# How Much Propaganda Are We Getting? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 22, 2000, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406 "2000-01-22T03:34:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Freedomx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/4af34b/32.png) [@Freedomx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freedomx)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2000, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406/1 "2000-01-22T03:34:00Z")
When America was gearing up to go into Kosovo, we were bombarded with numbers of the hundreds of thousands of genocide victims over there. Stories of “Rape Stadiums” were prominent as well as other stories that demonizied the Serbs. Now that the war is not as heated, the numbers are signifigantly lower than reported before the war. How much of this was over reported specifically to mislead and motivate the American public? Where is this rant going you ask? Well, as I read the stories about Chechnya, I wonder how much is real, and how much is fake. How would we even be able to tell the difference? Who over there is the good guy, and who is the bad guy? Check ot this excerpt from a story about the Russians over there: [Propaganda?](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/et?ac=000114832908976&rtmo=faaqYf3s&atmo=ggggg3JK&pg=/et/00/1/22/wgroz22.html) > [@](#): > > RUSSIAN soldiers in Chechnya were accused yesterday of raping local women and killing at least one of their victims. > Chechen refugees told a human rights organisation they had spoken to rape victims in Russian-controlled Chechnya. Other refugees said they had been forced to hide their daughters from drunken soldiers. The true scale of the violence against the women of Chechnya may be hidden by the local taboo on sexual assault, a report by Human Rights Watch said. > > Chechen women who survive rape are liable to be divorced if married or never to find a husband if single and the strict rules of conduct for sexual relations in the strongly Muslim region deter victims from speaking out. The allegations are thus unlikely to be proven, but they tally with accounts of widespread looting, harassment and cases of arbitrary shooting of Chechen civilians in Russian-held territory. > > One 23-year-old pregnant woman was raped and murdered in Shali last month, a neighbour told Human Rights Watch. When local people prepared her body for burial they found it scarred by bruises and toothmarks. I can also recall hundreds of stories picturing the Chechans as kidnapping, raping murdering thugs. Is all of this true? Does it smack of the same propaganda we saw during WWII and the Cold war? Are we supposed to believe that all these people are really animals? If this is the truth, how would you be able to seperate it form pure propaganda? FYI…here is the link to the Chechan Website. [Chechan Rebel Propaganda?](http://www.kavkaz.org/) ---
**Author:** ![Cooper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@Cooper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cooper)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2000, 3:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406/2 "2000-01-22T03:36:00Z")
This is funny, because an American soldier is facing court martial for the rape and murder of a Kosovo child. ---
**Author:** ![Konrad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f475e1/32.png) [@Konrad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Konrad)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2000, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406/3 "2000-01-22T04:38:00Z")
If you can’t trust [kavkaz.org](http://kavkaz.org) who can you trust? Don’t forget that most of sources the western media has in Chechnya are Chechens. Chechens who report hundreds of Russian tanks and troops destroyed but run out of film for both their video camera and regular camera. How much of it is propaganda? If you’re watching TV then all of it is. Both sides have a lot more interest in winning than in telling the truth. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_Bowe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/df788c/32.png) [@Doug\_Bowe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_Bowe)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2000, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406/4 "2000-01-22T04:49:00Z")
Which brings up a good book on the subject that was published a decade or so ago: The First Casualty of War (is the Truth) ---
**Author:** ![Surgoshan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e95f7d/32.png) [@Surgoshan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Surgoshan)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2000, 6:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406/5 "2000-01-22T06:43:00Z")
You are getting propoganda with your breakfast cereal. With every broadcast or print by the media, the government is spoon feeding you propoganda. The government is manipulating you so that it can do what it wishes. It is seeking the New World Order. It seeks to suppress individual freedom and cement all peoples into a single, mindless, mass. It’s the Jews that are doing this. They are using the blacks as labour in the bank-driven New World Order. That is propaganda (it also has racism, anti-semitism, and right-wing extremism, but it’s propaganda). ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2000, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406/6 "2000-01-22T07:09:00Z")
With yamo & RobRoy posting here, we’re certainly getting a lot more propoganda than we used to get! ---
**Author:** ![voltaire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voltaire/32/313_2.png) [@voltaire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/voltaire)\ **Post date:** [January 22, 2000, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406/7 "2000-01-22T21:14:00Z")
I’m sure there’s plenty of sexual assaults occuring in Chechnya. And probably even more than usual. But guess what, there’s plenty of sexual assualts occuring here and everywhere else too! I highly doubt that there are any _organized_ “rape stadiums” in Chechnya and I highly doubt that there ever were in Kosovo. Maybe a handful of soldiers with the same barbaric sexual tendencies, but nothing actually sanctioned by the higher-ups. Just look at the way our media reports locally occuring events and you can just imagine how they mutilate international ones. Sometimes they just fixate on one marginal element of an issue, blow it out of proportion, and make it seem as if it were the rule rather than the exception. I’m sure this is not unique to us, the rest of the world’s media reports inanities about the U.S. as well. ---
**Author:** ![RobRoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7ba0ec/32.png) [@RobRoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobRoy)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2000, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406/8 "2000-01-23T23:25:00Z")
To back up on this - kinda off thread, but germane to the issue. The increased merger mania in the media will make the official story on any issue more monolithic. You won’t have to ponder the differring stories there won’t be any more than one. In short, if you are an American consuming American media (actually they consume US as potential advertising $) - the viewpoint is very limited. Russia bad. Chechenya good (until they ally with Islamic fundamentalists). Noriega good. Noriega bad. Iraq good (better than Iran). Iraq bad. etc. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2000, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406/9 "2000-01-24T00:34:00Z")
Good old party Communist line, there, RobRoy. In case you hadn’t noticed: when the Soviet Union was a going concern, those in the United States had access to a great variety of news sources (variety used to refer to political persuasion here). Those in the USSR did not. Now that the USSR’s a thing of the past, the situtation in Russia et al has changed but not in the USA. Now those in the formerly communist lands have access to a variety of news sources. Sorry if this interrupts your propoganda drive. ---
**Author:** ![demosthenes\_au](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ee59a6/32.png) [@demosthenes\_au](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/demosthenes_au)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2000, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406/10 "2000-01-24T03:40:00Z")
We’re constantly barraged by propoganda on various deiffeent levels. Despite being a rather cynical age on the whole we accept general media reporting without question. Sure when somethign like a war comes along and patriotism is waved some question the perceptions relayed back to them and whether a twisting is taking place, but that’s the real point here. Every bit of reporting has a slant. It’s a representation of someone’s perception. It may lack content. It may lack factuality. One of the first things you learn as a journalist is that there is no such thing as objectivity. You can strive for it but it cannot ever be truly achieved. Now before I’m deluged with accusations of paranoia and innacuracy let me say that the majority of journos don’t misrepresent (any more than is possible naturally) but the potential for deliberate manipualtion is huge. Why? Because we accept the average news report. We give it credibility by repeating it. How do you think urban legends started? And there are countless number of people out there who swear that some of these urban legends are true. Why? Because they read it somewhere… ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2000, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406/11 "2000-01-24T05:50:00Z")
Surgoshan: I FNORD don’t FNORD know FNORD what FNORD you’re FNORD talking FNORD about. * * * The truth, as always, is more complicated than that. ---
**Author:** ![RobRoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7ba0ec/32.png) [@RobRoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobRoy)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2000, 5:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406/12 "2000-01-24T05:57:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by Monty: > \*\*Good old party Communist line, there, RobRoy. In case you hadn’t noticed: when the Soviet Union was a going concern, those in the United States had access to a great variety of news sources (variety used to refer to political persuasion here). Those in the USSR did not. > > Now that the USSR’s a thing of the past, the situtation in Russia et al has changed but not in the USA. Now those in the formerly communist lands have access to a variety of news sources. > > Sorry if this interrupts your propoganda drive.\*\* Um check a logic text book. Just because American media is becoming more limited - says nothing about the state of Soviet nor post-Soviet media. Both are deplorable. You must subscribe to the very dichotimes outlined in my post. If I’m not mistaken, it goes like this…US bad = Soviet good, or Soviet bad = US good. I said nor implied nothing of the sort. Truth is not a limited commodity that needs to be balanced by untruth, both the US and the Soviets can have poor media, both could have good media…(I can’t believe I am actually countering this straw-man argument…whatever). ---
**Author:** ![RobRoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7ba0ec/32.png) [@RobRoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobRoy)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2000, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406/13 "2000-01-24T05:58:00Z")
I would add that an Irish national colleague of mine (hardly a commie) finds American media simplistic, stupid and short sighted. ---
**Author:** ![Monty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/monty/32/47_2.png) [@Monty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Monty)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2000, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406/14 "2000-01-25T05:58:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Originally posted by RobRoy: > \*\* Um check a logic text book. Just because American media is becoming more limited - says nothing about the state of Soviet nor post-Soviet media. Both are deplorable. > > You must subscribe to the very dichotimes outlined in my post. If I’m not mistaken, it goes like this…US bad = Soviet good, or Soviet bad = US good. > > I said nor implied nothing of the sort. Truth is not a limited commodity that needs to be balanced by untruth, both the US and the Soviets can have poor media, both could have good media…(I can’t believe I am actually countering this straw-man argument…whatever). > > \*\* RobRoy: you are definitely proof that I, not you, am aware of what’s actually in a Logic textbook. My evidence is your posting here (and in other threads). On this particular issue: First: Although there has been an increase in media mergers in the United States, it still hasn’t approached the one voice present in the USSR during that union’s heydey. Even when USA’s “officialdom” was advancing one side or the other in a conflict as good or bad, there were other news media stating the opposite. That did not happen under the USSR. There was only one source–“officialdom.” Second: Quite often, publishers allow newspapers and other media what’s known as editorial freedom. That means they don’t censor what’s in the newspapers or the other media. Again, the USSR practiced 100% censorship. Third: Just for the heck of it, let’s grant that these publishers in the USA decide not to grant such editorial freedom. The fact remains that there will still be far more voices, and political positions, than was published in the USSR. Fourth: Your assertion that the USA will have only “one voice” in the news media approaches a cry of “The Illuminati! The Illuminati!” They don’t exist. On the issue of good and bad: Not once did I advance what you accuse me of subscribing to. Perhaps you really do need to check that Logic book you were hailing not so long ago. FTR: The Soviet Union was bad. I don’t say that because I automatically consider the USA to be good, but because the USSR’s record showed exactly how bad it was. You might not have noticed, but the USSR crumbled. Now the people there are suffering in trying to create a viable economy out of the disaster your precious communism created. The USA has a far better record in both human rights at home and abroad than the USSR and in economic matters than said USSR. Of course, there were some bad things in the USA’s history but this country certainly seems to have gone through those without impoverishing the entire population. Again, FTR: you are the one advancing a strawman argument here. BTW: why haven’t you moved to one of those grand old communist countries anyway? I hear the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea is a Workers’ Paradise. ---
**Author:** ![RobRoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7ba0ec/32.png) [@RobRoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobRoy)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2000, 1:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406/15 "2000-01-26T01:24:00Z")
I fail to see where I praised the Soviet media??? Where, Where, Where??? I was dissing the American media. PERIOD. Now if you want to praise the American media without contrasting it to the Soviet, feel free. Better is not necessarily good. If it is your argument that the American media is great just because the Soviet media sucks fine. I am not saying the American media is bad because the Soviet media is good, or even close. Here, I will draw you a picture: (but first the key to the picture. This is not a door key, but whats is also known as a legend - do not confuse with a myth, or tall tale, do not confuse “tale” with “tail”, meaning “ass”. To be clearer - immediately below IS NOT the picture, this is the GUIDE TO THE PICTURE - the picture will follow. I didn’t want you to read the picture without the guide lest you responded to it as if IT WAS the picture) S=Soviet media A=American media M=LeMonde 1=bad 10=good \>=better \<=worse (the next line is the picture) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 S\> \ **Author:** ![RobRoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7ba0ec/32.png) [@RobRoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobRoy)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2000, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406/16 "2000-01-26T01:27:00Z") “your precious communism” And where did the h\*\*\* did that come from and the invitation for me to leave the country? If I criticise the American media I am a commie? Whatever. What makes America great is the ability to criticise the media, and criticise IN the media. Go back to Nazi Germany, I hear it is a fascist paradise. ---
**Author:** ![RobRoy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7ba0ec/32.png) [@RobRoy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RobRoy)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2000, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406/17 "2000-01-26T01:29:00Z")
The “picture” didn’t come through - here it is again: 1–2--3–4--5–6--7–8--9–10 ----S\>-------------\ **Author:** ![Freedomx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/4af34b/32.png) [@Freedomx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freedomx)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2000, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406/18 "2000-02-05T16:37:00Z") I thought these were some good examples of propaganda during the war on Kosovo. These example don’t even touch on the discrepencies between the very public estimates of 100,000 dead albanians and the very quiet revision to 2,000 with indeterminate causes of death. This is an excerpt from an article [here](http://news.suc.org/bydate/Feb_05/0.html) > [@](#): > > Let me give a few illustrations, taken from a large universe, which point to massive failures of Western journalists during the Kosovo crisis, journalistic work which served the NATO powers as clearly as any rantings or misstatements of fact on RTS. On CPJ principles, this journalistic performance makes them Nato propagandists rather than real journalists. > > 1. Christiane Amanpour, who while covering the Kosovo crisis married the chief public relations official of the U.S. State Department, James Rubin, stated on October 6, 1999 that Nato’s war was for “the first time…a war fought for human rights” and that “only a fraction of 1 percent of the [Nato] bombs went astray.” These were simple transmittals of Nato propaganda, not credible in the case of the humanitarian aim and neither credible nor verified by an independent source in the case of the bombing failure rate. > > 2. Journalist Robert Fisk has described how, on the day Nato killed at least 87 ethnic Albanian refugees at Korisa and injured a hundred more, the Nato spokesmen in Brussels said that the alliance had had “another effective day” in which operations “again went very well,” and NO REPORTER QUESTIONED THIS, causing Fisk to describe these reporters as “sheep” (The Independent, May 15). > > 3. When Nato bombed a passenger train on April 12, killing 55 civilians, reporters were shown a videotape by Nato that “proved” the train was going to fast for the trajectory of the missiles to be altered. Recently it was disclosed that Nato had played the videotape at three times its normal speed–but the reporters who had been taken in by this trick earlier did not find this acknowledgement of Nato disinformation newsworthy, and of course did not cause them to reflect on the possible existence of a Nato “lie machine.” > > 4. Robert Fisk recently pointed out (in The Independent, Jan. 17, 2000) that when Nato bombed an Albanian refugee convoy, BBC reporter Mark Laity stated that “They [Nato] are very confident that they attacked a military convoy;” he did not say that Nato “say” they are confident, rather they “are” confident, as would be said by a man who was already a Nato propagandist. Fisk notes that Laity was recently offered a job as PR man for Nato. > > 5. George Kenney was given credible information from a reporter for a major news organization, who regularly travels with the U.S. Secretary of State, that “rafts of journalists” were present at Rambouillet when a senior State Department official said that Nato had deliberately “raised the bar” in the supposed “negotiations” with Yugoslavia, demanding Nato occupation of the entire country, knowing that this was unacceptable, because Nato wanted to bomb Serbia. This sensational news was completely suppressed by that entire “raft of journalists,” making it easier for Nato to close things out as if Serbia was recalcitrant and poor Nato was forced to bomb (which was the impression given by the mainstream media). > > It would be interesting to hear Judy Blank explain to us whether this reporting on Rambouillet was real journalism or plain propaganda service, and whether that “raft of journalists” would rate mention by CPJ in their list of genuine journalists if terminated by “terrorists” or some enemy state. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2000, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406/19 "2000-02-05T17:11:00Z")
Freedom, Just out of curiosity… In one of the gun threads, you asserted that the Waco criminals, despite having been found innocent by a jury, were thrown in jail anyway by a judge. Was your source for that information The Independent, or Robert Fisk, by chance? - Rick ---
**Author:** ![Freedomx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/4af34b/32.png) [@Freedomx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freedomx)\ **Post date:** [February 5, 2000, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406/20 "2000-02-05T17:40:00Z")
I’m glad you asked that. I had asked one more question on the Waco thing and it got buried under a couple of more pages. This is from page two on the Second Amendment Thread. (about a 1/4 from top) > [@](#): > > ## quote: > > ## After a jury trial lasting nearly two months, the jury acquitted four of the Davidians on all counts on which they were charged > > Maybe the information I have is confused because there are so many people involved. > > Just to clear up any remnant of confusion, are these 4 in jail right now? I honestly can’t remember where I initially read about the verdicts. (I wish I could) Thank you for calling me on it. I hate throwing around falsehoods in an arguement as they tend to collapse your whole arguement even when they are a minor part of it. So the only thing that remains is whether or not the 4 people who were aquitted on all charges are in jail or not. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-much-propaganda-are-we-getting/17406.md?page=2)