Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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Notes -
Also a draft of a post ranking various press outlets; I'm curious to get people's sense of whether the below tracks, and whether there are adjacent topics people are interested in (it's long for a comment, but it feels a bit short for an article)
A Guide to Written News Machines, Reuters to RT
First come the high volume, terse commercial news agencies, like Reuters (Taiwan reports near doubling of Chinese warships nearby) or the Associated Press (Ethnic armed group claims capture of a strategic Myanmar town and control of border with Bangladesh). Their news—particularly Reuters'—is to the point, with little to no spin, and produced fast. Their role in the news ecosystem is to gather facts that other outlets can give their own spin to. Bloomberg (TSMC’s Arizona Trials Put Plant Productivity on Par with Taiwan) is in a similar boat, except that their news isn't sold to downstream publications, but rather stands in some nebulous relation with their financial terminal business. These publications are generally reliable1.
Then come the national propaganda outlets, which range from the relatively more high brow to the directly propagandistic. Of the former, my favorite is Aljazeera (Russia’s Putin launches drill of nuclear forces simulating strikes), the prestige news media source of Qatar: it has a clear line on the Middle East, but otherwise great and detached coverage of events worldwide. Then we have the BBC (Tiger mosquitoes behind dengue fever rise in Europe), Deutsche Welle (Sudan truce talks start in Switzerland without Sudanese army). On the more propagandist end you have Voice of America (Biden visits Angola on first trip to Africa as president), South China Sea Morning Post (Russia’s formidable Kazan nuclear submarine arrives in Cuba under watchful US eyes), Russia Today (Belarus has nuclear weapons more powerful than Oreshnik – Lukashenko), Xinhua News Agency (World Central Kitchen suspends Gaza operations after staff reportedly killed), Pravda (Stoltenberg on Poland potentially shooting down missiles over Ukraine: NATO will not be involved in the conflict), or Anadolu Agency (Hezbollah chief says it reviewed US truce proposal, cease-fire in Netanyahu's hands). These generally offer useful pointers to events happening in the world, but are not in broad strokes trustworthy, particularly for crucial political details. Russian media will straight out lie, e.g., by paraphrasing quotes very misleadingly.
Beyond these we have publications like The Guardian (Israeli foreign minister says decision on all-out war against Hezbollah is near), The New York Times (Putin Arrives in North Korea as Ukraine War Redefines Ties With Kim), The New York Post (Ukraine has lost 43K soldiers since start of Russian war, Zelensky says in rare update), Newsweek (China Throws Its Weight Around Russia's Backyard), The Telegraph (Exclusive: Nato in talks to deploy more nuclear weapons), which both do original research, but are also in the business of purveying opinions. A variant on this ilk are local newspapers in smaller countries, like the Jerusalem Post (IDF carries out exercises readying troops for war in Lebanon), the Palestine Chronicle (‘Surpassing World War II’ Figures – Israel Dropped Over 85,000 Tonnes of Bombs on Gaza), The Times of India (In anger at Canada minister’s remarks, Pannun threatens to ‘Balkanise India’), or Pakistan's The Express Tribune (Second mpox case in Pakistan confirmed at Peshawar Airport). These local newspapers tend to repackage Reuters/AFP/AP for their coverage of international news, but have more granularity on events in their nations. A lower effort variant is the online presence of US cable news networks like CNN (US concerned Israel’s Iron Dome could be overwhelmed in war with Hezbollah, officials say) or Fox News (China attacks on Philippine boats are to provoke US, prep for Taiwan war, experts warn).
The British tabloids have a general soft spot in my heart for hightlighting possible causes for fear in very clear and sensationalistic terms. Some of these are The Daily Mail (Mobbed by 'followers' as he finally goes to jail: 'Messianic' JSO founder Roger Hallam, 58, who masterminded Insulate Britain splinter group with his German lover 'eco-muse', 26, during lockdown and says protesters should be 'willing to die' for the cause), the Daily and Sunday Express (Russian nuclear submarine spotted off UK coast sparks emergency defence meeting), The Sun (NUKE FEARS Putin came so close to launching a nuke in Ukraine that crisis meetings were held over the fallout hitting BRITAIN), etc.
On a rough tally, the sources mentioned above add up to less than ~40% of the links I pay attention to. The rest is the long tail of specialist news sources, official announcements, obscure outlets, advocacy groups, encyclopedias, social media, prediction markets, discussion fora, aid organizations, industry periodicals, scientific papers, small-time authors, and ultimately the very miscellaneous.
1. Here is an instance where they weren't; I don't think the post was a fair summary of these two Truth Social posts. The story was also covered by the BBC and others.
I do not know about rest of the world, but as it concerns Middle East, and especially Israel, BBC and Aljazeera is about as reliable as Keith Olbermann is reliable when talking about Trump.
Same goes for Reuters and AP for anything that relates in any way to US partisan politics or culture wars topics. Maybe they are super-reliable in other dimensions, but I suspect Gell-Mann amnesia may be playing a role there.
I did mention Aljazeera having a line on the Middle East.
Will make sure to keep an eye on whether Reuters coverage of US politics seems more biased. I give an example in footnote 1, but my sense was that things like that were not particularly prevalent.
I was going to present some evidence about AP, but sadly I instead saw this:
https://apnews.com/article/germany-magdeburg-christmas-market-6b2bcf305eb9f60f8d7273949dbba4c8
Just in case it changes later, the headline says: "At least 2 dead and 60 hurt after a car drives into a German Christmas market in a suspected attack". Yes, "a car drives". I think we can close the case about "little to no spin" now.
P.S. before you say "maybe they didn't know who was driving it", a) that's not a good excuse and b) they did - it's a 50 year old man from Saudi Arabia. He's in police custody.
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On the rare days that I am interested in an update on wars / conflicts, I go to the Institute for the Study of War. They provide in-depth analysis (a blog length) based on available public info, and they have pretty good interactive maps.
Thanks!
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