Thread: Russophobia in media

I want to thank you for giving sources for your examples of Russophobia in the media. I am a U.S. citizen who has asked on other sites for examples from other U.S. citizens when they write about Russophobia or how people in the U.S. only receive negative news about Russia. I ask because I have not seen only bad news about Russia in the U.S. press. What are they reading? It's outside my experience, so I want to know. I never get any answers. What am I to think? From experience, I have come to not take all comments on the internet as the truth if they contradict what I see and hear around me. If other citizens see things I don't, show me where to look!

I don't want a debate, I just have been taught to not except anything at 'face value.' I think it is similar to people responding to a person who is very religious talking about the existence of God: the religious person is often asked "what is your proof." In a similar way, I just want to see the sources of Western bias because I don't have time to read every newspaper or website based in Western media, especially as I am trying to read Russian newspapers and translating some of them is difficult for me

The point is: I appreciate you showing some source material.

As a side note, the use of the word "defeated" is often used in sports or competition here where I live: for example if Detroit's baseball team wins the a baseball competition and was competing against the Lansing team I would think nothing of reading the sentence "Detroit defeats Lansing in the ... series." The term is not always used in a military way of an actual defeat of an enemy: two teams competed with each other, one lost and one won because one team 'defeated' the other, it's a victory! It's a subtle difference but this is how some writers would use the word 'defeat' in this case. The word 'defeat' is more colorful, more expressive than writing "Hey, Detroit won."

However, in our present world I do see how the choice of wording was not good if the writer was using the word in a neutral way. Mary

Originally Posted by maryo

As a side note, the use of the word "defeated" is often used in sports or competition here where I live: for example if Detroit's baseball team wins the a baseball competition and was competing against the Lansing team I would think nothing of reading the sentence "Detroit defeats Lansing in the ... series." The term is not always used in a military way of an actual defeat of an enemy: two teams competed with each other, one lost and one won because one team 'defeated' the other, it's a victory! It's a subtle difference but this is how some writers would use the word 'defeat' in this case. The word 'defeat' is more colorful, more expressive than writing "Hey, Detroit won."

When two commands get together and compete the logical outcome is that one command might defeat the other one.
Eurovision had 28 contestants from different countries not 2 but somehow only Russia gets defeated. It's simply logical to conclude that it was Russia vs the rest of contestants, according to the author. Now the bigger question is, should Russians feel threatened by those 27 countries (let's not forget all the boos Polina has got) and are those countries hostile toward Russia? That's the message that the Guardian wanted to deliver to the readers and that's no more than propaganda.

Originally Posted by hddscan

Recent examples of blackpainting
Sweden defeats Russia to grasp Eurovision song contest victory | Television & radio | The Guardian
Topic says: "Sweden defeats Russia to grasp Eurovision song contest victory"
Defeats? That's a strange word for a song contest where 28 countries gathered together to entertain the world.

Fun fact: Russia actually beat Sweden by viewer votes. Italy came in first (366), followed by Russia (286) and then Sweden (279). Sweden "won" because of the jury votes.

Published here: https://eurovisiontimes.wordpress.co...he-televoting/
Based on the full data set of the results found here: http://www.eurovision.tv/page/results

Originally Posted by hddscan

When two commands get together and compete the logical outcome is that one command might defeat the other one.
Eurovision had 28 contestants from different countries not 2 but somehow only Russia gets defeated. It's simply logical to conclude that it was Russia vs the rest of contestants, according to the author. Now the bigger question is, should Russians feel threatened by those 27 countries (let's not forget all the boos Polina has got) and are those countries hostile toward Russia? That's the message that the Guardian wanted to deliver to the readers and that's no more than propaganda.

By the time Russia was "defeated", every other country except Sweden had already lost the contest. So, it was a rivalry of the two at that point, and obviously, one or another was to have "defeated" the other one.

Originally Posted by Eric C.

By the time Russia was "defeated", every other country except Sweden had already lost the contest. So, it was a rivalry of the two at that point, and obviously, one or another was to have "defeated" the other one.

By the time the article was published every country except Sweden was already "defeated", so your point of a particular timeframe is somewhat illogical. It would be more logical if it would be several articles before and if Sweden and Russian would only be two countries in the finals. More problems come when you look at the quote from the article in my first post, the quote shows hostility to Polina Gagarina, also author somehow was able to squeeze "toxic international hypocrisy" into the songs contest.

Originally Posted by hddscan

By the time the article was published every country except Sweden was already "defeated", so your point of a particular timeframe is somewhat illogical. It would be more logical if it would be several articles before and if Sweden and Russian would only be two countries in the finals. More problems come when you look at the quote from the article in my first post, the quote shows hostility to Polina Gagarina, also author somehow was able to squeeze "toxic international hypocrisy" into the songs contest.

So are you basically saying by this that the entire world is turning up against Russia, or you simply deny the writer's right to have his own opinion on a particular subject? Either way, further explanation would be quite interesting. =))

Originally Posted by Eric C.

So are you basically saying by this that the entire world is turning up against Russia

Not the entire world but some countries

Originally Posted by Eric C.

or you simply deny the writer's right to have his own opinion on a particular subject?

He's a journalist not a fiction writer. Journalists should not put their own opinions to news, they should report facts, otherwise it's not news but biased opinion or even propaganda, thank you for confirming that you think so too.