In the early hours of Thursday, February 24, 2022, Russian forces began military actions against Ukraine, and within minutes, Russian missiles began taking out air defence systems in multiple locations across the country, including the capital city of Kyiv. Full-scale invasion of troops from Russia and Belarus followed shortly thereafter. Live streaming news services have been carrying stories of the devastation at the front, as well as the responses of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the Ukrainian military.

But are readers and viewers getting the whole story? In recent decades, video and communications technology have allowed media producers and personalities to shape the news to fit the audiences they serve . . . and to shape not only public perspective but government actions in a time of crisis. Where no crisis exists, one can easily be generated by the news anchors entrusted with “telling it like it is.” According to the Washington Post, Russian President Vladimir Putin has another army at his side beside the one shelling Kyiv—an army of journalists creating a different reality than the one being watched on Western TV. Since 2005, one of Russia’s government-funded news agencies, RT, formerly Russia Today, (with no connection to this article’s author) has been helping Vladimir Putin “spin” the news to suit his agenda. While U.S. broadcasters speak of Russian aggression, RT claims that Russia was forced to act to protect Russians living in Ukraine, that Ukraine forces shelled their own people and that Ukraine has rejected negotiations.

RT is not alone in its selective reporting and analysis. The official Russian News Agency, TASS, declares in this article, “There are no threats whatsoever to the civilian population.” Really? A headline in PRAVDA says, “Ukraine is illegitimate as a state.”

This should come as no surprise to us in the West. We have the same thing in subtler form. In the U.S., CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times and the Washington Post regularly cover stories from one side only, promoting a point of view generally consistent with the current policies of the Democratic Party. FOX News often presents a contrarian point of view, leaning more heavily toward the Republican side. In Canada, our government-funded CBC tends to highlight stories in line with the left-leaning direction of the Liberal Party and its cozy cousin, the NDP. In 2018, newspaper chains also, the ones “trusted” by the current Prime Minister, received a boost of $595 million over 5 years to “keep up their good work.” They have continued to show loyalty to the changeable whims of the PM and the general direction of the country. When Mr. Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act, they were by his side, clamouring for a quick resolution to the Ottawa “crisis.” When, a week later, he revoked the Act in response to the unexpected surge in negative public opinion (no doubt coupled with pressure from senators and financial institutions), his compliant media friends agreed with him that the “emergency” was over.

Our national crisis of confidence, however, is not over. Canadians know that we are not getting unbiased news coverage from the mainstream media. According to CBC, “Recent survey found 49 % of Canadians think journalists are purposely trying to mislead.”

This is partly the result of “selective reporting.” The headlines and storylines about swastikas, confederate flags and racism at the Ottawa Freedom Convoy rallies were merely thin cover for the Prime Minister to crush dissent. Go back farther. The lack of honest media coverage of alternate medical views during the past two years is more than negligent. It is criminal. The censorship against highly-credentialed professionals like Dr. Malone, Dr. McCullough, Dr. Alexander, Dr. Byram Bridle and the Canadian COVID Care Alliance has left local doctors operating in the dark and has prevented effective research being performed that could have saved many lives.

In our country and in the US, this censorship has been directed by governments, perpetrated by media, given extra power by Big Tech giants (Facebook, Youtube, Google, etc.) and enforced by organizations like the Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons. But it’s been tolerated by the people . . . by Canadians who deserve to know the truth and who don’t realize that they’re being lied to.

I’ve just started re-reading Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago, his epic work that exposed the terrible brutality of the evil Soviet empire under Stalin, focusing on its prisons and work camps, the torture, execution and starvation of millions . . . and the lies that made it possible. We hear a lot of warnings today about “misinformation” and “disinformation,” the former referring to false information disseminated without malicious intent and the latter meaning the deliberate creation and distribution of falsehoods intended to deceive and manipulate. Today, in our country, we have both. Of course, the worst perpetrators of deception are accusing those attempting to convey truth of the very crime of which they are guilty. Unfortunately, many have believed them; our society now is fractured along lines of belief and disbelief in the narratives of government-approved media.

Without good, truthful, unbiased information, governments cannot function properly, medical professionals may unknowingly harm those they’re trying to help and voters will continue to elect the wrong people. For a party committed to truth, join the Christian Heritage Party, and help us restore to our embattled society a culture that embraces truth.