Journalism or propaganda?

On Wednesday Global Affairs Canada issued a news release, in concert with the governments of Sweden, Ukraine and the UK, condemning Iran and demanding justice for the victims on flight PS752, the Ukrainian airliner shot down by Iranian missiles minutes after take-off from Tehran on January 8, 2020, resulting in the deaths of all 176 aboard. The news release runs a couple of hundred words. On Thursday The Globe and Mail reported on the news release. The story starts top left of the front page and gives you another dozen paragraphs on page 4. In a couple of thousand words it sheds no light on what may have transpired that day, but dwells on the suffering of the victims’ families and the odious malevolence of the Iranian regime. So what else was going on in Iran on January 8? While the Globe story doesn’t mention it, that was a dangerous day in Tehran. The Iranians had fired a barrage of cruise missiles at American military bases in Iraq that day, payback for the American assassination of Qasem Soleimani the previous week. That brazen hit, completely beyond the pale under international law, was authorized personally by America’s gangster-in-chief at the time, Donald Trump. So who can blame the Iranians for being a little jumpy? They were expecting imminent retaliation for the missile attack that killed no one but allegedly left over 100 US personnel with traumatic brain injuries. Shooting down a passenger airliner by mistake under those circumstances seems more than plausible. Oddly enough, that was also the excuse when the Americans shot down Iranian flight 655 in 1988, a passenger airliner, killing all 290 persons on board. These facts would have been considered essential in establishing context in the old days when The Globe and Mail used to do journalism. Now that they’ve re-invented themselves as a propaganda organ for American Exceptionalism, it’s become more important to avoid context.