Guardian’s glowing write-up of neo-nazi Aidar Battalion in stark contrast to its mockery of separatist volunteers
Catte Black
Interesting to compare Shaun Walker’s sneering piece in today’s Guardian on the foreign volunteers fighting for the”separatists”, with the grotesque and shameful fan write-up the same newspaper gave the neo-nazi “Women of the Aidar Battalion” back in March.
That article proved to be a PR disaster for the Guardian, as it features this photo:
…of a van bearing avowedly and unambiguously nazi symbolism. Within minutes of it appearing the Guardian’s comments section erupted in indignation that this supposedly liberal paper was running a sentimental sympathy piece about a collection of openly Hitler-worshipping racists.
The moderators initially tried to stem the tide with extreme censorship,scything down any mention of what the numbers on that van actually meant. But in the end the sheer press of people posting proved too much. The paper conceded defeat, and changed the caption of the offending photo from
“Anaconda says she is being treated well by the men in her battalion, but is hoping that the war will end soon.”
to
“Anaconda alongside a van displaying the neo-Nazi symbol 1488. The volunteer brigade is known for its far-right links.”
It was a small victory. Though the Graun didn’t alter or take down their glowing endorsement of the female fascists of Aidar, which stands today as it did then.
Note in today’s article Walker still feels able to put the word “fascists” in those obligatory quotes.
You be the judge of the ethical standards and human values on display here.
The Guardian’s latest attempt at shilling for the Ukraine Nazis
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a virtual duplicate of Shaun Walker’s article appeared in The Independent on the same day.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/ukraine-crisis-meet-the-foreign-nationals-fighting-for-the-donetsk-peoples-republic-10514796.html
Just visited Shaun Walker’s (new!) “sneering piece,” and once again, The Graun has the comboxes turned off.
[…] Originally appeared at Off Guardian […]
Does anyone know for sure Shaun Walker is a real person, and not just a pseudonym? The reason I ask is there seems incredibly little information about him out there given he works for the Guardian. No Wikipedia page, no biography I can find, and only about three or four photos.
Compare that with the amount of information there is on Luke Harding, Jonathan Freedland etcetera. It seems quite odd. So it got me thinking maybe “Shaun Walker” is a pen name or something.
Has anyone ever seen him in person or on TV?
Just another idiotic Shaun Lard Walker drivel for his <75 IQ audience that proves he was rightfully not on the list of hundreds banned journalists in Ukraine. Faithful propagandist
For some inexplicable reason, the Guardian has got the hots for foreign fascists, as long as they are fighting Russians. This reminds me of their love affair with Islamic extremists fighting against the secular military regime in Afghanistan and their Russians allies. The Islamists were presented as heroic freedom fighters, and we all know how well Afghanistan turned out.
Walker is pathetic. I love this claim of his in the above piece:
“the introduction of regular Russian forces at key moments is widely seen as a decisive factor in the military outcome, despite continued Kremlin denials of their presence”.
So Shaun, when are you actually going to provide some proof of these regular Russian forces you always state (not claim) are fighting?
I remember in one piece his source was some old Ukrainian peasant woman milking her cows.
Walker is always quick to insert “fascists” in quote marks, but never “Russian forces”. A complete joke of a ‘reporter’.
Yeah, when mentioning the name Shaun Walker, we should always be careful to put “reporter” in quotation marks!
Currently banned from CIF for providing links to proof of American and Ukrainian use of chemical weapons, and for drawing attention to Nougayrède’s attendance of Bilderberg in conjunction with Richard Perle and Co.
Wear your scars with pride. Can you post those links here?
Bilderberg Copenhagen 2014: Full list of official attendees
You’ll like this about Nougayrède from The Independent:
“Female editors of Le Monde and the New York times spiked in a single day”
Jill Abramson, the executive editor of the New York Times newspaper, and Natalie Nougayrède, editor-in-chief of the French title Le Monde, are both leaving their posts, it has emerged. Both were the first women to take the top editorial roles at their respective papers.
In a surprise announcement, the New York Times said Dean Baquet, 57, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has been managing editor since September 2011, would succeed Ms Abramson immediately, becoming the first African-American executive editor at the paper.
Ms Abramson, 60, said: “I have loved my run at the Times … we successfully blazed trails on the digital frontier and we have come so far in inventing new forms of story-telling.
“Our masthead became half female for the first time and so many great women hold important newsroom positions. Dean has been my partner in all this and he will be a great executive editor.” Mr Baquet said he was “honoured” to take on the role.
Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr thanked Ms Abramson but did not elaborate on why her tenure as editor was ending. “Jill Abramson has my sincere thanks for not just preserving and extending the excellence of our news report during her time as executive editor, but also for inspiring her colleagues to adjust their approach to how we deliver the news,” he said. Ravi Somaiya, a reporter for the newspaper, tweeted that the change was attributed by Mr Sulzberger Jr to “an issue with management in the newsroom.”
Ms Abramson had been appointed to the top job at the Times in September 2011, and Ms Nougayrède was another with a relatively brief tenure, departing after only 14 months at the helm of the highly respected, centre-left French daily, Le Monde.
Ms Nougayrède, 56, who had in recent weeks been accused of “authoritarian” and “Putin-like” tendencies, was forced out after journalists revolted against plans to combine the staff of print and online editions.
In a brief statement, Ms Nougayrède, elected editor by 80 per cent of journalists in March last year but in recent times accused of failing to communicate with the newspaper’s legendarily independent-minded editorial staff, said that she was no longer able to carry out her duties “in all fullness and serenity”.
“The determination of some members of the Le Monde staff to reduce drastically the prerogatives of the editor is, for me, incompatible with the pursuit of my task,” she said.
The departure of Ms Nougayrède is the latest chapter in a series of convulsions in France’s most respected newspaper. In 2010, it was forced to sell a controlling stake to three French left-of-centre multi-millionaires, Xavier Niel, Pierre Bergé and Matthieu Pigasse. They forced out the editor, Eric Fottorino, but his popular successor, Erik Izraelewicz, collapsed and died at work in 2012.
Le Monde journalists, who retain the unique right to choose their own boss, surprised the French media world in March last year by replacing him with Ms Nougayrède. Seven senior members of the editorial staff resigned last week, complaining that a “lack of confidence in, and communication with, editorial management prevents us from fulfilling our roles”.
Her departure is reported to have been forced by the triumvirate of chief shareholders.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/female-editors-of-le-monde-and-the-new-york-times-spiked-in-a-single-day-9372053.html
Oooh, bit of a tyrant, eh?
“Putin-like” what delicious irony 🙂