Must journalists air lies about Ukraine?
A recent moment on the BBC World Service lays bare a journalistic dilemma.
Journalism is too opaque and misunderstood. Chills gives a behind-the-scenes look at how dangerous investigative journalism gets made.
On Thursday morning, the BBC World Service interviewed a Russian MP named Vitaly Milonov about the invasion of Ukraine. Right off, he called the invasion “a reasonable reaction to aggression.”
The far-right member of the United Russia party went on to blame Europe, the United Kingdom, and the United States for “using” Ukraine for its own political purposes and said the Ukrainian people support the removal of their president, Volodymyr Zelensky. “I think that most Ukrainians are dreaming to kick out Zelensky and all your advisers sent by UK, and European Union, and United States,” Milonov said.
The interviewer/presenter pointed out that the Ukrainian people had voted for Zelensky: “Isn’t that what Russia really hates? That it is a democracy?”
Already having lobbed a few curse words during the interview, Milonov then shifted from far-right provocation to a never-never-land level of crazy.
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