[Aunche]

I hate that propaganda has become a thought-terminating cliche. First of all, it's not necessarily a bad thing. "Agitprop" is literally what brought the deeply isolationist Americans to finally act in World War II. Also, just because you suspect that some journalism from a publication is propaganda doesn't invalidate the usefulness of all journalism from that publication like the Washington Post's opioid database.

[ok123456]

> "Agitprop" is literally what brought the deeply isolationist Americans to finally act in World War II.

I thought it was Pearl Harbor.

>just because you suspect that some journalism from a publication is propaganda doesn't invalidate the usefulness of all journalism

Usefulness for whom? If by useful you mean to manufacture consent to do whatever businesses and governments would have done if it weren't for the pesky public getting in their way, then yes, sure. We wouldn't have had the second Iraq war, or the first for that matter, if it weren't for the hard work of the journalists at the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

[Aunche]

> I thought it was Pearl Harbor.

Japan wasn't stupid enough to rouse a sleepy giant for no reason. It's no coincidence that the majority America's western fleet was docked on tiny islands thousands of miles away from any then states. The US had also implemented an embargo and provided significant aid to the Allies through Lend Lease. If they didn't attack America during Pearl Harbor, they would attack a ship that's blockading critical oil shipments. Propaganda played a huge role in American's acceptance into these escalations [1].

> We wouldn't have had the second Iraq war

Yes, I knew you were alluding to this, which is why I brought up WWII as a counterexample. My point is that just because you think their geopolitical reporting was counterproductive doesn't change the value of their opioid coverage [2] which lead to multi-billion dollar lawsuits against CVS and Walgreens.

[1] https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/great-debate

[2] https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2019/07/20/opioid-fi...

[ok123456]

I understand your desire to connect the propaganda industry with the "last just cause"—83 years ago—but lying to the public is not virtuous.

Was it virtuous or justifiable for Jeffrey Gettleman at the New York Times to fabricate, out of whole cloth, stories of rape [1] to soft-shoe the genocidal policies of a foreign government? Who benefits?

[1] https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/new-york-times-int...

[Aunche]

Just because an author of the New York Times article made some angry tweets and some people disagree with her narratives doesn't mean that they were fabricated. That's besides the point though. If you're happy with the Intercept's reporting that gets heavily cited by the article you posted, does that mean you're happy to pay for it?

[tsimionescu]

> Just because an author of the New York Times article made some angry tweets and some people disagree with her narratives doesn't mean that they were fabricated.

No, the fact that even the families of the victims say they fabricated stories about their daughters, and that they had no sources outside government propaganda mouthpiece, is what makes the stories fabricated.