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He should stop working for CIA funded outlets and parroting a state department like foreign policy line on Bolivia then.
His actual takes (like his bad one on Bolivia) seem more relevant than who signs his checks, and those takes are as consistent with "useful for the State Department" as they are with "directly representing State Department interests." "Useful for the State Department" covers basically any leftist with bad foreign policy takes, and those people can be brought around. "Directly representing State Department interests" is a much more serious problem that raises bigger questions about whether the guy can ever be trusted.
Remember, the media critique outlined in Inventing Reality and Manufacturing Consent doesn't claim that any journalist with any sort of monetary link to any organ of the government is effectively a federal employee parroting the State Department line. The critique is that:
- News outlets can't be too critical, too often of the groups that pay the bills. If they are, they'll lose funding and be unable to do their jobs.
- Journalists who rely on access to organizations can't be too critical, too often of those organizations. If they are, they'll lose access and be unable to do their jobs.
Bellingcat receives a portion of its funding for the National Endowment for Democracy, but not all of its funding. Evans receives a portion of his income from Bellingcat, but not all of his income. I'm sure he relies on institutional access to some extent in his reporting, but it's almost certainly a much smaller extent than, say, a reporter who lives in D.C. and gets all their information from press conferences and whatever government officials will talk to them. All of this (and all of Evans' good reporting) makes me think he's probably a leftist with bad foreign policy takes, and probably not printing stuff the State Department emails him.
I think his relative rise to prominence over the summer and his pretty sus foreign policy takes while being attached to a NATO propaganda factory whilst lots of less critical leftists and radlibs online fall head over heels for him is a mixture that's guaranteed to get backlash from this community and rightly so.
I do think it's become a bit of a one upmanship meme almost randomly dropped in to some posts though.
:geordi-no: Dodgy regime change fueled foreign policy articles.
:geordi-yes: Domestic work exposing white supremacist organisations.
:cat-com: Com-cats over Bellingcats.
relative rise to prominence over the summer
If you paid attention to the wars in East Ukraine or Syria - he's been plenty prominent for years. Many people would anonymously contribute opensource info they found on the conflicts (especially geolocation). Then a few decided they'd make a career out of it. And still fewer got state funding or media recognition - and you know what it takes to get that.
Agreed, I meant more the causal Twitter gathering around him mostly from his podcasts and Twitter coverage of the protests and counter-violence from the right.
anyone who thinks being funded by the NED is ok, should stop calling themselves leftist. The NED is rebranded CIA, it's an open secret ffs.
You guys know that grayzone is an op too, right? They’re just a Russian op.
They hate Bellingcat because Bellingcat is an American op. It’s ops all the way down.
Critical support for the Russian op in their righteous fight against NATO imperialism.
But seriously. No russian ever dropped bombs on my people and no Russian gets hard thinking about bombing Tehran. You can fuck of with that enlightened Centrism shit.
It’s not “enlightened centrism” to consume media critically. Russia isn’t some anti-imperialist bulwark, they’re just another empire advancing their own interests.
Critical support for the CCCP, but Russia is unabashedly capitalist and reactionary. Like is this seriously a pro Putin board all of a sudden?
Edit: Putin stans can eat shiiiiiit
Yeah, not going to apologize for being born in the US, in case you didn’t know it’s not easy to leave, otherwise I’d have done so already for what it’s worth.
Kind of curious where you think I’m making “vitriolic accusations” though. I said Gray Zone was a Russian op. I stand by that, but I still read it. I just think it’s important to be aware that they’re also pushing a national interest.
That is literally a baseline take that even a radlib like Chomsky appreciates, how the fuck is that remotely "iNsUfFeRaBle"
Moralistic virtue signaling about dictators your country helped bring to power will always remain the actual insufferable position, sorry
Yes, criticism of modern Russia under a literal autocrat is big time “moralistic virtue signalling”.
Get outta here. The motherland is dead and gone and any leftist ought rightfully to criticise the current apparatus of power and corruption in Russia.
Even mentioning Russia in the same breath as China and Bolivia is completely asinine.
Yes, criticism of modern Russia under a literal autocrat is big time “moralistic virtue signalling”.
If you're an American, YES, especially if you neglect intentionally or otherwise to pair said criticism with the context of HOW and WHY Putin came to power
The motherland is dead and gone and any leftist ought rightfully to criticise the current apparatus of power and corruption in Russia.
Ok and? You do realize you have absolutely zero moral, political, or social clout to effect change in Russia, again moralistic virtue signalling
Even mentioning Russia in the same breath as China and Bolivia is completely asinine.
How about mentioning Russia in the context of NATO, is that asinine? Or is agitating for a Second Russian collapse in the span of 30 years somehow "woke" now?
Lmao
Moralistic virtue signalling “woke”
Is this Cha Cha or 2013 Atheist YouTube?
This is as simple as accepting that critical thought ought to be levelled at media and it’s not doing an imperialism to do so. You don’t need to do a screed to justify every point of contention.
Is this Cha Cha or 2013 Atheist YouTube?
Funny, you're kneejerk hysterics about foreign dictators reminded me more of "2013 Atheist YouTube"
This is as simple as accepting that critical thought
LMAO what "critical thought" have you actually leveled russiagator? I can read your dogshit screed on any thread in r/politics, here's an idea, come up with a take about Russia where you don't sound like a Jake Tapper sockpuppet
Nice misquote bro.
You’re fighting with an enemy that doesn’t exist.
I’m literally not from the US, and have no support for Russiagate conspiracies. But your boy up there is failing to take a stance beyond
West = US = Imperialism = bad
:. Anything not the West = not the US = not imperialism = good and to be trusted
I’m literally not from the US, and have no support for Russiagate conspiracies
uh, huh cool story love, absolutely riveting
But your boy up there is failing to take a stance beyond
:ohnoes: oh shit my boy didn't take a "STANCE"
West = US = Imperialism = bad
Yesssss? That is objectively correct, not seeing the issue here
:. Anything not the West = not the US = not imperialism = good and to be trusted
fucks sake just forward your application to CNN already
Also question, do you believe the Ukraine should invade Crimea with the aid of NATO?
This is unproductive, you can quote my posts piece by piece and add your irony poisoned retorts if it makes you feel better about your day.
But I don’t see this going any further than that, and since this is a shared left space rather than reddit we should leave it at that.
The grayzone does really good work. These folks are legit as fuck.
Bellingcat is considered an American government op because it's funded by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which is funded by the US government. According to NED president Allen Weinstein:
A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.
The Grayzone can't really be considered an op as they're only funded by their readers through direct donations and by their Patreon members and don't accept state funding. I've donated to them before. They're just Marxist journalists that primarily cover Western government-led regime change efforts, regardless of whether the regime change targets are socialist governments (Bolivia, Nicaragua, China, and Venezuela) or not socialist (Iran, Syria, and Russia). You could make the case that RT is a Russian op though as it is funded at least partially by the Russian government although they do host a lot of leftist content with Richard Wolff and Chris Hedges being frequent contributors.
Bellingcat is considered an American government op because it’s funded by the National Endowment for Democracy
Part of its funding is from the NED. It's sus, but without knowing how much of their funding comes from the NED I hesitate to call it more than that.
For what it's worth, Bellingcat claims 35% of its money is from workshops it holds, describes other non-NED funding sources, and it describes its NED money as a grant. The NED claims it issues more than 1,600 grants per year that average $50,000 each.
The NED is obviously an op, but it's less plausible to claim that any news outlet that receives any money from the NED is also a full-on op, and it's still less plausible to claim that any journalist who receives any income from such a news outlet is a full-on fed.
Yeah, I agree that it's doubtful that every employee of a NED-funded outlet is necessarily a literal undercover CIA officer. We don't know the exact extent of just outright full collaboration or US government micromanagement within some of these NED-funded organizations. Maybe more of a case here of the US government just cultivating outlets and their employees as at least generally reliable assets for advancing American government interests (Perhaps they were already at least partially ideologically-aligned, share some similar key goals, support current US foreign policy, or just like what NATO has to offer. Hell, maybe the US just sees them as "useful idiots".) and financially supporting them accordingly via NED funding to promote them after recognizing their value. So, yeah, maybe not necessarily always 100% full-on ops or full-on feds.
Without evidence this is just badjacketing. We should have a pretty low tolerance for accusations like this unless they're supported by something at least semi-plausible.
Grayzone. Until this thread I haven't seen even a suggestion that they're suspect, and the accusation here is totally unsupported. We have to be a little smarter than jumping every time someone shouts "this thing is an op."
With Bellingcat, there's unquestionably a source of funding (the NED) that's justifiably suspect. I don't think the book's written on them, but there's at least something to back up accusations that it's not legit.
I agree, I haven't seen chapos throw russiagate-style accusations like this since the summer of 2018, very strange
Thankfully, I haven't seen this crop up until this thread, and I don't see a lot of people here falling for it.
You guys know that grayzone is an op too, right? They’re just a Russian op.
Source: just trust me bro
