DISINFO: Grayzone revealed that Reuters and the BBC deploy the very same tactics Russia is accused of

DISINFORMATION CASE DETAILS

DISINFO: Grayzone revealed that Reuters and the BBC deploy the very same tactics Russia is accused of

SUMMARY

The website The Grayzone revealed documents that expose the British propaganda machine. British Foreign Affairs used a variety of actors, including media outlets and philanthropic companies linked to news outlets like the BBC or Reuters, in an attempt to counter Russian influence.

British agents were using the BBC and Reuters to deploy exactly the same tactics that politicians and media commentators accused Russia of using.

This "double standard" only further discredits establishment politicians.

Reuters pretends that there is independence between the press agency and the Thomson Reuters Foundation that would have collaborated for workshops with the British Ministry of Foreign Affairs. But both organisations use the name "Reuters" and the public will consider they are the same.

RESPONSE

A disinformation narrative accusing Western media of a lack of editorial independence.

The fact that organisations that organise workshops and raise media literacy and deontology are linked to recognised media doesn't mean that they lost all editorial independence and would obey orders from the UK government. It is more likely that if the UK government were to engage in issuing orders to media outlets on how, when and if news should be covered then this itself would become the story.

Read also related stories: In the West there is censorship like in Soviet Union in Solzhenitsyn times, Latvia is the villain of a hybrid war against Russia and the Russians, The East StratCom Task Force was established because of the increasing credibility of the Russian media in the West.

Disclaimer

Cases in the EUvsDisinfo database focus on messages in the international information space that are identified as providing a partial, distorted, or false depiction of reality and spread key pro-Kremlin messages. This does not necessarily imply, however, that a given outlet is linked to the Kremlin or editorially pro-Kremlin, or that it has intentionally sought to disinform. EUvsDisinfo publications do not represent an official EU position, as the information and opinions expressed are based on media reporting and analysis of the East Stratcom Task Force.

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