The Guardian’s LIVE war blog: Orwellian propaganda around the clock

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What is The Guardian’s LIVE Ukraine War Blog? We spent a day with it to find out.

You can view our efforts HERE and make your own judgements about their choice of content and the sources they derive it from.

Here are our thoughts anyway:

First of all a summary of sources from 13-03-2022 04:39  to 14-03-2022 07:30:

Various branches of the Ukrainian Government: 26

All press releases issued by the Ukrainian Government are transcribed verbatim and almost always without any caveat. Stories filed by wire agencies with the caveat ‘unable to confirm’ are deemed confirmed if any Ukrainian official can be found to claim they are true. No independent verification is sought or deemed necessary.

 AFP, AP, PA, and Reuters Wire Copy: 18

The Guardian has basically nobody on the front lines in Ukraine so relies heavily on wire copy from the big agencies. The agencies themselves are often just relaying claims made by Ukrainian officials and thus at least carry the caveat that the agency is unable to confirm them. Many of the ‘stories’ are carefully selected pictures of war damage and refugees.

Press Releases from the UK Government: 9

Self serving PR spin from Whitehall is faithfully reproduced without comment. Just a copy and paste job.

Press Releases from the US Government: 8

Self serving PR spin from branches of the US Govt or ‘Western Intelligence’  is faithfully reproduced without comment.

Information supplied from The Guardian: 7

The Guardian seems to have two of people in Western Ukraine and one who bizarrely seemed to be gathering eye witness testimony from Mariupol (Southern Ukraine) AND from the border with Belarus and inside Belarus (Northern Ukraine) on the same day! Neither the story from Mariupol or Belarus named any source.

Twitter Feed of Ukrainian President:  5

This period of the Live Blog was relatively light with re-tweets from Volodymyr Zelenskiy – but basically the Live Blog will re-tweet almost anything he says verbatim and without comment.

NATO and member states: 5

NATO press releases are faithfully reproduced without comment.

Re-tweets from ‘trusted sources in the Ukrainian Media: 4 

Pro Zelenskiy twitter feeds and newspapers get platformed without comment or any attempt at verification or follow up

Anti-Russian sentiment in the US Media: 4

Basically re-tweets about CNN Coverage about something a US politician is saying.

Pleas for peace and warnings from Western NGO’s: 4

Re-tweets from United Nations and the International Red Cross were as close as we got to any act of daily journalism.

Russian Defence Ministry: 2 then 0

One story based on a release by the RDM was listed twice… then abruptly vanished!

The Guardian’s LIVE blogs are routinely their most shared content – let that sink in for a minute.

We have detailed in the past the role of their LIVE blogs in carpet bombing the idea that Jeremy Corbyn was a racist anti-Semite and that his attempts to democratise the Labour movement represented a dangerous coup by far left thuggery. 

Basically, whatever the usual suspects feel threatened or affronted by, or indeed whatever narratives they want to put across (or prevent from taking hold) – The Guardian will run with it and their B52 propaganda bomber of choice is always their LIVE blog.

The whole point of the war blog is not to inform. It doesn’t offer nuance, balance or even raw facts. It hawks a singular narrative and stamps a boot on the face of all others.

Their narrative about Ukraine is drawn with bombast and crayons and would embarrass the scrutiny of an 8 year old:

• Russia is evil
• Putin is a crazed madman
• NATO’s role is beyond reproach (DARE say otherwise and you are a Putin apologist)
• Ukraine has not been obliged to act as a de facto member of NATO for years.
• Ukrainian defenders are heroic angels (look away from the ultra-nationalist neo-Nazi battalions please)
• No biological warfare or nuclear weapon labs are in Ukraine – because NATO says so.
• Only Russian bullets and bombs harm civilians – Ukrainian weapons are miraculously guided to target.
• Forcing conscription on Ukrainian men (by preventing them from leaving) is fine. Alleged Russian conscription is evil.
• Forced video ‘confessions’ by captured Russian soldiers (in violation of the Geneva convention) are fine and reliable.
• Volodymyr Zelenskiy is a Churchillian statesman whose every word can be trusted.
• There must be no surrender or compromise with the evil-doers.
• The best way to protect civilian lives is to pour more western weaponry into Ukraine (this article of faith is one that The Guardian applies to all of the West’s ‘interventions’)

and so on….and on and relentlessly on 24/7.

The Guardian is supposed to be the flagship of liberal left wing journalism. 

We have encountered nothing but the narratives of NATO land in days of watching their LIVE blog. It is a cyber monolith of non-deviation. The same record on the same jukebox around the clock. An Orwellian televisor for the social media age.

The most shocking truth about The Guardian’s LIVE blog is that contains almost no journalistic content whatsoever. It is almost exclusively just a series of copy and paste quotes from the usual suspects and re-tweets.

Which leads us to ask….

For those sending donations to The Guardian. What are you paying for?

The baked in narratives, approved sources and modus operandi of the LIVE blog are not unrepresentative  – they actually form The Guardian’s pro-corporate, pro-war and quite profoundly racist DNA.

Across the whole paper you will find mashed-up wire copy, re-tweets of government press releases, agency photographs and patronising establishment opinionising. Is this what you want?  

Quite aside from whether you agree with their right wing narratives or not – can you not man your own twitter feed and promote your own prejudices?

Since The Guardian is providing almost no services to journalism whatsoever, why you can’t find your own stuff on social media and decide for yourself what to re-tweet and comment on?

Given that we have C4 NEWS, BBC News, Sky News et al carpet bombing us with exactly the same war propaganda around the clock anyway – what do need The Guardian for exactly?

Since 2013 I have worked on this Ad-Free site: trying to give a voice to those without the power or agency to speak out for themselves and speaking simple truths that well paid journalists in the corporate media dare not utter.

I am a home schooling parent on a low income – paying for the domain, web hosting and security entirely out of my own pocket.  

If you find this website useful and could spare us a few shillings to help keep our lights on, it would be very much appreciated.

Thank you in solidarity with all our readers. John Lynch, Editor.     

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