OPINION:
A wave of the hand was all Obi-Wan Kenobi needed to mesmerize his adversaries in “Star Wars.” Nothing of the sort exists in the real world, but sources of information are chock-full of fantasy, and they are nearly as hypnotically effective.
Sadly, modern news outlets demonstrate little capacity for distinguishing fact from fiction — as evidenced by the so-called terrorist attack on Moscow — and they merrily beguile their customers for prominence and profit. A return to traditional information sources that prioritize reality is the clearest escape route from illusion.
News outlets around the world last week flashed video from Moscow purporting to show an aerial drone exploding harmlessly in the night sky above the Kremlin. Accompanying reportage relayed Russian authorities’ claims that the footage captured a failed Ukrainian drone strike that had as its mission the assassination of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now serving as a prominent Russian security official, called for retaliation against Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy: “After today’s terrorist attack, there are no options left except for the physical elimination of Zelensky and his cabal.” Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of the Russian Parliament, called for retaliation that has been interpreted as a demand for a nuclear strike on Ukraine.
Mr. Zelenskyy categorically denied involvement in a plot to take out his nemesis, as would anyone but a fool. What if he were truthful and Mr. Putin, the former KGB spy professional, staged the entire incident in an attempt to leverage opinion — domestic and international — against the man resisting his imperialist invasion? And what if the unhinged Russian butcher were to use the event as an excuse for launching a 21st-century nuclear war?
Putin propaganda is hardly unlikely. Daniel Hoffman, former CIA station chief in Moscow, told Fox News on Thursday that the incident has the look of “a false flag operation,” relating that a Russian press spokesman “said that the drone was launched by Ukraine on orders of the United States.” A Russian Telegram channel also discounted the Kremlin’s official line: “Shooting down such objects above the [Kremlin] towers is prohibited by protocol, so reports of downed UAVs are nonsense.”
Americans don’t need to look overseas to witness examples of artful news: Blockbuster revelations about Hunter Biden’s embarrassing laptop were banned from news feeds before the 2020 presidential election.
Americans now learn that current Secretary of State Antony Blinken had a hand in launching a campaign of subterfuge that spiked the story and, arguably, gave the nation President Biden.
It’s unsurprising, then, that a recent Gallup/Knight Foundation poll found only 25% of respondents agreed with the statement that national news organizations do not intend to mislead.
News is a business, of course, and media outlets thrive to offer their audiences a crave-worthy product. The compulsion is strong in management suites to choose marketability over objectivity and to sugarcoat reality with fantasy. And “progressive” journalists are poor choices for those seeking accurate information — their “facts” warp toward fiction under ideological pressure.
Americans weary of the struggle to understand who is droning whom should pivot to news outlets like The Washington Times with the integrity to shoot down dubious official narratives — whether emanating from Moscow or Washington.
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