation or omissions, compare to independent reporting/verification of the same events.
In the current information age, you should really do this for all information you consume, including this.
You can search for media literacy, how to counter fake news/disinformation/misinformation, or similar terms.
I mean there is almost always footage that is geolocated. Heck a huge portion is from Russians posting all the big booms in their country. Then there’s all the satellite photos too. It’s all out there man.
The news I post is as good as can be expected. AP, Reuters, Kyiv Independent are reputable news agencies. You need to look more at the source than the publisher. “Government officials says…” articles are factually ‘true’. The official said that. Lies? Corroborating evidence? Critical thinking is your job as much as it is the reporter’s.