The coverage of the war launched by Russia against Ukraine on February 24 shows us the opposition between free and committed journalism and the disinformation that Russia presents
Churchill said that “in times of war, the truth is so precious that it should be protected from lies by a guardian.” In our democratic societies, war journalism has an essential function of testimony and surveillance. That is why the ethical rigor of the journalist and his commitment to the facts are so important.
The coverage of the war launched by Russia against Ukraine on February 24 shows us the opposition between free and committed journalism and the directed and distorted information that Russia presents, what we call disinformation.
From a professional perspective, Western media newsrooms have incorporated new resources to improve their news coverage. Satellite imagery and data verification are two of these particularly valuable tools.
New information resources
In March 2021, the company Maxar Technologies, specialized in space infrastructure and intelligence, provided images to the US government of the increase in the Russian military presence on the borders of Ukraine. These images were published and updated in international media. These were new reliable information resources, which required little effort to verify.
In this way, the use of satellite images as a source of information for the media has become widespread. Some professionals had already been using this type of technique for several years, called Open Source Intelligence. And they are very useful in conflicts and in issues such as climate change.
When the invasion and attacks against Ukrainian cities begin, the use of Twitter, TikTok, Instagram and other networks is generalized by all media, particularly audiovisual media. In this way, we have known testimonies of citizens whose lives lost their daily life in a precipitous way. They themselves commented for the media on the advance of the Russian army in Kharkov, the attack on the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, life suspended in the Kiev metro or the drama of the refugees.
Along with these resources, typical of citizen journalism, all Western media have launched an extraordinary human deployment and informative effort. Special envoys to the main hot spots of the conflict and neighboring countries, analysis, opinion articles, maps, infographics, multimedia resources, extraordinary photographic reports and a lot of fact-checking work.
In Spain, most of the public and private media have created fact-checking services to prevent the spread of false news and disinformation, which are so dangerous in war contexts.
As for the guarantees for journalists, the situation seems to be changing as the conflict intensifies. In the first days of the war, journalists were respected by the Russian army; but, as the conflict has escalated, the situation has worsened dramatically. On March 4, the car in which a team from the British channel Sky News was traveling was attacked by Russian snipers. Bulletproof vests saved their lives. This attack sets a dangerous precedent for professional work and press freedom.
The war in the Russian media
In Russia, most of the media are controlled directly or indirectly by the state or by groups close to President Putin. The few independent media that remain find many limitations to their work and many of them are described as “foreign agents”.
Today, words like “war”, “Ukrainian army” or “invasion” cannot be used by the media under threat of web blocking and financial fine. The audiovisual media do not broadcast images of Ukraine, just as they have not shown images of Russian hospitals during the pandemic. They are realities alien to Russian citizens. The invasion has been presented as a “military operation to denazify” a part of Ukraine and protect the Russian-speaking population from “genocide”. However, many Russian journalists have spoken out against the war; They have promoted manifestos of condemnation and have denounced the cultural, economic and social degradation that the conflict will mean for Russia.
Disinformation is an ancient technique, used systematically in armed conflicts. Russia has developed a great cyber capacity to generate hoaxes and disinformation abroad with the so-called “Internet Research Agency” and the media RT and Sputnik, among others. The media generates the content and the trolls act in social networks, generating many confusing narratives, creating doubts and confusing facts and opinions. The fundamental objective of these operations is to build and spread arguments favorable to the Russian government and its foreign policy.
To avoid the disinformation and toxic content that RT and Sputnik are generating about the war in Ukraine, the European Union has decided to suspend its activity in the EU countries.
The Russian response has not been long in coming. First, it bans access to Twitter and Facebook, and then the Russian parliament passes a law that provides 15-year sentences for disseminating information considered false by the government. Given the risk that this measure entails, most of the major Western media –BBC, Bloomberg, RAI, TVE, Agencia EFE, CNN, ARD, among others– have decided to leave Moscow, initiating a news blackout in the country.
The creation of an own and interested account of the war by the Russian authorities seems to be creating another battlefield in which the truth is the first casualty of the war, as stated in 1917 by US Senator H. Johnson. Freedom of information is a fragile asset that we must protect in all scenarios, especially if it is intended to be used as a weapon of war.
This article has been published in The Conversation
#RussiaUkraine #war #journalism #guardian #truth