US accuses Zero Hedge of spreading Russian propaganda

[jct74]

US accuses financial website of spreading Russian propaganda

By NOMAAN MERCHANT
February 15, 2022

WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. intelligence officials on Tuesday accused a conservative financial news website with a significant American readership of amplifying Kremlin propaganda and alleged five media outlets targeting Ukrainians have taken direction from Russian spies.

The officials said Zero Hedge, which has 1.2 million Twitter followers, published articles created by Moscow-controlled media that were then shared by outlets and people unaware of their nexus to Russian intelligence. The officials did not say whether they thought Zero Hedge knew of any links to spy agencies and did not allege direct links between the website and Russia.

Zero Hedge denied the claims and said it tries to “publish a wide spectrum of views that cover both sides of a given story.” In a response posted online Tuesday morning, the website said it “has never worked, collaborated or cooperated with Russia, nor are there any links to spy agencies.”

The officials briefed The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence sources. It was the latest effort by President Joe Biden’s administration to release U.S. intelligence findings about Russian activity involving Ukraine as part of a concerted push to expose and influence the moves of Russian President Vladimir Putin. U.S. officials previously accused Putin of planning a “false-flag” operation to create a pretext for a new invasion of Ukraine and detailed what they believe are final-stage Russian preparations for an assault.

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read more:
https://apnews.com/article/russia-u...moscow-media-ff4a56b7b08bcdc6adaf02313a85edd9

 

[acptulsa]

What better way to legitimize your controlled opposition site?

 

[jct74]

Zero Hedge responds:

Now We've Done It: We Pissed Off The CIA

BY TYLER DURDEN
FEB 15, 2022 - 12:54 PM

While the collapse of public trust in the mainstream media is nothing new, with Forbes recently reporting that "Fewer Americans than ever before trust the mainstream media", it is only a much more recent phenomenon that members of the media's highest echelons - such as the NYT's Matthew Rosenberg - have started asking themselves and their (few remaining) readers the much more difficult question of why is public trust of media so low.

Unfortunately, instead of following up with some much needed top-to-bottom cleansing and fundamental reassessment of how the MSM pursues, analyzes and reports news, the media has simply fallen back to its traditional tactic of spewing baseless hit pieces against outlets they would rather see silenced and/or censored.

Most notably in recent weeks, this has been observed vis-a-vis Joe Rogan's incredibly popular podcast which has emerged as one of the biggest competitors to traditional media.

This morning, it is Zero Hedge that has again been singled out for pursuing non-establishment groupthink.

Echoing a false allegation we have repeatedly heard before, early on Tuesday the Associated Press (of "how Associated Press cooperated with the Nazis" fame) writes that "U.S. intelligence officials on Tuesday accused a conservative financial news website with a significant American readership of amplifying Kremlin propaganda and alleged five media outlets targeting Ukrainians have taken direction from Russian spies. The officials said Zero Hedge, which has 1.2 million Twitter followers, published articles created by Moscow-controlled media that were then shared by outlets and people unaware of their nexus to Russian intelligence."

Well, now we've done it - we've angered the CIA, and for what? For publishing views that challenge the conventional narrative, such as disputing that an invasion of Ukraine is actually "imminent" as the US State Department and its mainstream media conduits repeat day after day, or that the Covid virus was actually created in a Chinese lab, a view which has gained substantial prominence in recent months after it emerged that none other than the UK's Jeremy Farrar (also known as the UK's Doctor Fauci) played a pivotal role in stifling suggestions that this new virus might have come from a laboratory rather than emerged through natural zoonotic transmission from animals.

Of course, there is no actual accusation that Zero Hedge works directly with anyone tied to Russia or its intelligence apparatus - as the AP admits "officials did not say whether they thought Zero Hedge knew of any links to spy agencies and did not allege direct links between the website and Russia", which is correct because - and we will repeat this once again for the record and for all future similar hit piece attempts to smear us - this website has never worked, collaborated or cooperated with Russia, nor are there any links to spy (or any other) agencies; instead all the AP notes, citing some unnamed "intelligence official", is that the US intelligence apparatus is unhappy that among our hundreds of guest publishing contributors is a website called Strategic Culture Foundation which US intel officials "allege" take direction from the SVR, the Russian foreign intelligence service.

Well, is the Strategic Culture Foundation - which periodically guest posts on this website along with hundreds of other sources of alternative information - taking direction from Russian intel?

Perhaps. We don't know. What we do know is that Alastair Crooke, one of the most prolific writers on SCF website is a former high ranking MI6 figure and UK diplomat, i.e., a former British spook. Perhaps he is now a double agent working for Putin after spending decades spying for the UK?

We don't know, and we don't care: instead what we have cared about since our first day, is to provide a platform, a voice to anyone who has a unique, a different, perspective from the one pushed by the mainstream media. The same mainstream media which we and everyone else now knows for a fact takes direction from both the US intelligence service in particular (see here, here and here) and the US government in general, or the "deep state" as some call it.

We also know that the unnamed US intel officials apparently found nothing wrong that we also frequently guest post articles from the Gatestone Institute, a website that consistently pursues a neo-con angle in its analysis and reporting.

The bottom line, as we told the AP, is that SCF is merely "one of our hundreds of contributors — unlike Mainstream Media, we try to publish a wide spectrum of views that cover both sides of a given story." And no matter how much we disagree with any given guest post, we will give it the same billing as all our other articles, unlike the NYT which spontaneously imploded in an echo-chamber scandal of its own creation after it published that infamous Tom Cotton op-ed back in 2020.

And speaking of contributors, maybe the AP could have rounded out its story by providing some perspective on both sides instead of just tracking the narrative it was spoon fed by the CIA. If it did, it would have encountered views such as these:

...

read more:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/now-weve-done-it-we-pissed-cia

 

[jkr]

WELL THATS BULL SH IT

 

[Anti Globalist]

Pretty sure it's the US Intelligence system that are the real ones spreading Russian propaganda.

 

[Brian4Liberty]

In Soviet Amerika, press has total liberty to publish officially allowed content.

 

[Occam's Banana]

https://twitter.com/VDAREJamesK/status/1494072942401134592

 

[jct74]

What a difference a few years makes.

ZeroHedge In The White House: Who Blew Up The Nord Stream Pipelines? Trump Responds | ZeroHedge

ZeroHedge - On a long enough timeline, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero

www.zerohedge.com

 

[unknown]

Jumped right in.

I really hope they get to stay...