We’re seeing solely a small fraction of the motion in Ukraine and Russia proper now. And a few of what we’re seeing in social feeds and faraway commentary is distorted. So it is necessary for information retailers to acknowledge this data hole and underscore the identified unknowns within the minute-by-minute protection.
I hate to fall again to the “fog of struggle” metaphor, but it surely exists for a motive. The fog is thick proper now. Military officers understand it. During a Sunday morning press briefing with Pentagon reporters, an unnamed senior protection official mentioned one thing about “humility” that stood out to me. “The Ukrainians are placing up a really stiff and courageous and heroic resistance,” the official mentioned. “But we’re solely on day 4. And I’d be reluctant to offer an estimate of what number of extra days there are right here.” The level: Predictions are a idiot’s errand. Combat is ugly and unpredictable. “Everybody wants to take a look at this with a little bit of a way of humility right here,” the official mentioned.
Consider this…
French’s rule of thumb is that in warfare, “the extra particular the data, the larger the grain of salt it is best to learn it with.” He mentioned “proper now, the extra dependable studies, fairly frankly, are going to be the extra high-level, extra imprecise studies. Things like, ‘The Russians are disillusioned by their progress to date.’ That’s one thing that I feel we will be fairly certain about. Some report that claims ’15 kilometers from Kyiv, there was a tank battle involving X variety of tanks destroyed and X variety of Russian troopers killed,’ take that with an enormous grain of salt as a result of we do not know. We do not have the sources to know. And the truth is, we’d not know for a very long time precisely what occurred the place and when on this combat.”
Practical challenges on the bottom
Curfews and checkpoints are two of the sensible challenges for reporters in Ukraine proper now, on high of the plain safety and logistical considerations. “It is a gigantic feat of logistics to reside or transfer round in Ukraine proper now,” NPR’s Tim Mak tweeted. “Gas, energy, comms, transport, housing, security [are all] fixed points.”
CNN’s Clarissa Ward in Kyiv introduced up the curfew problem and “very actual limitations on the place and the way we will transfer round” after I spoke along with her on Sunday’s “Reliable Sources.” She described how CNN staffers have been “combing exhaustively by means of all of the social media footage” from Ukraine and Russia, working to geolocate it and “place it in its acceptable context.”
Social media as “drive multiplier”
Among specialists who suppose lengthy and arduous about social media and knowledge wars, I’m seeing two completely different traces of thought. One is that the eyewitness content material coming from Ukraine is critically necessary and compelling — a “TikTok struggle” in motion. That’s true. But there may be additionally fact within the different line of thought — that we’re seeing comparatively little video from the entrance traces. As Emerson T. Brooking of the Atlantic Council’s DFRLab wrote, “The buildup was recorded on TikTok and in relative security. But streaming apps aren’t good when battery and bandwidth are scarce. Instead footage will likely be uploaded in waves, every time terror recedes.”The similar competing traces of thought apply to disinformation. Yes, there are numerous mislabeled and completely bogus images and movies making the rounds, however Casey Newton provided this contrarian view on Sunday: “The function of misinformation/disinformation feels minor in comparison with what we’d have anticipated. It’s an unusually clear case of fine vs. evil, and that has translated with highly effective readability within the media — together with social media.” Newton added, “Tech co’s have to remain on alert for viral rubbish, in fact, particularly as Russian state media will get deplatformed and Putin has to depend on ‘natural’ posts. In the meantime, although, social media has largely struck me as a drive multiplier for Ukraine and pro-democracy efforts.”
War in 2022 means…
…Incredible digital platforms are developing in opposition to the crude, merciless actuality of killing. Urban warfare specialists are tweeting tricks to Ukrainian civilians. The makers of a sport concerning the impression of struggle on civilians are donating earnings to the Ukrainian Red Cross. Photos of charred corpses are interspersed with the conventional sights and sounds of social media.Big Tech is a giant participant on this, whether or not it needs to be or not. Over the weekend Google joined Meta in barring Russian state media retailers to run advertisements. Government officers like EU Commissioner Thierry Breton are pressuring Big Tech to take a tough line in opposition to Putin. After a name with YouTube and Google leaders on Sunday, Breton wrote, “Online platforms took unprecedented steps after the Capitol Hill assaults. Surely Russian struggle propaganda deserves no less than the identical degree of response.”
Google disables reside site visitors information in Ukraine
Remember final week’s tales about teachers recognizing site visitors jams on Google Maps and anticipating the beginning of the invasion? Well now there’s this:”Google Maps has blocked two options in Ukraine that present data to customers in actual time,” CNN’s Brian Fung reported Sunday night time. “The disabled options embrace Google Maps’s reside site visitors overlay — a characteristic some researchers have used to observe the battle from afar — in addition to Live Busyness, a characteristic that shows how well-liked a location could also be at a given time. Google made the change in an effort to assist maintain Ukrainians secure and after consultations with native officers, the corporate mentioned.”
Two Danish journalists wounded
Danish correspondents Stefan Weichert and Emil Filtenborg “had been driving close to the city of Ohtyrka — which is round 60 miles exterior of Kharkiv — when gunfire peppered their car and left each bleeding closely from bullet wounds,” The Daily Beast’s Nico Hines studies. They had been in a position to escape and had been handled at a hospital. “The star freelance journalists, who reside in Kyiv, have been submitting dispatches from Ukraine for The Daily Beast and Danish newspaper Ekstra Bladet,” Hines wrote.
The final information crew in Kharkiv?
Darja Stomatová is a reporter for CNN Prima News, a CNN worldwide affiliate within the Czech Republic. On Sunday she reported reside for each CNN Prima and for CNN’s world viewers from a makeshift shelter in a resort in Kharkiv. “She says they could be the final overseas crew there,” Ed Meagher wrote.
Stomatová described “the scenario was altering” all through the day on Sunday: Loud gunshots within the morning, explosions, then some semblance of calm. “It is essential to be right here proper now,” she mentioned. Her companions on the resort bunker really feel like associates at this level, she added.
“FIGHT LIKE ZEL”
Sunday’s NY Post entrance web page was headlined “FIGHT LIKE ZEL.” That sort of says all of it. “Before Russia invaded Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky was typically derided as a comic book turned unlikely politician,” the NYT’s Steven Erlanger writes. “But with the assistance of social media, he has develop into the chief Ukraine didn’t understand it wanted.”
Ukrainian TV stations have backup studio in bunker
Oliver Darcy writes: “Ukraine’s TV firms are going to do all the pieces they’ll to remain on the air, ought to Russian forces seize management of their principal studios. A spokesperson for the 1+1 Media Group, considered one of Ukraine’s largest media conglomerates, instructed me over the weekend that it has, in collaboration with different TV firms, ‘developed a plan for a backup studio for TV broadcasting, which is situated in a specialised shelter and can be utilized within the occasion of a menace to interruption.’ As I wrote in Friday’s e-newsletter, Ukraine’s TV stations are all in emergency mode, broadcasting continuous information protection with no business breaks.”
Teamwork
Darcy continues: “The 1+1 rep instructed me that the continuous protection, which has been dubbed the United News Marathon, is feasible by means of teamwork. ‘We have teamed up with different Ukrainian media teams to broadcast in turns for six hours every in a single broadcast,’ the spox defined. “Each time an air menace is introduced in Kyiv, our colleagues are going reside from a backup studio in Kyiv. Plus, the corporate’s picture information service, UNIAN, can be providing its photographs for gratis.”
Newfound scrutiny of Russia Today
Russia Today, the Russian-financed propaganda community, is underneath stress proper now. Multiple staffers have publicly mentioned they’re resigning in current days. Distributors have been questioned about why they’re carrying the community. WaPo’s Paul Farhi took an in-depth take a look at RT and mentioned it “seems to be considerably extra profitable in spreading its message by way of digital platforms — partially as a result of its posts on Facebook, TikTok and different platforms are amplified by right-wing American commentary organizations.” — Related: Ann Simmons goes inside Russian state media and explains how they’ve “issued disinformation that seeks to assist” Putin’s model of occasions. (WSJ) — Former RT anchor Liz Wahl says “One factor that’s clear to me: Fox News hosts like Tucker Carlson, together with different right-wing media figures, are at occasions indistinguishable from the propaganda on my former community, RT.” (Daily Beast)
Inside ‘Russia’s Last Independent TV Channel’
“We are dealing with an enormous menace. It will not be simple to work right here underneath the circumstances,” TV Rain anchor Ekaterina Kotrikadze instructed me on Sunday’s present. She described the Kremlin’s repeated crackdowns on free media in Russia and TV Rain’s wrestle to remain on-line. Masha Gessen additionally spent an evening on the community’s studio — learn the story for The New Yorker right here.
A “troubling tone” — and offensive comparisons
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shocked the world as the biggest cross-border European battle in a long time. But some observers see a troubling tone creeping into how some media retailers have tried to contextualize it, describing Ukraine as extra ‘civilized’ than different international locations, similar to Iraq, Afghanistan or Syria,” WaPo’s Sarah Ellison and Travis M. Andrews wrote Sunday. Charlie D’Agata of CBS apologized after considered one of his remarks went viral over the weekend. He was “simply considered one of many correspondents and commentators utilizing offensive comparisons of their effort to elucidate Ukraine’s plight,” they wrote. >> Al Jazeera has a narrative all about this, as effectively.
Notes, quotes and additional studying
— Many of Monday’s papers are main with a model of this Financial Times banner headline: “Putin places nuclear forces on alert.” — Check CNN’s reside updates web page for the newest data right here. — “The sudden smothering and suffocation of the Russian economic system is with out trendy precedent,” Derek Thompson commented. “This is terra incognito and I don’t know what occurs subsequent.” (Twitter) — Charlie Warzel on the expertise of the information proper now: “As with the earliest days of Covid, new and nuanced data is tremendous necessary but it surely’s additionally principally not possible for the information to provide individuals what they need which is any sort of certainty/definitive aid.” (Twitter) — Jim Acosta’s touch upon Sunday night time: Zelensky “was requested if he needed to be evacuated. He mentioned, ‘I would like ammunition, not a journey.’ If you need to give anyone a journey out of city, let’s give it to Vladimir Putin.” (CNN) — Condoleezza Rice on “Fox News Sunday:” “I’ve been instructed the Russian tv is taking part in [World] War II and Nazis and so forth, however no person underneath the age of 40 in Russia watches tv. They are on the web. They can see what’s taking place there.” She mentioned Putin is “having a tougher time hiding his crimes than he did even in 2008.” (Newsmax) — It seems the impression of Putin’s struggle “is beginning to set in, startling even his most ardent state TV propagandists,” Julia Davis writes. “It’s all enjoyable and video games ‘until they seize your Italian villa.” (Beast) — Li Yuan studies that the “Chinese web” is “largely pro-Russia, pro-war and pro-Putin.” (NYT)