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Comment by dirktheman | Hacker News Reader

Without picking any sides here, I think it is somewhat funny that both parties in the comments think the other party is indoctrinated by state propaganda about their own country...

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It is pretty funny. However it gets a bit skewed when you talk about Russian media vs "western media". One is largely state controlled with very rigid guidelines and directives and the other is an amalgamation of hundreds of outlets in dozens of countries, with differing viewpoints and generally good independence. Some might be louder than others, absolutely, but they can all be heard.

I'm sure there is still some bias being applied, but the whole "russophobe" narrative is a bit tiresome and seems to be engineered by the Russian state to a large extent.

I'm sure that Russian state owned media is way more biased than most Western media. However, if you factor in that for instance a large part of the US only watches Fox, OAN or Breitbart, I don't think one party is much better off in the news department. A lot of people have access to independent media, but actively choose not to use them.

I'm not sure those conservative outlets are necessarily part of an aligned state agenda. Especially considering how they are directly opposed to the current administration.

Also I'm not sure how you arrive at the conclusion that both parties are equal, while also claiming that "Russian state owned media is way more biased than most Western media". My point is that there are no major alternative platforms in Russia. There's a reason why the few critical Russian news outlets locate outside of Russia.

I was always courious about this "state control". Seriously, I've heard this hundrends of times. And EVERY single person failed to explain how he thinks that happens. At the same time reading all this banned criticism almost always left the impression of very poor analysis of the situation, usually non constructive and biased. The "state controlled" part of media also feels biased but more often than not it looks like a better job done when it comes to the situation analysis.

You can look at the NTV takeover for a good example of how this can happen. In cases where the state doesn't end up directly owning the media company, suspiciously often the majority of shares ends up owned by Kremlin loyalist oligarchs. On top of this there is a widespread general culture of self censorship, where there is fear of covering certain topics because of possible government interference. This was even confirmed in an official Russian report in 2004. I'm not saying this is without exception, but it would seem that the government has very large influence over media in Russia compared to many other places.

Yes, I know about it. BTW, as a result of this takeover "Эхо Москвы" which critisize Kremlin quite hard now belongs to the state owned company Gazprom. So, this is a way more tricky than you might think. I mostly believe in self censorship - do not touch "dangerous" subjects etc. This is a main force behind censorship rather than directives from some dedicated goverment department.

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