“ONE major obstacle to dissent is certainly the ignorance and confusion induced by mainstream media,” US activist and author Michael Albert noted in 2004.

The recent news coverage of the illegal Russian invasion of Ukraine, and Trump’s political manoeuvres that seem to be aimed at ending the fighting, proves Albert’s assertion is still right on the money.

Here are four ways journalists sow ignorance and confusion, and thus help to limit opposition.

Constant repetition of deeply ideological statements presented as unquestionable truths

Last month, the BBC Today programme presenter Simon Jack stated Trump’s presidency has “seemingly upended the rules-based international order.” His guest, University of Oxford professor Timothy Garton Ash, agreed, noting: “What we have been witnessing is the crumbling of the essentially US-led liberal order, at least in part of the world, our part of the world. The US has nicely been described as a ‘liberal leviathan’.”

In the US, Senator Bernie Sanders, who really should know better, tweeted: “For 250 years the US has supported democracy. Now, in the middle of a horrific war that Putin started, Trump is turning his back on Ukraine and democracy, all to the benefit of a brutal dictator in Moscow.”

Those with the scantest of knowledge about post-1945 US military and covert interventions in countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Vietnam, Indonesia, Italy, Chile, Guatemala, Iran, Nicaragua, Brazil and Argentina (and many, many more countries — check out William Blum’s essential book Killing Hope to learn more) will have trouble taking Sanders seriously ever again when it comes to US foreign policy.

Simplistic framing

While Western media outlets are obsessed with Russian disinformation campaigns, I’m confident future studies of Western media coverage of the Ukraine war will conclude it has been hugely biased, echoing the propaganda of their own governments.

As veteran foreign correspondent Patrick Cockburn noted in December 2022: “I believe the Ukraine war media coverage is worse than in any other war I have witnessed … demonisation of Russia is total, which may be deserved, but is not a good approach for finding out what is really happening.”

Guardian columnist George Monbiot seems to have fallen hard for the propaganda, arguing on BBC Question Time in February that a peace settlement that favours Vladimir Putin will end up with Russia looking to invade Romania or Poland next.

For Anatol Lieven, former Times correspondent in Moscow and professor at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, such thinking is based on “a misunderstanding of Russian attitudes that is either totally illiterate or deliberately mendacious.” Never mind that Russia hasn’t been able to prevail in Ukraine, or that a quick look at a map shows a Russian invasion of Romania would entail going through … Ukraine.

“This kind of public hysteria makes thinking rationally about sensible long-term European strategies extremely difficult,” Lieven notes. The same applies to resolving the conflict through peace negotiations — why would European publics support negotiations if Putin is evil incarnate, an all-powerful leader intent on relentless expansionary wars that will soon threaten Western Europe?

Using language that obfuscates rather than helps understanding

Over the last few weeks, the language the Guardian has used to describe the British government’s plan to deploy troops to Ukraine after a peace deal is struck has been, to say the least, confused. Whether it is intentional or not, the newspaper’s framing arguably assists the British government in selling its plan to the British public.

On February 24, awarding-winning political editor Pippa Crerar described it as a “peacekeeping force.” The next day the paper’s Berlin correspondent Kate Connolly referred to “a deterrent or peacekeeping force.” Dan Sabbagh, the defence and security editor, has also referred to “peacekeepers,” as well as a “stabilisation force.”

All of which is very odd when you consider Sabbagh had explained on February 17 that, “It is unlikely that any European force deployed to Ukraine would be a peacekeeping mission” because “such missions are orchestrated by the UN and would involve working in a[n] even-handed way, patrolling both sides of a line of contact.”

Writing on his new Substack The Rest Is Bullshit, Steve Howell, deputy director of strategy and communications in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership team, clarifies: “Peacekeepers are neutral. The British soldiers sent to Ukraine will be partisan, allied to one of the protagonists.”

Russia has repeatedly rejected forces from Nato countries being stationed in Ukraine, saying they may be targeted. Which is presumably the reason Lord Richard Dannatt, the former British chief of the General Staff, recently told BBC Radio 4’s PM programme that “interposing international troops between Ukraine and Russian troops” would be “highly dangerous and highly unlikely.”

It’s worth noting Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko has stated Russia would be open to “the presence of unarmed observers and a civilian mission in Ukraine to monitor the implementation of certain aspects of the agreement or guarantee mechanisms.”

Omission of information that is key to understanding events

While the Morning Star has repeatedly highlighted how Britain and the US blocked a possible peace deal in spring 2022, you’d be hard-pressed to find significant coverage of this important story in the rest of the media.

The same applies to the December 2023 New York Times report that mentioned Russia signalled an interest in a ceasefire deal in autumn 2022 and between September-December 2023, as well as taking part in negotiations in March-April 2022. Ditto Boris Johnson telling the Telegraph’s Ukraine: The Latest podcast in November: “Mate, let’s face it, we’re waging a proxy war,” and outgoing Nato secretary-general Jens Stoltenberg suggesting to the Financial Times in October that Ukraine might consider giving up some of its territory in negotiations.

Yes, all three of these examples were published by the corporate media but I would argue they haven’t received the attention they deserve. There has been minimal to no follow-up by Britain’s supposedly crusading, disputatious Fourth Estate, meaning none of this information seems to have informed media reporting since being published. Instead, it has been shoved down the memory hole.

Turning to the relentless, largely unquestioned push for more military spending in Britain and Europe, Howell provides the essential context ignored by most of the coverage: 2023 figures from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute which shows the combined military spending of Britain, France, Italy, Germany and Poland is 2.5 times more than that of Russia. Britain itself had the sixth-biggest military budget in the world in 2023.

Why has crucial information such as this been largely absent from the debate? A letter published in the Guardian last month co-signed by Paul Rogers, Emeritus Professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University, provides one answer: “The US and European think tanks that are advocating” increased military spending “are largely funded by and work in the interests of the military-industrial complex.”

Don’t abandon the mainstream media

I’ve made the case that media coverage of the Russian-Ukraine war has often been highly propagandistic. However, I’m not suggesting a complete rejection of the mainstream media, as a small minority of people seem to champion. There is important and critical information published and broadcast by mainstream outlets.

The key is to be a critical and careful consumer of mainstream media — the crucial nugget might be found in the last paragraph of a news report, or a late-night BBC4 documentary, or a newspaper’s letters page. Getting your news and analysis from as wide a range of sources as possible is very important too, of course.

Like a police detective, comparing multiple accounts of an event or issue may show who is telling the truth and who is deceiving you. Which means making sure to support and read/watch alternative, non-corporate media such as Declassified UK, Novara Media, Double Down News, Tribune, Resurgence and Ecologist magazine, Media Lens, the Politics Theory Other podcast and the Morning Star.

Follow Ian on X @IanJSinclair.