Tucker Carlson is a fascist prick but this is ridiculous. He interviewed a guy and made it public. He did basic journalism. It might not be good journalism and it might be biased against the official party line but it is not like he has shot up an Ukrainian orphanage or something.
I have followed 'news' from Russian outlets such as RT and Sputnik, being recast as Right wing talking points within hours. This is not just recent, it has been going on for years. Hamilton68 documents examples. The parallels of this propaganda being sown to the lies dispensed to Ukraine to sow dissention is obvious. It is a cheap warfare, and it works.
Tucker was and is in the trade of packaging Russian propaganda as news. He should be labeled as such. Carlson was discredited and fired by Fox. Spreading lies, admitting to doing so on archived tapes, and iirc, sexual harassment was in his part of the discovery on Fox's $780M settlement. In short, Tucker Carlson is on record for knowingly spreading lies, for personal monetary benefit. This is more of the same.
I hope every person watches Carlson, knowing that Carlson reports what enriches him, not truth. Carlson has a transparent agenda.
The unanswered question is who pays Carlson. That will be obvious by who's boots that Carlson's reports shine.
Tucker was and is in the trade of packaging Russian propaganda as news
And much of the US "journalists" are in the business of packaging US propaganda as news. There is just as much propaganda - if not more - in general US news. Since the US likes to portray itself as hosting a free press, one would assume (if one were pretty naive, admittedly) it would be glad to have reporting on the Russian government's positions and communiqués.
Hamilton68 documents examples
lmao this is a CIA outlet:
The organization is chaired and run primarily by former senior United States intelligence and State Department officials. Laura Thornton, formerly of International IDEA, joined ASD as its new director in May 2021. Laura Rosenberger, chair of the American Institute in Taiwan and former senior director for China on the Biden administration's National Security Council, previously served as a director of ASD. ASD is housed at the German Marshall Fund of the United States and its work spans across both the United States and Europe
Even the fucking Washington Post (of all newpapers !) admits they're not exactly a source to be trusted.
"In authoritarian China/Russia/Cuba/DPRK/[insert bad country here], being caught talking to enemies of the regime can result in persecution by the state"
It's wild to me how many allegedly left-leaning or "liberal" people who say they believe in open societies, free expression, etc will gladly throw all that out the window if it means they get to punish somebody they disagree with. This trend has really picked up the last 10 years or so. Fuck tucker carlson but he has a right to speak freely and it's terrifying that the government can sanction a journalist, even a shitty one, for the crime of interviewing somebody.
Jailing or sanctioning journalists and critics is some shit Putin and other despots do, let's not emulate him. I would stand with anybody who is sanctioned by the government for their speech regardless of how much I disagree with it.
Societies which stifle dissent, especially using the power of the state, grow weaker because they aren't able to effectively adapt to change. Remember it is not too long ago that advocating for gay marriage would have been seen as morally deviant and repugnant. But strong speech protections allow us as a society to have that discussion and come to the correct conclusion which is that it's fine to be gay, that love is love, and that gay people deserve equal protection under the law.
Agreed, but going around interviewing politicians and posting that online is clearly a journalistic activity. Should Barbara Walters have been thrown in jail or sanctioned for interviewing Castro? A marketplace of ideas in a free society requires the ability to hear the arguments of all sides so we can form rebuttals to them and arrive at some kind of consensus, as a society, about what our values are and how our institutions ought to reflect those values. We don't have to give a platform to those ideas, we can be wise about how and where those ideas are discussed and shared, but we don't hand over the power to make those decisions to the government because in the past governments have been pretty terrible custodians of that power.
And a free, unrestrained press is our first line of defense against governments trending towards tyranny and authoritarianism. Governments trying to repress speech is the "canary in the coalmine" that they are getting more authoritarian and corrupt. If we don't draw a line in the sand there, the next few steps they take will be even harder to fight back against as we will have lost our ability as a society to be aware of and share information about it. Look at Putin, look at Trump, look at Hitler, look at Orban. The first thing they do when they get elected is de-legitimize the press and try to restrict their ability to publish.
Whether he's a journalist or not, he's a US citizen, he has a right to free speech guaranteed under the constitution and the UN declaration of human rights. The EU has a similar document.
The right-wing is able to complain about the "mainstream media" and "fake news" precisely because there's a grain of truth there. The news has gotten more corporate, less trustworthy, more biased, and less reliable over the past 50 years. People don't trust the news, rightly so. Fox News is part of that, they are the most egregious offender in many ways, but they are not the root of the issue.
And trying to sanction Tucker? Using the government? Boy does it play into that narrative well. Tucker is praying that he gets sanctioned because that would totally validate the "I'm being censored as a conservative" victim persecution fetish that maga has
Carlson's work in Russia could see the former Fox News host in hot water with the EU, Guy Verhofstadt, a former Belgian Prime Minister and current member of the European Parliament, told Newsweek.
Explaining his motive for the interview, Carlson said in a video statement on Tuesday: "Most Americans have no idea why Putin invaded Ukraine or what his goals are now."
If deemed sufficient, the EAS can then present the case to the European Council—the body made up of EU national leaders—which takes the final decision on whether to impose sanctions.
One European diplomatic official, who did not wish to be named as they were not authorized to speak publicly, told Newsweek that any future travel restrictions would likely require proof that he is linked to Moscow's aggression, something that "is absent or hard to prove."
The content of Carlson's interview with Putin is not yet clear but, given the pundit's long-time defense of aspects of Russian policy, critics expect it to be sympathetic to Moscow.
"First of all, it should be remembered that Putin is not just a president of an aggressor country, but he is wanted by the International Criminal Court and accused of genocide and war crimes," MEP Urmas Paet, who previously served as Estonia's foreign minister, told Newsweek.
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