Readers of Canada's mainstream media mock latest "Russia did it" stories
by Roger Annis, New Cold War.org, Aug 2, 2016
Following the lead of its counterparts in the United States, media mainstream in Canada has joined the latest anti-Russia assault, this time over alleged hacking of the U.S. Democratic Party machine which is now firmly in the hands of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. We are bombarded with the message that Russian government agencies “maybe” or “surely” hacked the computer records of the Democratic National Committee.
Upon reading, we learn that the sources are anonymous hackers and speculative commentators.
The story behind this non-story is exposed well in many alternative news outlets. Nathan Robinson, the editor of Current Affairs, published a commentary on July 27 titled ‘Democrats are redbaiting like it’s 1956‘. RT.com‘s current affairs program ‘Crosstalk’ devoted its episode of August 1 to the topic.
Nathan Robinson wrote, “The issue here is not really whether the Russian government was behind the DNC hack. It’s that liberals are using the hack, plus a lot of wild, speculative theories about [Donald] Trump, to avoid substantive criticisms from both their left and right…
By seeing any and all opposition as the work of secret Kremlin plots, they have returned to one of the most desperate and ugly forms of character assassination in American political history.
Corporate news outlets in Canada have jumped on board. For example, the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest-circulation newspaper, published a July 29 article lifted from the Washington Post containing this bold revelation: “Russian government hackers have breached the computers of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, according to individuals familiar with the matter (emphasis added).” The “individuals” are never named.
The story got similar a similar, empty presentation on primetime, national radio news on CBC Radio One’s The World At Six on July 30, in a report filed by seasoned journalist Stephen Puddicombe.
A sideline version of this story has been that the Russian government and its president favour the U.S. presidential candidacy of right-wing billionaire Donald Trump. An example of this reporting appeared in iPolitics.ca on July 27. The story, written by a neo-conservative ideologue, was titled ‘Putin’s pet: The real reason behind Moscow’s support for Trump’. You can read several informative commentaries responding to the Putin-Trump innuendo here.
The Globe and Mail national daily joined the chorus in an article in its Saturday, July 30 edition. The article is written by the Globe‘s longtime Washington correspondent, Patrick Martin.
Martin headlined his story ‘Why Putin would be behind the DNC computer hacking’. He wrote, “U.S. security experts have concluded with near certainty that it was two groups of hackers known in the cyberworld as Fancy Bear and Cozy Bear that penetrated the computer network of the Democratic National Committee… These operations would not have been conducted without the knowledge of Russian President Vladimir Putin, the one-time head of the FSB [emphasis added].” An English language teacher might hold up Martin’s report as an example of ‘Conditional tense run wild’.
Serious mainstream media going the way of the dodo bird, says a Globe and Mail reader
Readers of the Globe are reacting harshly to the Patrick Martin story. This is where the whole media episode gets more revealing because the views of many Globe readers’ are evidently shifting from criticism and condemnation to downright scorn and ridiculing. Here is one typical comment accompanying the Patrick Martin article:
The Globe‘s never-ending litany of lies and unfounded accusations leveled against Russia and Putin are reminiscent of the hysterical and largely unfounded anti-Communist rants of the late Senator Joseph McCarthy. Eventually, most Americans saw through McCarthy’s fabrications and dismissed his lunacy. For the sake of world peace, we should hope that the general public will see the anti-Russian rants of Clinton, the DNC, Obama and their mainstream media mouthpieces for what they are – part of a manufactured crisis to deflect public attention from real issues such as the economy and the threat of Islamist terrorism. We do not need a war with Russia, cold or otherwise. Those who still believe that Russia is our enemy need to grow up. Perhaps they can’t do that, however, because they are still clinging to their imaginary childhood friends and now need imaginary enemies as adults in order to cope with life.
This is not the first time that Globe readers have criticized or condemned the newspaper editors’ anti-Russia biases. The New Cold War.org website has drawn attention during the past two years to the perceptive views of many Globe readers on the conflict in Ukraine differing sharply with the anti-Russia views of Globe editors. Two examples are here and here. It seems that the patience of readers is increasingly wearing thin as evidenced by the tone of recent comments.
Below is a selection of reader comments to the Patrick Martin article. There are 188 posted comments on the Globe website.
[Pot calling the kettle black.] These articles are pure propaganda. Always Russia the bad guy. America the good. Utter, complete nonsense. If you don’t think that the U.S. doesn’t hack into Russia and China, then you are either an idiot or a fool. Take your pick. We are being played by articles like this to view Russia as the evil one so that when we are forced to go to war, we will all yell ‘Yes, get the evil commies’; ‘Nuke them’; ‘USA USA USA USA’. The Globe should be ashamed for allowing this propaganda nonsense to be printed.
Personally I think this is just more anti-Russian propaganda. The U.S. and NATO are busily trying to work up some kind of conflict with Russia in order to keep the military-industrial complex’s profits rolling in. They are always in search of a new enemy, an enemy they can blame for their internal problems that they don’t know how to resolve.
Why is balanced reporting gone the way of the dodo bird? Oh, Mr. Martin, if you had to guess who has done more computer hacking: the USA or Russia? How much computer hacking took place inside Ukraine before the U.S.-inspired coup? Do American warships strut all over the globe for world peace, or for American hegemony? Do better than this… We spend so much time talking about the hackers than we do about what they showed to us….that is the real issue…. This may not be Anonymous but I for one am glad they exist.
It seems that we have made Vladimir Putin a demigod or convenient scapegoat. Anything to do with Russia is automatically blamed on him. In the last few years, Putin is responsible for troubles in Ukraine, annexing Crimea, low oil prices, intervention in Syria, steroid use in Russian athletes, harassment of NATO ships and airplanes near Russia’s borders, Brexit, funding European parties to destabilize the West, potential invasion of the Baltic countries.
Now we have Putin and the Russians hacking the Democratic Party email servers. I wonder how can one man do all this? I know people who own multiple companies and have no clue what is going on on the factory floor.
The reality is that only dumb hackers easily allow themselves to be tracked. In this murky world, it is very difficult to pinpoint the identity of the hackers and the countries they come from.
A liberal operative writes a story spreading innuendos and potential lies about Trump based on hacked emails from the DNC proving they use innuendos and lies to advance their own ends. We’ve come full circle.
It’s not really apparent exactly when Western media began turning Russia into a “bogeyman” (also spelled “boogeman”). It might have been after (missile carrying) Russian naval vessels appeared off the coast of Syria, thereby inhibiting a full scale U.S. invasion of Syria. It might have been after the Boston Marathon bombing, when American officials were embarrassed by reports that the Russians had warned the U.S. government about the two brothers who later caused the bombing, but the Russian warnings were ignored.
Read the readers’ comments. This is why they want to shut-down readers’ comments. The readers are laughing at the ‘news’ and not believing it.
Here’s another theory… Maybe Putin just got tired of America attacking him for being a dictator when they’re hardly a perfect model of democracy and decided to embarrass them by releasing some info. God knows if I had info like that I’d be tempted to release it just to shut up the U.S. politicians braying about how perfect a democracy the U.S. is.
The media, the Democratic Party, and the 0.1%ers they serve obviously have a very low opinion of the public’s intelligence.
If this article were a prospectus regarding an investment, as a metaphor for ‘platform’ and ‘politics’, it would be filed under ‘speculative’ and ‘hardly investor grade’. Reads like a fantasy short story from a style ‘copied’ from the wrong era.
Just like WMDs in Iraq the media is whipping rumors and circumstantial evidence into a certainty that hacking the DNC was a major act of aggression by the Russian Government. While I am sure there is some truth to a, Russian being involved. I doubtful about the extent it was a government plot.
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I knew Jim Hornick who was at one time the managing editor of the Toronto Star. He said the modern, Liberal Toronto Star was created by swindling crippled children out of $million of dollars. The owner, “Holy” Joe Atkinson, a devout Christian left the entire profits of the Toornto Star to crippled kids in his will. His will was overturned by order-in- council by Beland Honderich, a man last name Goodman and two others giving them control of the paper. The back room part of the deal was they promised to support the provincial Tory party and the federal Liberal party in perpetuity.
According to Jim, the late Beland Honderich also kept a guarded room at the paper where he gathered together all the dirt he could on his employees so that if they stepped out of line they could be terminated with no fuss. The order- in council must still exist and could be used by crippled kids to recover the $millions if not $billions they are owed by the paper.
I love Putin. He is smart on his feet, and wildly popular in Russia. The right leader at the right time.
If anybody wants to see the real ISIS website just google Integrated Systems Improvement Services. It’s a Dick Cheney thing. They recently changed the company name to “SIS”, but the moron webmaster left “ISIS” all over the website. It’s a sloppy rebranding to the point of being comical. For example click on the “About ISIS” link at the top left. And the Capabilities page, and look at their Clients. THIS IS THE REAL ISIS WEBSITE. Browse it a bit and I think you will agree.
ISIS unmasked.
Peace to all from BC.
Two years ago, Sony Pictures was hacked because of that awful Seth Rogen film. The US blamed it on the North Koreans then because that’s who they wanted to make the enemy. They swore up and down. Said they had proof.
It was a disgruntled ex-Sony employee who did it.
Sad thing is it drummed up enough interest in an awful Seth Rogen film that was destined to bomb at the box office.
Actually, there is nothing new here.
Patrick Martin has always been a mouthpiece for American establishment and neo-con interests.
He is the kind of ‘journalist” you read expecting the worst always.
A couple of more Clinton Body Count victims, all connected to the DNC, have occurred the last week. Obviously the government media will not report on this wacky lunatic ‘conspiracy theory.’
If Trump had any people who were about to testify against him found dead, the lynching would be immediate. Facebook and Twatter would be on fire.
Forget it, people. The evil scum terrorist in our governments always win and always will. Because the sheep/moron/idiots of the population eat the shit up like flies. And because they see the shit on their every-present Spyphones stuck in their gd hands 24/7, it must be true. People do not think anymore. They are told what to think and that’s that. They have better things to do than face reality: Pokemon CIAgo, endless vapid crap entertainment via Netflix, stupid sporting events (hi Olympics) and utter crap. Scared to face reality.
America: Land of the Escapists
“Because the sheep/moron/idiots of the population eat the shit up like flies”…………………….Hahahahahahaha.
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Not looking good for Uncle Thug Sam in Oz these days. I’m also in Oz and I wish the American Empire a speedy and hard death.
Me too and when I was a kid my parents had 3 friends who were journalists (all worked for Murdoch) their primary bitch was they weren’t allowed to print the truth. This is the same time I was learning about freedom of the press in school. The US empire is well on it’s way out. It’s hit the last state. The Fate of Empires states an empire lasts for approximately two hundred and 50 odd years and they go a certain way. Just like the Roman empire and the British empire the US is on it’s way out and I pray for expediency. Those dogs of war and planetary rapists need to GTFO and the sooner the better.
“Like”……………Another measure of the ‘expiry date’ of an Empire is the amount of debt it carries, currently around $18,000,000,000,000(18trillion)and rising fast. But, then again, the US Government has got so many “Boogy men” to scare the people with, the average American probably still feels comfortable with “The Devil they know”, rather than the Devil they don’t.
The Canadian media has been dead in the water for a good 50 years. The last good editor at the Toronto Star was Jim Hornick. The last good hard news reporter was Bob Reguly.
Otherwise the only other reason for its existence, whether in print or on TV has been to fill the space between the ads and the CBC isn’t even able to do that. Sometimes the CBC National News gets fewer than 29,000 viewers and it costs $5 billion a year. Lots of $4K blog sites do better than that.
Lets see how much longer the other establishment media in Canada allow readers to chime in with their undemocratic, vile rants. Which they wouldn’t be if we all just thought and said the ‘right’ things. The ‘socialist’ Toronto Star got sick of us and put the kibosh on feedback, as it’s chief editor, Michael Cooke, said, because they value reader feedback. Cooke, whose office reportedly includes a framed photo of Conrad Black hanging on the wall, is as rightwing as they come (http://bit.ly/1V5keqf + http://on.thestar.com/2ayR5VP + http://bit.ly/2amnttr).
“We have passionate, opinionated readers who are eager to get involved in conversations about politics, education, municipal issues, sports and more. You’re talking about the news on thestar.com, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr, LinkedIn and more — and we want to be able to capture all of these conversations.
“With that goal, we have turned off commenting on thestar.com effective Wednesday and instead we’ll be promoting and showcasing the comments our readers share across social media and in their letters and emails to our editors.” – Michael Cooke
Lefty Rick Salutin, who the supposedly more rightwing Globe And Mail fired, after penning an interesting article that suggested the founder of neoconservatism, Leo Strauss, might have something to do with Stephen Harper’s meanness (http://bit.ly/1Q8zjBm), agreed with the Star’s decision. The Star picked up Rick Salutin and now carries his articles. Rick, who wrote a book titled “Waiting For Democracy,” supported the undemocratic axing of free and easy reader feedback on the Star’s website (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Cdtp8_9WHM). I haven’t given up him yet, and he hasn’t given me reason to, but that disappointed me ( http://bit.ly/2aBUlgD).
Obviously, Canadians are more balanced than idiotic and corrupt U.S. democrat party supporting morons.
What great news actually. Bless their heart!
Naturally, comment sections will soon need to be shut down.
It’s been exactly the same in the UK media. Downing Street and MI6 spoon feed nonsense to the Press and they regurgitate it, knowingly lying and, in my opinion, removing their right to be journalists. It’s one thing lying about a footballer sleeping with someone, it’s quite another lying to increase the risk of war, after all…….for that, there should be prison sentences and, if war broke out with Russia, execution without trial. At least such sanctions would make journalists behave responsibly…….
Although I have to say, RT doesn’t have a very good sense of humour
. One commenter sardonically said: ‘the latest joke in Ukraine is, no matter what your problem is, blame it on Vladimir Putin’. I answered satirically: ‘So if a sexy looking Russian sportswoman finds herself pregnant, that was Vladimir Putin too, was it?’
This was censored, presumably as President Putin’s numerous girlfriends, mistresses and rumoured mistresses have included an ex Olympic gymnast….
Really Vladi: I thought you had a good enough sense of humour to take this in good heart…….
Same over here in Oz – problem is now the internet is here the tide is turning and as one Oxfam genocide reporter once said “anybody who reads the New York Times or Washington Post is just contributing to their own mental illness” At this late stage I’m still not sure why journalists are remotely safe anymore, they are enemy combatants and a threat to humanity right behind the politicians and other traitors.
“for that, there should be prison sentences and, if war broke out with Russia, execution without trial”.
Great idea, except for one thing. The politicians who benefit from the current, ‘compliant’ MSM are the ones who make the laws
Good in theory, but it won’t happen.
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The Russia-baiting in Canadian media is cartoonish and actually predates these American DNC shenanigans. Any reporting on the Ukraine, for example, is premised on a sentimentalized embrace of the Euromaidan Revolution of Dignity narrative.
The Canadian media is like an Orwellian bedtime story and is absolute junk. Even the National Post is morphing into a Marxist manifesto.
If anyone has any suggestions besides The Rebel and Canada Free Press please feel free to share.
“Even the National Post is morphing into a Marxist manifesto.”
What? You mean one of those Marxist manifestos dedicated to Hillary Clinton, neo-liberalism and wars against Russia.
Is there anything ‘marxists’ can’t be blamed for?
The Rebel and Canada Free Press are muzzie bashing bullshit led by worthless men and women. There is no media in Canada. It is a total wasteland.
I’m getting confused now. The story of the DNCs hacking was originally that it showed proof that there was a conspiracy to prevent Sanders from winning, right? So now, presumably in order to shift the narrative, all attention is focused on the Russian “threat”.
Has anybody connected Clintons illegal isolation of her email servers with this story yet?
It seems to me that her timing was most propitious…
Perhaps her complicity in the Sanders scandal was hidden by using her own servers, plus there is now a convenient opportunity to rant about Russia.
Almost as if she knew it was going to happen.
Pay NO attention to the man behind the curtain.
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What’s the problem? According to Edward Snowden, the USA is ‘trawling’ the planet for any and all information with their NSA ‘meta-data’ thingy(and so are the British, and the rest of us in the ‘Anglo-sphere’). They are also stealing commercially sensitive material and giving their corporations ‘the jump’ on their competitors.
As someone famous once said, “everyone spies on everyone else”
Is ‘hacking’ only ok when ‘WE’ do it?
Brian I couldn’t agree more. I’m in Oz too and I’m seriously sick of the entire shabang known as the US, nothing but a bunch of lying, hypocrites at best and blood thirsty, war mongering, vicious, murderous and treacherous psychopaths at worst. Our governments is no better Turncoat and a whole bunch of others before him are nothing but traitors to the Australian people and US brown noses.
“Like”……….I like to ‘qualify’ the criticism I make of the USA by separating the USA government and the American people. The American people have NO say in what the government does, and the USA government(“The Military Industrial Complex”) seem to do whatever they want, to whoever they want. The people who ‘run’ America, have ‘sold out’ to “The Moneymen”. Corruption has destroyed “Freedom and Democracy” in America, and there’s only one way back, and I think it will be ugly.