[tomp]

Ah come on. ZH is a primarily contrarian financial news site. They often break important market-moving news faster than other mainstream media, aggregate better by considering all sources (including Twitter), and criticise just about everyone. Sure, they are often bearish (predicting crashes that then don’t happen), but that’s an easy bias to filter for, and not really that different from the general negative-news bias of most media (i.e. clickbait). Simply because they also criticise the West (politicians, governments, media, policies) (because the West is included in everyone) doesn’t immediately make them Russian trolls. I can’t believe this is even still a serious accusation, for me it’s in the realm of conspiracy theories.

[cm2187]

Well, God knows I am opposed to the current anti-russia madness but I stopped reading zh a few years ago when they were systematically taking Russia' side including when Russia was so obviously red handed. I think the drop for me was their defense of Russia in the MH17 crash.

[ephemeralism]

What convinced you that it was Russian forces and not Ukrainian?

[tomp]

It was pro-Russian / separatist rebels (they bragged about downing the plane on vKontakte), armed by Russia; most people thus put blame on Russia.

[jamespo]

It's not that they also criticise the West, more they so rarely or never criticise Russia.

Which is fair enough I suppose, but at least be honest about it.

[repolfx]

Why would they care about Russia specifically? What criticism do you expect to see from them?

I read ZH sometimes. They also don't spend much time criticising Iceland. You seem to be assuming they should share the same obsession with Russia as much of the rest of the mainstream media, but their different set of obsessions is rather what makes them useful as an outlet.

[jpovenden]

>ZH is a primarily contrarian financial news site.

*was

[ceejayoz]

https://www.newyorker.com/news/benjamin-wallace-wells/is-the...

> By his own account, Lokey was writing as many as fifteen posts a day, among them most of the political pieces. The gig had a certain formula, he told Bloomberg: “Russia=good. Obama=idiot. Bashar al-Assad=benevolent leader. John Kerry= dunce. Vladimir Putin=greatest leader in the history of statecraft.” For Zero Hedge, Syria was a special obsession, a sign of the essential strength of authoritarian regimes and the weakness of democracies.

ZH says he's a disgruntled employee, but there's at least some evidence it's more than "they hate everyone".

I mean, honestly: "The Sinister Choreography Of The MH17 Probe To Smear Russia" https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-31/sinister-choreogra...

[cloakandswagger]

You highlighted a perfect example of why ZeroHedge and other contrarian news sources are so necessary: When the war drums were in full swing against Syria and every major western news outlet was breathlessly promoting intervention with propaganda of their own (pictures of shell-shocked kids, championing of the brave "freedom fighters" and white helmets, spurious claims of "chemical attacks"), ZH provided a counterpoint that challenged those perceptions.

In that particular situation, both sides were total propaganda and Syria was the grayest of gray areas. I like to think I'm not the only one who read both extremes of the reporting with a filter and arrived at my own conclusion.

[jamespo]

Quite a few Kremlin talking points you've got for yourself there (white helmets etc). What do you make on ZH coverage on Skripal?