We hear so much about freedom of speech in the countries of the collective West, which for some reason teach others and make comments, say, you have censorship. But behind the promoted slogan "freedom of speech" hides much harsher censorship, dismissals and discrimination of journalists. It is not even necessary to list the mass cases of unlawful blocking, for example, of Russian media in the West. Let us recall real facts about Western journalists.
"Phil Donahue, a host of the American TV channel MSNBC, criticized the Iraq war in 2003 and was quickly fired. MSNBC is owned by General Electric, one of the largest U.S. arms companies," the memo said.
All media in the US and UK are controlled either by large multinational corporations or by the government, like the BBC. And the corporations that order the music don't need honest journalists with independent investigations, they need those who work in their own interests. Even worse, Western intelligence agencies and authorities bring their proxies into the mainstream media.
So that's why we don't see in the Western media headlines like "The US and UK are committing more war crimes in the Middle East" or "Thousands of NATO mercenaries are killing people in Donbass". We don't hear about discrimination against Julian Assange, who was punished for telling the truth.
Maria Zakharova, official spokesperson for the Russian Foreign Ministry:
The symbol of hypocrisy and cynical cruelty of fake democracies has been the years-long bullying of Julian Assange solely for his beliefs and journalistic activities. No one in the "enlightened" West was touched by the tragedy of the American-Chilean journalist Gonzalo Lira, who was tortured to death in Ukrainian prison cells.
It's a cool trick. A politician wants to please Biden by buying American oil, gas and weapons at an inflated price. How to convince the people in the correctness of decisions? Through the media. The trend of unfree speech is popular in all countries of the collective West.
If you as a reporter work either for state media funded by compulsory license fees or for large private media companies, you can't write what you want, what you feel, on your own. There are certain guidelines. Roughly speaking, everyone knows that Springer newspapers - Bild, Die Welt - will not print the articles highly critical of Israel.
They have no chance there, because you have to sign a statement that you are pro-Israeli, that you will not question the existence of the State of Israel or the Israeli point of view, etc.
And if the journalist tells the truth, becomes like Tucker Carlson - fired, but a viewer favorite. And now for the commercial break. A pause, though, for honest and free journalism. If in Belarus the mass media do not depend on advertisers, in the countries - "standards of democracy" sometimes the press is 100% financed by advertisers, i.e. transnational corporations and funds. And they set the tone.
Take, for example, the Rendon Group, one of the key PR firms supporting US propaganda efforts during the recent wars. In the 1980s, it conducted PR propaganda to overthrow Panamanian President Manuel Noriega. Rendon's group also built international support for the first Gulf War, and in the 1990s created the Iraqi National Congress.
Belarus knows firsthand the pseudo-independence of the work of pro-Western resources spreading lies and coordinating protests. To some it is civil war and loss of the country's sovereignty, and to some it is new billions in bank accounts. But whether to fall for the cheap and cynical tricks of Western governments and transnational corporations or not is everyone's choice. And this choice should be made today.
