Journalistic freedom

No doubt the liberal Guardian or Amnesty, which follows the Washngton concensus in everything these days, will disagree, but certainly on anything to do with Ukraine Kisilyov is right.

We are not living in Soviet times any more.

When it comes to truth vs lies, the Russian media has it all over anything in the West which, almost without exception tows the Washington/EU line - and I have to say ESPECIALLY the liberal press.

East, West trade places in approach to journalist freedom - Russian journalist Kiselyov

Voice of Russia,

10 April, 2014

East and West have traded places in their approach to journalist freedom, with Russia granting its media a full right to speak and Europe suppressing it with sanctions and false idea of political correctness, Russia's journalist and the Director General of Rossiya Segodnya International News Agency Dmitry Kiselyov said in an article published Thursday on the Guardian website.

"East and west appear to be trading places. In Russia we now take full advantage of freedom of speech, whereas in the west political correctness, or political expediency in the name of security, have become arguments against freedom of speech," Kiselyov wrote.

He stressed the reason for it was that Russians were able to accept a full range of opinions due to the historic duplicity of their nature, described by the great Russian writer Dostoyevsky as "capable of combining the most incongruous contradictions." Journalists in Russia are free to tackle issues of any gravity without fear of being punished, he stressed. This is also true of those he described as "ultra-liberal" radio hosts and media workers employed by foreign companies who are entitled to their own opinion, however different it may be from patriotic sentiment of the general public in Russia. "There have been no calls for reprisals against them; their names have not been added to sanction lists," the journalist said, adding that instead sanctions had come from the west.

"How are these sanctions compatible with freedom of speech? Is freedom of speech no longer a core value in Europe?" Kiselyov asked. Kiselyov warned the western world could be witnessing a revolution and "betrayal of what were until recently western values." He said Russia would never think of banning western journalists.

Dmitry Kiselyov has been blacklisted by Brussels, which banned him from entering the European Union and ordered to freeze the journalist's assets in EU banks, if any. Kiselyov is known for his fierce criticism of the West and pro-Russian stance. He is now the only journalist in the world to be targeted by political sanctions, which were strongly condemned by the World Press Freedom Committee, one of the leading organizations on the rights of journalists.

He became notorious for his comments on Russian TV that Russia was the only country that could turn the US into a "nuclear wasteland"