Today.Az » Politics » New wave of fake news inspired by George Soros
06 September 2017 [18:15] - Today.Az
By Elchin Alioglu
Azerbaijan has become a target of six
sensational stories published in the British daily
newspaper The Guardian on September 5. The country has become a subject
of a pseudo-free "investigation" named as "Global
Laundromat" and presented as the area of absolute, total chaos and
lawlessness, where the power ball rules, and as an "alien and hostile for West."
The six horror stories were presented to
a British reader about the Forces of Evil, as an octopus, accusing a healthy,
but sickly and disposed body of Western democracy, that is, the "golden
billion".
Four articles were published
simultaneously, and the other two were published with an interval of 2 hours,
which is seen as an unprecedented occurrence in the history of The Guardian.
What was the reason for such rush
and effectiveness of the newspaper, which indiscriminately accuses Azerbaijan
of laundering $2.9 billion through the UK- registered four companies?
"Investigators" of “deep investigation”
The authors of the article "Everything you need to know about the Azerbaijani
Laundromat"- Luke Harding, Caelainn Barr and Dina Nagapetyants, following the traditions of the yellow press, indiscriminately
accused Azerbaijan of almost all mortal sins.
Naturally, the accusations are based on
such "authoritative and unquestionable" sources as Wikileaks and the
Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), known for their
categorical judgments, "fried facts" and sketchy, torn from the
general context by "copies" correspondence, documents, and many
others.
Authors of the imperishable masterpiece
of the yellow press caught interest of many. What was the motivation to write
such a fake story full of hatred towards the South Caucasus nation?
Luke Harding is a scandalous British
journalist, a special correspondent of The Guardian with an experience in this
capacity in India, Germany, Russia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.
Luke is also famous for his book
"Mafia State: How One Reporter Became an Enemy of the Brutal New
Russia", which describes Russia as a "mafia state".
Harding was refused entry to Russia on
February 8, 2011. The Russian Foreign Ministry explained the refusal by the expiration
of Harding’s visa validity term, declaring in addition that earlier he had
violated the rules of accreditation and visited the zone of the counter-terrorist
operation without notifying the security bodies about it. Harding himself and
the newspaper assessed the ban as a consequence of the journalist's
professional activities. The refusal to enter Russia was the first case of the
expulsion of a Western journalist in the post-Soviet history of Russia.
Harding, along with David Lee, published
the biographical book in 2011 "WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on
Secrecy," where he extolled not only the "world-wide nightman"
Julian Assange, but also did not forget himself, modestly designating the
author as "an indefatigable seeker of truth, a fighter against the Forces
of Evil."
Another author of the article, Caelainn Barr, has been officially listed on the Guardian's "Data
Projects" for many years now, but journalists of London refer to it as
"Armenian Herald". Caelainn is closely connected with the leading
organizations of the "spryk", the Armenian diaspora in Europe.
For instance, Caelainn shared his proud
of these links on her Facebook profile last year. "I love the Armenians,
this proud, intelligent, strong-willed and purposeful people. And I am proud
that I have the honor to be friends with representatives of this ancient
people".
And on April 24, the day of the world
Armenian hysteria over the fictitious "genocide in Turkey," Ms. Barr
burst out in a tirade: "I mourn, I'm sad, I remember that I'm with you, my
friends, and will do everything in my power to help you."
Watchdogs of "democracy", or Dirty "clouds in
pants"
Media in the West
largely plants a stereotype of "the press is a watchdog of
democracy". The phrase is more
intensively present in the British media. However, the "fried facts"
allegedly revealed by the liberal press, especially The Guardian, show the
opposite: reporters and authors engaged in "exposing" particular
countries, statesmen and politicians are guided by the interests of very
specific organizations, groups or, as in our case, "a link "of the
interests of George Soros and the organizations of the Armenian diaspora.
The fact that the
stereotype of "the media is a watchdog of democracy" is false, that
media freedom in the West is illusory, is confirmed by the crisis of readers'
trust in the media in Britain itself.
The Guardian with
perseverance worth a better use is trying to form a host of prejudices and
false ideas about Azerbaijan, where the foreground gives false, primitive,
over-simplified ideas about our country.
Although the democratic
role of journalism should not only be a news provider and actor as a watchdog,
but also to affect our feelings, inspire us and feed our thoughts.
Considering the role of
mass communications and their influence on political processes, we note that in
the postindustrial society the power of knowledge and information becomes
decisive in public management, pushing to the second plan the influence of
money and state coercion. And the mass media are the direct carriers and,
especially, the disseminators of knowledge and other socially significant
information.
The cynicism and
pragmatism of the profession, both among journalists themselves, as Harding and
"independent investigators", and in relation to them is the
professional norm. Such pseudo-journalists almost unanimously justify
corruption in professional work and in society as a whole. Most think that
corruption and professionalism are the same. Their main argument is that
everything around is corrupt and dependent, and there is no other way to get
out of poverty.
Some authors of The
Guardian, an influential newspaper, and their "research" have become
a commodity, because no one can buy a non-professional in this environment.
Time has changed, old pro-state Anglo-Saxon priorities are being replaced by
new market ones, where getting the material prosperity is at the forefront.
Journalism in Foggy
Albion remains the second most ancient profession, therefore, according to
Harding, there is no harm that it is corrupt. They identify professionalism as
technical skill, not including ethical norms in this characteristic. They
approach consider selling the journalist's marketability as an assessment of
his professionalism in the labor market -- that's all.
The article about the "Azerbaijani Laundromat" is a striking example not of journalism, but of "churnalism". The expression "churnalism" belongs to the reporter of BBC Waseem Zakir. "Butter maker"
journalist, as the authors of the article published on The Guardian, creates
not only the stories that he finds on his own, but also selects, rewrites and
develops stories that he receives from other sources, often without leaving the
newsroom.
The authors of the
article can be qualified as "gonzo journalists".
Gonzo journalism, as a
direction in journalism, is a deeply subjective style of first-person narration
in which the reporter acts as an immediate participant in the events described
and uses his personal experience and emotions to emphasize the main meaning of
these events.
But, the trio of authors
preparing the libel about Azerbaijan is far from Tom Wolf and Hunter
Stockton Thompson, and in their
"independent investigation" everything is based on lies, slander,
speculation and idiomatic statements.
The ears of Soros and
the stench of "spryk"
The third author of
the article about the "Azerbaijani laundry" is Dina Nakhapetyants,
one of the most devoted and obvious students of the George Soros’s “Open
Society”.
Becoming a pariah in
Hungary, a country hitherto considered an impregnable stronghold of the ideas
of "color revolutions" and "open society", George Soros
does not intend to retire. Far from it, he intends to avenge all his failures
and fiasco in Azerbaijan, and he does not want to follow the Confucian axiom of
revenge as a dish that should be served cold.
No, George Soros, now relying
on the ties, money and opportunities of the Armenian diaspora in Europe, is
striving for a hot, crazy and absurd attack on Baku.
George Soros and his
assistants, who have won the image of scammers, falsifiers, and deceivers on
the international arena, talk about democracy, freedom of speech, and finance
insinuations against Azerbaijan.
Naturally, such dirty
deeds of Soros should be seriously investigated. The Armenian lobby and Soros
acting together conduct a dirty campaign not only against the head of state,
members of his family, but also against the entire Azerbaijan. However, the
attempts on "independent investigation" did not yield any results.
The very fact that one of the authors of the article in The Guardian is an
Armenian by origin Dina Nahapetyants, once again demonstrates that these filthy
accusations are also the repulsive acts of the world Armenians, or rather, the
European "spryk".
In addition, OCCRP has
long been firmly seated on the financial backing of George Soros. This has long
been not only the open secret, but also the parable of the British media where
the "independent investigators" from OCCRP are called not otherwise,
as "sweet little doggy of Soros."
There is just no way without Khadija
As in case with many
"investigations" about Azerbaijan, the current hysterical escapade
already in six articles in The Guardian was not without the journalist Khadija
Ismayilova.
Khadija Ismayilova was
arrested in December 2014 on charges of misappropriation and embezzlement,
illegal entrepreneurship, tax evasion, and abuse of official authority. By the
decision of the Baku Court for Serious Crimes, Ismayilova was sentenced to
seven and a half years in prison. The Supreme Court of Azerbaijan ruled on
release of the journalist on May 25 this year. By the decision of the court,
Ismayilova was sentenced to three years and six months of imprisonment
conditionally.
Conditionally free
Ismayilova decided to become free from all conventions and zealously began her
"campaign" against her own country. Considering herself as the
"enfant terrible" of local media, Ms. Ismayilova calls the campaign
"a struggle against power", but always conducting identity between
the country and the authorities, the journalist does not disdain any infringement
of media taboos.
That is why the
article by Ismayilova published in the framework of the "Azerbaijani
laundry" campaign in The Guardian is not accidental. She feels comfortable
in the low-level company of Soros' servants and the hack writers sitting on the doping of the
Armenian diaspora, who rages in Baku with angry tirades and draws gloomy
picture of the future of the country in her article.
She said that she is
not going to leave the country where she lives.
After all, Soros needs
Khadija Ismayilova here: she is useless in the West, where there are enough
people in the media who are selflessly serving the Great Saruman of democracy -
that's why they pointed to "field work" on the ground, so that, with
her exclamations and lamentations about the inescapable the heaviness of being
in Azerbaijan did not go beyond the framework defined by the authors of the
libretto of the vaudeville under the title "Soros, Armenians and The
Guardian for democracy in Azerbaijan".
... The real tragedy of Faust
is not that he sold the soul to the devil. The real tragedy is that there is no
devil to buy the little souls of some people.
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