ABC reduced to running American propaganda on Four Corners

The level to which Australia’s government-funded media corporation, the ABC, has sunk is illustrated by the fact that in a slot reserved for its main investigative stories, it ran an American propaganda documentary from the American publicly-funded outlet PBS on 3 July.

Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Putin.

Titled “Putin and the Presidents”, the documentary made no effort to disguise itself, conveniently leaving out masses of context in its bid to paint the Russian president as the villain supreme.

It covers Putin’s interactions with American presidents from Bill Clinton onwards, painting the American leaders as trying to get along with the Russian president, while he did everything to spoil relationships.

One can understand the American obsession with Putin; at the moment, he is the administration’s bete noire, standing between Washington and NATO membership for Ukraine. Continue reading “ABC reduced to running American propaganda on Four Corners”

When it comes to Ukraine, David Speers forgets he is a journalist

David Speers, the ABC employee who hosts the Insiders political current affairs show on Sunday morning, is not known for being afraid to confront his guests during an interview. He interrupts them frequently, always trying to get a point across and validate a narrative that he has.

But in front of Ukrainian Ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko on 2 July, Speers was like a lamb, never asking the envoy anything that would cut across the latter’s view of the Ukraine war — obviously a sympathetic one — and seemingly unable to ask even a single contradictory question.

There was plenty to question Myroshnychenko about: for example, there have been a number of reports that a bid for peace between Russia and Ukraine in April-May last year was quashed by the intervention of Boris Johnson at the instigation of the US. Continue reading “When it comes to Ukraine, David Speers forgets he is a journalist”