I get it wrong sometimes
I call what I do Media Forensics. I am good at it. But even if I am 80% right, or even 90% most of the time, I still get it wrong sometimes. Learning from my mistakes is part of the process.
Sherlocking the media
Every media event is like a crime scene. Something happened. But what really happened. Who did it? Why? You need a Sherlock to look for clues.
A good forensicist is a detective who does not take things at face value.
We look for contradictions, inconsistencies, things that don’t add up. Inevitably, we will get some things wrong before we finally get them right.
In the case of media reports, whether supplied by the mainstream media or alternative or social media, one has to practice the same inductive skepticism that Sherlock did. Media reports are like Inspector Lestrade — usually deductive. They take a general premise and move to the specific. Russia: BAD! America: GOOD… Russia: CULPRIT. But it’s not always that simple.
Inductive analysis has its pitfalls. Not even Sherlock got it right, right from the beginning. One must be ready to revise one’s theories at any time, with new information.
My March 23 Mis-Report
A good example was recently, when I reported this…
…” the Russians just killed a Canadian sniper of repute, Wali, who holds the record for longest sniper kill, about 3.5 kilometers.
He was reportedly killed about 20 minutes on arrival on the battlefield. — probably through a precision air strike, although sniper fire is also possible. In either case, the Russians knew he was coming. And where he would be. This was a targeted killing. Message: you can’t run. You can’t hide.”
Ah, but Wali is alive!
I was remiss in not digging deeper. And ignoring contradictions. Plus rhetorical embellishment.
I should have asked why there was controversy about whether Wali was killed by a sniper or a missile strike? These are contradictory and represent completely different “battlefield” contexts. What exactly was meant by “on arrival on the battlefield” anyway? OK, OK, I hadn’t had my morning coffee.
At the time, I saw the story, which was circulating on VK and then reported by other usually more reliable sources, the Russians had just wiped out a mercenary base (or two) and arms depot with missile strikes.
There was pretty good photographic evidence that suggested that these strikes were devastating. As usual, the UAF downplayed damage and casualties — as they always do — with the truth evident later. Our guys fought to the death!” Then come photos of “our guys” drinking vodka on a Russian ship.
The Russians couldn’t know how many people died or who they were. And the UAF wouldn’t tell you. So had to guess that the scale of the attack and the damage would have caused a lot of casualties, which indeed now seems to have been the case. .
I also concluded— incorrectly — that, since the Russians were devoting resources targeting mercenaries in general, they had included Wali in particular for good measure, since his participation in the war had become something of a media event. He’s rather photogenic. That assumption is conditioned by what Western governments and media would do. But the Russians are clearly different— and the Russian MoD did not mention him or his “death”.
Mistake, mistakes…mea culpa.
I also took for granted — incorrectly — yet again! — the hype that Wali was an elite Canadian special forces JFT2 operative responsible for the world’s longest sniper shot . NOT! Wali did not take that shot. And he was never a member of JFT2.
If Wali HAD been what the western media said he was, it would have been a minor coup for the Russians to kill him with other mercenaries, but Russian intelligence is very, very good. They would have known who he actually was. As I have said, the Russian MOD never commented on him or his death.
But the rumors' had some circumstantial basis. Wali had, , “gone dark”, turning off his cellphone — suddenly disappearing .
The last time I turned off my cellphone for a day my family and friends got worried about my getting dying from COVID. To their disappointment I was fine.
Where there’s smoke, there’s fire?
In an age of anxiety, rumor flourishes, especially when the media lies — or spreads confusion. As often as not, we turn to our smartphones — to our equally misinformed friends and the social media.
But this kind of “informationizing” is not propaganda or deliberate “disinformation”: it is just human nature: our need to know what’s going on before it kills us. Inductive or deductive, fact plays a major role.
Fact: Wali is a mercenary of some repute, albeit exaggerated by the media
Fact ; Wali’s decision to fight as a mercenary in the Ukraine was trumpeted by the Western Media. The Russians knew (approximately) when he arrived in the Ukraiine.
Fact: The Russians began targeting mercenary bases around the time of his arrival.
Fact: Wali “disappeared” around this time. Oh, oh, oh.
This was enough for the social media to create a very credible story.
But it was wrong.
Wali was not important enough, by himself, for the Russians to waste a missile on: he is just a competent marksman. And really there are many like him.
Now — apparently — he is probably in Kiev. As time goes on, the likelihood of his being trapped there increases. and if he is captured, he will probably be tried as a mercenary and face a long prison term. He is an “unlawful combatant” — a real one — unlike most of the inmates in Gitmo.
Western media buys its own bullshit
But this is not how the Western media, particularly those in the Anglosphere characterize things. Here’s ABC (Australia).
Experts say much of the incorrect information being shared about the conflict in Ukraine amounted to “rampant disinformation” emanating from Russia.
In addition to deploying disinformation as grounds for an invasion, Russia has continued to push incorrect and misleading narratives as the war rages, including a failure to recognise the deaths of Russian troops, while deliberately misleading their own soldiers.
Note the use of “experts”. LOL. What “experts”? Experts are supposed to be unbiased, with some grounding in a specific area, which in the case of the Ukraine would be history and sociology.
However, ABC’s sources are cherry-picked — Abbie Richards, who graduated from Colorado, moved to Australia as a comedienne and is famous for conspiracy theories about TikTok and…ummm… golf (?). Then youngish Dr Olga Bolchak, who is a sociologist and specialist in digital information systems, but with a very clear rightwing Ukrainian bias propagating what are essentially conspiracy theories about Russia, especially the Crimea. This is disinformation.
By contrast, good, old-fashioned rumor can be true — to some extent — and if not completely be so — and, if it isn’t, it’s misinformed — usualy by media . But this is “misinformation”: it is not “disinformation” which is a deliberate attempt to deceive.
Media Tautology: what it is isn’t
The Western media practice propaganda rather than journalism — and they assume the Russians do too. But Russian are stubborn and skeptical, which is why the government can’t get them to practice social hygiene or take the excellent Russian vaccines. Americans have always accepted the integrity of their news media. Russians just think: Pravda!
ABC jumps from a single example of rumour proving incorrect to Russia pushing “incorrect and misleading narratives”, including the grounds for the “invasion”, which the Russians have always been completely open about and substantiated by bundles of evidence, especially UAF military intentions. This is, as I have said, deductive and tautological. The conclusion is decided before it is reached.
ABC assumes that Russia is like the West, what Putin aptly calls, “the Empire of Lies”.
An irony is that the Wali ‘narrative’ really had its origins in Western media hype, following his many self-serving interview with the press — not to mention in journalistic misinformation. The rumors were therefore an indirect consequence of the Western and Ukrainian propaganda initiative, constantly and consistently pushing fake news.
