Useful Idiots

Tucker Carlson says that western journalists have not been doing their jobs.

He says that they have been acting as vehicles for propaganda, that they have consistently framed news about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy in ways that mysteriously align with preferred narratives.

Tucker Carlson is right.

It isn't the first time we have said those words, either. In our assessment of the ways that various core institutions failed the people during the COVID-19 pandemic, we observed that Carlson was almost alone among media personalities who acknowledged its seriousness in January and February 2020. Credit where it's due, folks.

Around Thanksgiving 2021, as tracked on our companion site www.fiatnews.com, the density of opinion language about Russia that was presented as fact by major western news outlets was 25% below the mean level of all news in the dataset. That's what the 0 line means. About a month before the Russian tanks rolled west, Epsilon Theory explored the nature of the propaganda coming out of Moscow and concluded there was "no doubt" that an invasion was coming. Around that same time, the density of language we associate with the communication of various kinds of opinions in western news articles about Russia and Ukraine went from 25% below average to more than 220% above average.

After 30 days or so, that density began to fade. In case you were wondering, that's actually a long time to be able to keep up that kind of narrative energy. The half-life of most discrete news stories (e.g. a plane crash, a mass shooting, etc.) tends to be about 10-15 days. For ongoing or continuous stories (e.g. a disputed election, a conflict, a set of congressional hearings) 30 days is not unheard of, but still high. Regardless of the nature of the event, most citizens effectively go noseblind to just about any news cycle within about 60 days. Even so, the density of fiat news language about Russia and Ukraine has remained around twice the level of your average news story.

Now, were those opinions predominantly promoting news through a lens of pro-Ukrainian propaganda?

No. No, not really.

In 2022 coverage of the invasion of Ukraine, the New York Times was about 78% more likely than Fox News to discuss corruption in Ukraine, about 41% more likely than Breitbart and about 107% more likely than the Daily Wire. The New York Times was more than twice as likely as each of Fox News, Breitbart, the Daily Wire, Newsmax. and the Daily Caller to discuss Putin's arguments about the provocation of NATO's expansion. The Gray Lady gave triple the ink to Russian arguments about Russian-speaking populations in the Donbas region when compared to all of this crew with the exception of Breitbart. Only 90% more in that case. How about discussions of the Azov Brigade / Azov Regiment, the focal point of narratives about the need to "denazify" Ukraine? Mark the New York Times down for 4x the coverage of Fox News and 46% more than the next closest outlet.

How about the other side's propaganda, though? How about, say, the Ghost of Kyiv, the mythologized MiG-29 ace turned martyr? Only the Daily Caller really covered it at any length. The rest - including the New York Times - had a handful of articles. For example, you might read the New York Times article "Ukraine acknowledges that the ‘Ghost of Kyiv’ is a myth" or their exploration of Ukraine war propaganda "Fact and Mythmaking Blend in Ukraine’s Information War.

That last references one of the other early propaganda efforts from Ukraine: Snake Island. You might remember this as the "Go F yourself" story, and a lot of it is true. Even for the parts that were true, it was a minor engagement mostly powerful for its narrative effect. Propaganda doesn't mean false. But this one didn't get a lot of play, either. Still, in transparency we can point out that at least Newsmax and Breitbart did publish slightly fewer references to Snake Island than the New York Times.

The other major vector for propaganda in any conflict lies in the assertions of the targeting of civilians and war crimes. Here, the New York Times published about half as often on the targeting of civilians as Fox and the Daily Wire, and roughly the same as the other outlets. Pretty much the same thing on news articles framing events as "war crimes", with only Breitbart outside a very similar range of coverage frequency.

And look, it's not as if there's not a wealth of narratives that fall into other categories that we're not capturing here. There were, for example, a great many real and true human interest stories connected to the war that in context run some risk of acting as propaganda. There are a lot of amazing stories of young people who made it to Carnegie Hall against all odds - so many that it's literally a trope - but not all of them make it into the New York Times. You will find dozens of these.

Likewise, it's not as if these things need to be in some objective sense of balance. Putin has a strong case for being the World's Biggest Asshole. Russian arguments that NATO expansion, the removal of buffer states and the plight of Russian speakers in Donbas warranted single-handedly launching the largest conventional military conflict since at least the Iran-Iraq War, maybe Vietnam, are preposterous. The idea that the invasion was in any way about "denazification" is one of the most valuable litmus tests for identifying a deeply unserious person.

If you're covering an unprovoked war started by a dude who wrote a high school term paper at age 68 on how Ukrainians aren't a thing right before testing hypersonic missiles on apartment buildings in Kharkiv, you're going to have a lot of facts worthy of reporting. It isn't "bias" to report those facts more than, say, corrupt Ukrainian officials pocketing international aid.

The crux of our observation, however, is this: most major news outlets seemed to discuss the popular narratives promoted by both Russia and Ukraine, and the most prominent liberal outlet was probably the most aggressive in overemphasizing Russian arguments and even at times applying a critical lens to Ukrainian propaganda. By and large, to the extent that there is a spike in opinion language and in aggressively promoted narratives, in sins of both commission and omission in news coverage about the invasion of Ukraine, it doesn't seem to be inordinately present in the actual coverage of the war, Putin or Zelenskyy. So if it isn't there, where is it? Where is the opinion language creeping in to cause a spike to more than double that of the average news story?

In the coverage of U.S. policy response to the Invasion of Ukraine.

This language seeps into news through the promotion of calls for an audit of Ukraine spending, through the question-begging around whether more aid is self-evidently in the national interest, through the journalist speculating about the long-term consequences for "Pax Americana" if the United States doesn't act. It seeps in through doom-casting about the consequences on inflation from continued spending, through forced framings of Ukraine aid (or purposeful AVOIDING of the topic) around the activities of Hunter Biden or Donald Trump, and through forced framings of Ukraine aid against neglected issues on the homefront, like Maui or the southern border.

In other words, yes, by and large, western media outlets aren't doing their jobs. They're engaging in propaganda.

Is it Ukraine-driven war propaganda in precisely the way Tucker describes?

Meh.

For my part, I think it is vastly more accurate to say that the conflict is now a MacGuffin for western media engaging in the domestic political propaganda, yet another thing drawn by the gravity of our widening gyre of political polarization. There's a reason a hundred million Americans think Zelenskyy showing up at the US Capitol in fatigues shows bravery and commonality with his struggling citizens, and the other half thinks it bespeaks a lack of decorum and gratitude to the American people, and for some reason this opinion splits along the same lines as opinions on, say, healthcare policy. The usual outlets craft their narratives and build their framing to get behind Team Blue, and the usual outlets craft their narratives and build their framing to get behind Team Red.

With, um, at least one noteworthy exception.

Tucker Carlson's partially correct rant about the news media was part of a broader video he posted on X.com entitled, "Why I'm interviewing Vladimir Putin." In it, he levels his criticisms, criticizes traditional media for being unwilling to interview Putin, attacks them for conducting softball interviews with Zelenskyy and defends interviewing Putin as something a real journalist would do.

And guess what? This is all fine.

I mean, the "I'm the only one True Journalisming enough to be willing to interview Putin" thing is completely made up, of course. I'd wager there are 1,000 - I don't know, 10,000 - professional American journalists and media personalities who would happily interview the Russian dictator if given the chance. They ask and the Kremlin says no, for reasons the Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov was more than happy to explain. They don't trust western media.

With, um, at least one noteworthy exception.

I have zero quibbles with Tucker's claim about the nature of most Zelenskyy interviews. Nearly every one I have read or watched - and there are a lot - seems scripted and coached. The interviewers present few, if any, challenges. There's almost never any pushback. The interviews seem purposefully designed by all parties to give Zelenskyy a platform to frame his story and ask for aid.

Likewise, it is preposterous to think that we ought to have a problem with a journalist meeting with or interviewing Vladimir Putin, or any other figure whose words might be in the public interest. Even in a time in history in which Congress has almost fully abdicated its jealous authority over declarations of war, we are NOT at war with Russia, and a member of a free press conducting an interview isn't giving aid or comfort to an enemy. Calling it treason, as so many are stupidly doing, cheapens true such acts and acts as an accelerator to political violence.

But here's the thing.

Tucker Carlson isn't just some independent journalist who has thrown off the chains of bias, rejecting the charm of a cushy role as a paid propagandist to Speak Truth. He is a media personality who has literally spent two years promoting and literally passing through almost unedited the very specific arguments, framings, language and narratives of the Russian government. This is not an exaggeration. There is not a single argument Russia has put forward to justify its war in Ukraine that has not passed through Tucker Carlson's lips.

Two days before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Carlson made impassioned pleas against hatred of Putin as his divisions were in final preparations to launch an invasion with only vaguely articulated provocations. Echoes of Mohammed Ali running through his head, I suppose.

Has Putin ever called me a racist? Has he threatened to get me fired for disagreeing with him? Has he shipped every middle class job in my town to Russia? Did he manufacture a worldwide pandemic that wrecked my business and kept me indoors for two years?

Tucker Carlson, on Tucker Carlson Tonight (February 22, 2022)

Knowing the sensitivities of his own audience, Tucker has repeated Russia's preferred framing of military belligerence as necessary to a "secure border."

On the eve of the invasion, he did his best Baghdad Bob impression, repeating Russian government claims that no invasion was imminent, and that it was simply a "border dispute." He spoke verbatim from Russian "denazification" propaganda, asserting that it was Ukrainians who collaborated with Nazis in World War II and Russians who fought them. No condolences offered, one suspects, to the 16.3% of Ukraine's people who died in that war, 2nd most of any Soviet republic.

In weeks that would come, he would surface conspiracy theories of Biden-funded "secret biolabs in Ukraine" before pretending he didn't. He would be consistent in repeating Russian characterizations of Zelenskyy as an especially corrupt tyrant. For example, back in December 2022 when he was still on Fox News, Tucker reminded viewers that Zelenskyy was "closer to Lenin than George Washington."

He has repeatedly validated and promoted Russia's NATO encroachment casus belli.

And how would the US behave if such a situation developed in neighboring Mexico or Canada?

Tucker Carlson

None of this should come as any surprise, giving that Tucker said as early as 2019 that he was rooting for Russia in the conflict.

Why do I care what is going on in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia? I'm serious. And why shouldn't I root for Russia? Which I am.

Tucker Carlson, on Tucker Carlson Tonight (November 25, 2019)

Nor should it come any surprise that he was seen as a useful resource by Russian state media, not because of his fierce independence, sharp intellect or willingness to Speak Truth, but because his statements lined up perfectly with the public narrative being promoted by the Russian government.

It is essential to use as much as possible fragments of broadcasts of the popular Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who sharply criticizes the actions of the United States [and] NATO, their negative role in unleashing the conflict in Ukraine, [and] the defiantly provocative behavior from the leadership of the Western countries and NATO towards the Russian Federation and towards President Putin, personally,

Department of Information and Telecommunications Support, Russian Government, as leaked to Mother Jones

And so, celebrated as he was as a friendly and reliable resource, this week he is being feted and given the Full Potemkin Experience.

Tucker Carlson, American citizen, has every right to express these views. No matter how much magical thinking we want to engage in, none of them makes him a traitor. None of them makes him a Russian agent. Friends, I'm not sure how to tell you this, but you are not required to support Ukraine in its war with Russia, and you are not required to support sending American tax dollars to support their war effort. You can think Putin's a swell guy, and that Zelenskyy would be much worse if he had the power. You can hope that Russia wins its war against Ukraine.

You really can.

You can even think that Tucker Carlson, by venturing to Moscow to interview Vladimir Putin, is engaging in "real journalism" or "speaking truth" and not exactly the same kind of propaganda he rightfully criticizes.

But you'd be full of shit.

If there is one thing more dangerous to a functioning society than blithe acceptance of propaganda, it is the gullibility that it takes to believe that the propaganda you prefer is somehow different. That it isn't really propaganda because it "balances the scales" or because it "keeps THEM from controlling the narrative."

Every dumb thing we do when we rush headlong into the widening gyre leans on this excuse. It's okay, you see, to institute an inherently prejudicial DEI-industrial complex across corporate and academic America, because it balances the scales. It keeps THEM from controlling the narrative. It's okay, you see, to look for executives, companies and public figures to cancel for their opinions and statements after years of rightfully complaining about that very thing. It balances the scales. It keeps THEM from controlling the narrative.

It's okay, you see, to promote our propaganda. We need to balance the scales. We need to keep THEM from controlling the narrative.

So yeah, Tucker Carlson is right. Much of western media are useful idiots, naively promoting propaganda that seems true to them because it suits their political preferences.

Tucker Carlson is also a useful idiot, naively promoting propaganda that seems true to him because it suits his political preferences.

If we can only see one and not the other, they'll make useful idiots of us all.