The ongoing coverage of the (unfortunate) passing of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny should be considered a serious contender for the title of “The Mother of All Journalistic Double-Standardizing.”
First, many of the same outlets excoriating former President Donald Trump as a racist hate-monger for his stance on immigration, have chosen to simply bury the undeniable reality that Navalny handily out-Trumped Trump on this matter. He made scandalous videos depicting Georgian, Central Asian, and other would-be immigrants to Russia as rotten teeth to be extracted, or cockroaches to be gassed, while pointedly casting himself as the unflinching dentist or exterminator. But if these facts contradict the desired image, then, by all means, truth be gone!
Second, we have an obscenely blatant case of selective outrage and anguish. The same Fourth Estate that cries rivers over Navalny, has nary a tear for Julian Assange, who is facing a truly Kafkaesque legal proceeding that could result in his dying in a high-security U.S. prison, for the alleged crime of exposing U.S. government depredations. Chilean-American filmmaker Gonzalo Lira died last month in a Ukrainian prison, charged with “justifying Russia’s military actions in Ukraine,” that is, a straight-up political offense, with no other pretexts alleged. Considering the utter dearth of reportage on his case, one can hardly blame the average American for asking: “Gonzalo who?” Ditto for the 85 (and counting) journalists killed by the Israelis in their assault on Gaza, or the dozen-plus political figures, Russians and Ukrainians alike, who have been assassinated for opposing Kiev’s policies. And let’s not forget Lyndon LaRouche, the staunch opponent of the U.S.-U.K. financial establishment , who was targeted back in the 1980s by the same apparatus that later gave us the regime-change forever wars, the multitrillion-dollar bank bailouts, and the surveillance state, among other gifts.
