by BRAD WOLF
It comes as no surprise that corporate media likes a good, wholesome war as much as the average American. It sells.
On Sunday, October 9, The New York Times published an article entitled “An American in Ukraine Finds the War He’s Been Searching For.” It could just as easily be entitled “The Media Finds the War It’s Been Searching For.” It is, sadly, a story of the corrupting influence war and profits have on everything, including the press, that very institution which is to keep a constant check on our government, particularly in affairs of war.
The article depicts the exploits of a 59-year-old American soldier, retired after 30 years of combat experience, working in the battlegrounds of Ukraine with his own start-up military training company called the Mozart Group, a “saucy response to a Russian mercenary outfit” called the Wagner Group.
The language throughout the article is fawning, unquestioning, repeatedly glamorizing the soldier and his war. It’s Pentagon propaganda. The only question the journalist really raises is whether the soldier and his company can make a difference in helping the Ukrainians.
The invasion of Ukraine by the Russians and the killing of civilians is immoral and illegal. The meddling influence of the U.S. in stirring this long-simmering, highly dangerous pot is inexcusable. Fearless, independent journalism is needed to report on all sides of this horrific, complicated conflict. Unfortunately, this recent article demonstrates all too well how corporate media has lost its way when searching for its bankable war.
The article begins with a quote from the soldier: “Please, come with me,” he says, begging an old woman with “a face etched by countless sorrows” to leave the area before the Russians arrive. The soldier has “black smoke filling his nostrils, staring at the Ukrainian woman he had never met, pleading with her to evacuate.”
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