Prior to this current crisis rocking Eastern Europe, the information flow has been a point of suspicion for most developing nations about western media. The developing countries believe that most media flow is directed into their territories from the developed world and almost none of the flow is the other way.
The ongoing political conundrum between Russia and NATO backed Ukraine is another testament to the loop sidedness in the international information flow. The developing nations has always relying solely on the western media for their source of information, which has beclouded and shaped their worldview. This is so because what version of the story you hear, depends on which news outlet you pay attention to. I watched BBC, CNN and Al Jazerra and I ended up wondering if they were reporting on the same war.
To be as objective as possible, we are all biased, but some have been able to hide the bias. The major difference is that, some media organizations like CNN and Fox news are profit-oriented, while many of the others are government-controlled. The goal is still the same. BBC, Russia, Chinese News agencies are basically the opposite sides of the same coin to set agenda for the rest of the world.
It is imperative that we diversify our sources of news and most importantly read books from varieties of sources. To me, there is no difference between CNN, BBC, DW, RT, Aljazeera, VOA, CGTN, CRI. They are all propaganda machines for their various countries. Essentially, they are all mind controlling organizations.
How do we then know who to rely on?
It is simple. We should endeavour to get our news from different sources and just use our judgment to determine the actual state of things. We should remember when children narrate a fight they were involved in. How do you know if the story might not be as straightforward as it is being narrated? That is exactly what is going on in Eastern Europe, with all avalanche of news flowing from those aforementioned news media concerning the ongoing war between the two countries.
It can not be out of place for us to go for a mix of sources; Authentic African News sources, not those funded by the west, Western News (Europe & America), Latino America, Chinese, Russia, Arab News, Asian News, and the two Koreas(North and South). We really need to read more and stop supporting one evil over another. I see a lot of people hailing a brutal dictator because of their bias against the west who are also culpable by the way.
The most important part is that we should read more books, especially history books in order to expanding our horizon because one side of the story is never complete.
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