“Actually being state-run is okay if those journalistic institutions can be independently verified to offer high-quality, objective reporting, based on nothing more than an analysis of that reporting – especially with regards to that institution’s stances of its government’s actions.”

Not sure why this is so hard for you all. Like, actually, in order to determine if a news source is good, we have to – shockingly! – examine the output of that news source. By this metric, the VOA and BBC are pretty good… uh, single Tweets notwithstanding.

An interesting story!

I briefly researched this and it looks like the initial version of the article (as described by the Washington Post) was indeed wrong. The Diplomat claims RFA updated the English translation of the article and made it more accurate:

The instruction for male students to get the same haircut as their leader is not based on any directive from Kim but on a recommendation from the ruling Workers’ Party, according to a North Korean from North Hamgyong province near the border with China.

So I’m not sure the takeaway is “someone sat down and wrote a bullshit story with the intent to deceive the public,” so much as “an article stub appears to have gotten into the wild and was corrected in translation.”

Certainly it’s easier to believe RFA made an error and/or mispublication here than they’re just publishing propaganda, right? Unless we’re saying the standard for a US-backed media source is “zero errors, and any errors are intentional propaganda.”

But let’s assume that’s true: they don’t make any errors and this is indeed propaganda. Why did they publish it? What would be the utility of false haircut propaganda, except to tip their hands that they are a propaganda outlet, which would certainly make its utility as a propaganda outlet worthless? Wouldn’t they want to get this story right so you believe the really big important stuff?

If you asked an intelligent person, “how would you publish propaganda,” you’d just do it like Russia Times: just straight-up repeat the state’s lies and never bother reporting anything close to the truth. I think the multilayered conspiracy theories required for the assertion that institutions intentionally seed their stories with propaganda are difficult to swallow, and not particularly well-supported. Like there’s no evidence RFA intentionally lied here, at least none that I can find.

Of course, I also think you should be cautious of media sources in general and it’s a fine idea to keep in mind who pays RFA’s bills. But the way to judge whether a place gets it right or wrong is to examine its history and accuracy; dismissing it outright because the US funds it is intellectually lazy.

I definitely didn’t say that.

“Bad arguments” is a pretty rich take coming from you. You’ve done nothing but continually, in defiance of logic and facts, assert total nonsense… and then turn around and claim that I’m the one that has bad arguments.

Literally, at least I have something. All you’ve got is a mushy, unfactual “enlightened centricism” that says that actually all media and all fact checkers are liars. Which is an utterly moronic take, and as I have demonstrated all over this thread, totally unsupported by actual facts.

I mean, France was once ruled by an Emperor; does that mean it still secretly is? Or did, like, something change in the last two hundred years in that regard? Do you think Napoleon is still secretly in charge there too?

You’re right personnel is policy though. And if you did any research whatsoever instead of posting nonsense on the Internet, you’d see that the journalists who work at the VOA are actually journalists, not propagandists. It’s not hard, the facts are out there. Maybe you should pursue them instead of indulge in baseless conspiracy theories.

But I’m easy to convince! Feel free to link me evidence that the VOA is still American propaganda and not real journalism. Surely reputable sources and good evidence are easy to find? I mean, if this was written a hundred years ago, there must be something else between then and now?

Correct.

Washington Post is an american propaganda outlet when it comes to foreign policy articles. You might as well be linking VOA or RT.

They are literally putting WP in line with RT. This statement is still wrong in exactly the way I’ve described numerous times here.

So no sources or evidence for your conspiracy theory, eh?

I honestly pity you. Why not crawl back to lemmygrad where you belong?

The BBC isn’t state-owned. I know facts and nuance are tough but I do mention this in another comment. Go read it, you might learn something!

Cite reliable sources proving it’s “another state-owned media outlet that promotes its own nation” or at least give us a demostrable example.

The BBC is quasi-state funded; its relationship with the government is not entirely cut-and-dry, since it is funded through a government act (though not directly by the UK itself).

What matters is whether the state has controls that prevent it from interfering with its media sources, and whether the those sources have missions respecting journalistic integrity. For the VOA and BBC this is entirely true, both have charters specifically mandating them to do that and their respective governments have very clear “hands-off” laws and policies (or did until Trump, the story does get a little complicated for the VOA recently).

RT on the other hand just publishes Putin’s marketing emails.

I concede it’s a stretched argument but WaPo is known for hiring ex-State Department/ex-CIA staff onto its editorial board. I’m too lazy to find source but say something that gets me riled up and I’ll find the source out of spite.

Have you done any research on VoA?