The 8 year war with Russia in Eastern Ukraine appears to be getting worse.
On this Back Story American Acting Ambassador to the OSCE Mission, U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Courtney Austrian describes how Russia daily violates the cease fire while pretending to monitor it.
And, in part two 'Cold War Correspondents' a book by Dina Fainberg, on Correspondents- Soviet and American reporters on the ideological front lines.
The 8 year war with Russia in Eastern Ukraine appears to be getting worse.
On this Back Story American Acting Ambassador to the OSCE Mission, U.S. Chargé d’Affaires Courtney Austrian describes how Russia daily violates the cease fire while pretending to monitor it.
And, in part two 'Cold War Correspondents' a book by Dina Fainberg, on Correspondents- Soviet and American reporters on the ideological front lines.
There have been, um, recently in particular, there have been developments that the us government has been, um, very unhappy about, including the closing of the border observation mission, which was on the border between Russia. Um, and that is something that if you also look at some of the statements we've made, um, we were, um, pretty unhappy about
Speaker 2:What are they doing?
Speaker 1:Well, you'd have to ask the Russians why they did that, to be honest with you, I'm not going to, um, put words in their mouth. The answer
Speaker 2:Seems obvious that they're trying to stop you from seeing what's crossing those
Speaker 1:Borders. Yeah, well that would be, that is what I have alleged
Speaker 3:[inaudible]
Speaker 2:Hi everyone. And welcome to another edition of backstory. I'm Dana Lewis stalemate. There is a daily war going on between Russia and Ukraine, and it's been so since 2014, when Russia seized an annex, the Crimea from Ukraine and set up rebel proxy forces in the Eastern part of the country, since then 14,000 Ukrainians have been killed. The organization for security and cooperation in Europe has a monitoring force, which was an attempt to physically police or observed what was supposed to be a ceasefire, but the fire keeps burning and maybe it's getting hotter. The daily reports from the OSC are mind numbing. I've read them. Here's a typical daily report summary go net screeching. The SMM that's the special monitoring mission recorded 244 ceasefire violations, including 73 explosions. And in the previous reporting period, it recorded 220 ceasefire violations in the region in Lugansk region, the mission recorded 134 ceasefire violations, including 16 explosions. That gives you an idea of how much fighting goes on every day, low level we might say, but not for the soldiers in the crosshairs or the Ukrainian civilian population caught in the crossfire and Russia. Instead of trying to solve this by all accounts drives the fighting sometimes directly doing the fighting, playing Russian president Putin's usual game of looked surprised, act concern, and deny everything on this backstory. We talked to the American acting ambassador to the OSC mission and later a new book by Dina Feinberg, cold war correspondence, which takes you back to the cold war. But I think there are parallels to today and state controlled media in Russia, and right-wing leaning media in America. All right. I want to introduce you now to Courtney Austrian, who is the us shires DeFehr to the OSC and Vienna. Hi, Courtney
Speaker 1:And Dana.
Speaker 2:You've just come back from Ukraine. And were you sort of on this line of conflict? And can you tell me what you saw?
Speaker 1:So yeah, I did do a really quick trip to Ukraine and it's bombed the first time that we've been able to go since COVID to, um, assess the situation there. And I was there visiting our spec the special monitoring mission, and the OSC has the special monitoring mission, which operates throughout Ukraine. And so I went to see particularly the Americans who are working for the SMM and I got close to the line of contact, but for security reasons, I was, um, uh, I didn't go quite up to the line of contact.
Speaker 2:I probably wouldn't be a good idea because that line of contact is a line of conflict and it is a, not a quiet one. I mean, the, the number of deaths on the Ukrainian side, um, has been mounting according to the reports,
Speaker 1:Right? Exactly. I, um, we, we monitor the situation, the SMM monitors the situation on a daily basis, 24 7, and unfortunately you're right. The, um, it is not a quiet line of contact. The number of ceasefire violations continues to be of great concern. And the number of civilian casualties also continues to be a great concern to the OSC and to the United States.
Speaker 2:So how many countries are in the monitoring force and Russia is part of that, are they willing to
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Uh, Russia has to be part of it. That's the only way that this works, because this is an agreement that was made by the 57 nation is the up the OSC. And so, uh, one of the, um, unique maybe things about the OSC is that we do things by consensus. So the fact that there is a special monitoring mission in Ukraine means that all 57, uh, participating states agreed to this, including Russia and Russia is part of the monitoring mission. Um, I'm not sure exactly how many, um, participating states have, um, representation in the SMM right now, but I think it's probably about between 18 and 22.
Speaker 2:Here's your report from September the 23rd Russia's goal is to prevent the special monitoring mission from documenting the Russian forces, Russian equipment, Russian weapons, Russian convoys, Russian fuel trucks, and the other side of the line of conflict. This has always been a Russian led conflict, Russia initiated it and continues to be the aggression aggressor only Russia is responsible for the death and devastation it's caused the civilian population continues to bear the brunt. I've read lots of releases in a diplomatic speak over my career, and this one is a pretty straight arrow. I mean, you call Russia out as being directly behind the violence.
Speaker 1:And we do that every week in the permanent council of the OFC. Um, and Russia responds every week in the permanent council of the OSC, but, um, we are very straightforward about the U S perspective about what is happening in Ukraine. And it is very clear that this is a Russian led conflict and that Russia is uniquely responsible for what is going on.
Speaker 2:Boy, I'm confused when you say that Russia has to be part of the monitoring mission, but they're just playing a duplicitous double game. Are they not? I mean, w a lot of people have called for Russia to be kicked off that force.
Speaker 1:So, um, access to the non-government controlled areas is dependent upon Russia agreeing to that access. And so, uh, in order for the SMM to function, Russia does give us the agreement for the SMM to be in the non-government controlled area. What Russia gets in return is that the SMM all monitors all of, well, almost all of Ukraine. And so they are able to also monitor activities in the government controlled areas and can, um, be transparent about, uh, things that happened there as well.
Speaker 2:Well, it's not working, is it, I mean, Russia has been closing down border points. They've been interfering with the patrols. They've been stopping a lot of the monitors from doing their work and seeing what they need to see.
Speaker 1:There have been, um, recently in particular, there have been developments that the us government has been, um, very unhappy about, including the closing of the border observation mission, which was on the border between Russia. Um, and that is something that if you also look at some of the statements we've made, um, we were, um, pretty unhappy about
Speaker 2:What are they doing?
Speaker 1:Well, you'd have to ask the Russians why they did that, to be honest with you, I'm not going to, um, put words in their mouth.
Speaker 2:I mean, the answer seems obvious that they're trying to stop you from seeing what's crossing those borders.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, that would be, that is what I have alleged, uh, that, um, because, um, those border observation missions have been closed and, uh, we lose a very important confidence building measure in terms of being able to see at least in a limited way, what comes over the border between Russia and Ukraine? Yeah,
Speaker 2:Let me think. When I, when I hear it, that the situation is deteriorating,
Speaker 1:I wouldn't disagree with that. I mean, I think that it would be the lack of transparency, um, does make it much harder to be optimistic in a lot of ways. Uh, that said the SMM is still operating. They are still reporting. And, uh, they very important, um, eyes and ears on the ground.
Speaker 2:We talk about, you know, SMM and, uh, Osee, and I don't want people to get lost in all of this. Can you put a human face on what the people of Ukraine, um, who are living literally in a battlefield there, what, what they are experiencing there and what the human toll is on Ukrainian soldiers as well and Russian soldier?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think it depends on which side of the border you're on. Uh, if you're in the non-government controlled areas, and again, this is, um, drawn from SMM reporting because I'm not able to go to that, um, that area, but, uh, there is a lot of mingling of the, um, proxy forces and civilians. So it is, um, an area where the, um, the proxy forces fire across the line into the government controlled areas of Ukraine. And if there is a return of fire, there are civilians that are in harms way. Um, you also have a lot of pensioners who live on the, um, non-government controlled side, but their pensions and their medical benefits or on the government controlled side of the line. And so to access those benefits, they have to go through the authorized Tom crossing points problem is that those crossing points, uh, have been mostly closed with the pretext of it being COVID. And so, whereas once 50,000 people a day were able to go across the border, it's a trickle these days. And so that leaves people who are very vulnerable, um, in much worse situation in the non-government controlled areas. Also the families, you know, so people can't see their, their grandparents that grandparents can't see their children, brothers and sisters don't have an opportunity to get together. So there's a human toll in that regard as well. Uh, on the government controlled side, um, there is, um, less of a mingling, um, but, uh, and the Ukrainians have done a lot to try to, um, improve the infrastructure at the government costing or sorry, at the authorized crossing points. Um, so that in the event that they are opened up again, it will be an easier experience for the people who are crossing.
Speaker 2:You call them proxy forces. You know, the, the, the Kremlin would certainly disagree with that term. And they would say that these are rebels within Ukraine who want to stay, uh, more United with Russia than with some of the people pulling them towards Europe. Uh, and that this is a natural uprising and that they have every right, uh, to, you know, break away or be an autonomous area.
Speaker 1:I would disagree with that assertion. Um, it is very clear that Russia has been funding has been, uh, providing oversight has been, um, organizing these forces and, um, their fingerprints are all over it.
Speaker 2:Putin wrote in a recent article when I was asked about the Russian Ukrainian relations. I said that Russians and Ukrainians were one people, a single hole. These words were not driven by short-term considerations are prompted by the current political context. It's what I said on numerous occasions. And what I firmly believe. Can you translate that for me? I'm sorry. It's in English. You understand there's a politically,
Speaker 1:I mean, I think that, um, for Russia, the relationship with Ukraine, um, has always been one where they have seen themselves as the big brother and, uh, as being the protector of Ukraine and Ukrainian independence and the, uh, Ukraine's, uh, NATO aspirations, your European aspirations are ones that, uh, sit very uncomfortably in Moscow
Speaker 2:Is muscular playing a waiting game. I th they seem this w what are we eight years into this now? So the longer this goes on, do they feel that America and, uh, you know, Western allies are going to get tired and eventually that they'll, they'll just say, yeah, okay. Russia can have the Crimea. And in this area, you know, it's not an, our national interest to continue to, uh, push back on Russia, uh, and, and its aggressive tactics.
Speaker 1:So, I mean, I would say Dana, that this is clearly out of the Russian playbook. We've seen it with Trustea, we've seen it without Kasi on south of Satya and Georgia. We're seeing it, um, in Ukraine as well, where Russia, uh, or in the garden, they're going to Karbach for that matter. And these are all areas where dialing up or down the pressure has been, um, a tactic of, uh, Russian foreign policy for awhile. Uh, and I think that they probably do hope that at some point the west will get tired of playing this game. Um, so far we're not tired. So,
Speaker 2:Well, what would you say about the arming of Ukrainian forces now? Are they, are they much different than they were eight years ago in terms of the Ukrainians ability to, to hold ground? And, uh, I know they're not trying to take ground there as far as,
Speaker 1:So I'm not a military expert, so I'm just going to be, you know, repeating what people have told me. But what I have been told is that the Ukrainian armed forces are significantly more prepared and better armed than they were, um, in 2014. And so that in the event that there was, um, a, uh, heating up of the conflict, it would be a very different situation than it was in 2014.
Speaker 2:A lot of Ukrainian instinctive Russia will take more territory and that Russia will try to make a grab there at some point. Is that what you get when you, when you go to that area, do you feel that
Speaker 1:I didn't feel it when I was visiting, but I also was not particularly talking to the Ukrainians when I was visiting. I do know that Ukrainian government officials, when they have come to Vienna have made that point, uh, there's clear concern that, um, Russia will seek to capitalize on what is already done.
Speaker 2:Russia plays a gas game in Ukraine. Um, it can get very cold in the winter there when Russia turns off the gas and Ukraine has always been a transit zone for gas coming to Europe. And now you have this pipeline, uh, with Germany, the north stream to, uh, Ukraine, Poland, um, may find themselves out in the cold to some degree, does the guests game. And I don't want to trivialize it with that. Does that play into this conflict?
Speaker 1:It has not played into the conflict in a particular fashion to date. Um, but Nord stream two, isn't actually functioning yet either. So, um, I think that we just need to watch the situation. Uh, Moscow has made assurances particularly to Georgia, sorry to Germany. Um, and we will hold them to those assurances.
Speaker 2:Do you want to give me the, the, the, your last answer? And I promise it's my last question. Where do you fear this is going? I mean, I, it, it seems like a static conflict, a stalemate Russia has kind of set up what, you know, some might call a, a buffer zone or security zone that they fear NATO expansion into Ukraine, and Ukraine's thirst to become part of NATO and the EU. Um, do you think it's going to stay frozen or are you concerned that the longer, it, it is not resolved the greater, the chance that this conflict will deepen and become more dangerous?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Well, I mean, as a diplomat, I'm, I'm always in favor of a political solution and I'm in favor of diplomatic negotiations. And so I will hope that the negotiations that are ongoing will bear fruit, but, um, uh, a frozen conflict is in no one's interest and a hot conflict is even worse. Uh, and so, you know, I think that is the arc of possibility, but I'm hoping that we can stick this one still,
Speaker 2:Well, you know, hope is important, but, uh, the reality is so far over the eight years, we, uh, we have an unstuck it, right? So,
Speaker 1:And there are a lot of really smart people have, uh, spent a lot of time trying to do that. And more smart people will continue to try to do it. And, you know, it was when we stopped talking to
Speaker 4:Each other that we really have a
Speaker 2:Problem. Courtney Austrian. Great to talk to you. Thank you so much. My pleasure.
Speaker 4:Thank you.
Speaker 2:[inaudible] All right. Dina Feinberg has just released a book called cold war correspondents. I wasn't the cold war correspondent because I went to Russia in the, in the nineties after the fall of the Soviet union. Um, and I would like to think that we reported neutral or as neutral as anybody could be. And I see, I have to check myself now because I've read a few chapters of Dina's book and she says, no matter how open you want to be, you tend to come at these things with your cultural values and your backgrounds. So you won't always report as neutrally as you think. And I'm going to ask you about that Dina in a sec, second, but anyway, I think we certainly weren't controlled by the state department. We weren't controlled by anybody, but our editors in New York in terms of script approval. Um, and then when you read this book, Dina, um, it's pretty eyeopening that you've broken this mold that or perception that I had that American media was free, open and fair, and that the Soviet media was controlled by the Kremlin. It wasn't as simple as that.
Speaker 4:Uh, no, it was a way more complex. And like you mentioned, there were people on both sides who came to do these posts in the Soviet union or in the United States with their perceptions, their ideological values, their backgrounds, things that they considered interesting. And so something that was really interesting for me to realize is that reporting is never kind of objective and neutral, right? Because there's always a person who is doing reporting. Now, in addition to the person on the ground who was doing the reporting, there was also a whole bunch of other people who get involved in the process of international reporting. And this is editors and politicians and government officials in various ways and in different ways in the Soviet union and the United States, but nonetheless, obviously audiences and their responses and a whole bunch of other people. So international reporting became this kind of a collective process that had many participants in it who shaped the final product that audiences engaged with.
Speaker 2:I mean, there was a lot of political pressure on reporters at that time, as you, as you lay out very well in your book. And that's because the two systems were competitive. One was the struggle for communism show trying to show that it was better than, than democracy and democratic capitalist.
Speaker 4:The two systems were absolutely competitive and also both of them on the one hand used international reporting to make sense of their own place of the world and to make sense of each other. And at the same time, they used the press as kind of symbol of their own political system. So American journalists became the symbols of American freedoms and the freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Uh, salvage journalists became a symbols of kind of responsible reporting that is not beholden to capitalists values. And also each side then looked at the other's journalist to kind of, um, berate them and shame them and say, oh, look, American journalists are following the instructions of their capitalist bosses or the soldier. And they start following the instructions of the communist party. So the press was very much, um, part of the ideological confrontation and played a big role in it, both as a symbol, but also as something that created, um, how people thought about and what people knew about the other side of the iron curtain. And for that reason, officials on both sides found international reporting incredibly important and wanted to intervene on international coordination in different ways. So for example, everything that had to do with, uh, foreign correspondence was actually regulated and subject to all sorts of bilateral agreements. And we had periods where there would be visa wars. So Americans had saw this would deny and withhold visas to each other correspondence because kind of in retaliation for each other journalists would be expelled, uh, because they are reporting or journalistic activities would be an pleasing. This is something that Soviet state much more frequently what's called
Speaker 2:Aren't you shocked. You can just spin the clock forward to today and that's happening again. In fact, the BBC reporter was just thrown out of Moscow. Um, uh, visa was denied to a, uh, Russian reporter to enter the UK two years ago. There are a visa wars and there are accusations that foreign media is an enemy of the state.
Speaker 4:I'm not as much shocked as perhaps maybe sad. Um, I think my book shows very clearly that journalism matters and that foreign journalism matters and how, and what foreign journalists are doing in your country matters a great deal. And so this in itself is not you. Um, we are living in the Sage that proves once again, that, um, countries look at foreign propaganda as a potential explanation for political developments back home, and actually associate for a program that I blame for foreign propaganda and all sorts of things are happening in domestic politics. So these developments are not in themselves new, and they are legacies of the cold war period, I guess that manifest themselves in these new, different ways
Speaker 2:You wrote that Soviet journalist considered factual accuracy to be secondary in importance to the moral truth of socialism. Did the Americans travel a higher road?
Speaker 4:They traveled the different road. The reporting of us do the ethics of us. Journalism is actually premised on factual accuracy, right? So factual factuality is considered kind of the first duty of an American correspondent, but that well, yes. Uh, and in fact, this is what I guess, one of the things that make me sad and it kind of, when I'm looking at contemporary media is that factual accuracy becomes less and less important across the globe, no matter what your values are. Um, so for American correspondents, the factual accuracy was very important and the way that they projected the values into the reporting or their ideas were much less obvious and much less conscious, I guess, than the is it. So the Saudis are very open about using socialism as interpreter framework about using Marxism as a lens to understand American society, American journalists, um, thought that the American way of life is a natural way of life, that this is how things are, and that then shaped the way they reported about the Soviet union. So, so a union became this like really strange, unnatural thing that had to be explained and understood in also different ways for a Western reader who kind of shares the
Speaker 2:Eric and reporter ever dare to celebrate any aspect of communism or socialism, uh, in this purely capitalist system back home. If he was to write an article that was positive about the Soviet system, I assume he probably wouldn't have had a job. The next
Speaker 4:That's absolutely right. They would have paid the price and there was a price to be paid for telling particular kinds of truth or talent, particular express in particular kinds of opinions. And people were kind of reader, both readers and editors are very fast to berate journalists for what was perceived as a positive interpretation of the Soviet union throughout the cold war. And we see this in the archive. So somebody would publish, you know, like a mild endorsement of something, and there would be readers writing letters and say, oh, no, this is like Gibbs. The Russia's too much credit. And they really are not that great. And you forget how they, how amazing the American system is. So some journalists actually thought at the time that readers were not ready to hear all what they had to say about,
Speaker 2:I mean, a lot of the Soviet journalists, when we started drawing parallels with American journalists and the pressures on both sides, they were in fact, uh, members of the security services. Um, and, and some of them held rank. And you certainly, as far as I know, never, ever had that with American journalists,
Speaker 4:That's a super complicated one. So some of journalist were members and did have rank at the same time in my understanding, and kind of, this is a very tricky part of the, because we obviously don't have the archives to KGB does not welcome historians into their fault. Um, so from memory literature and kind of interviews that journalists had done subsequently, I understood that the KGB was not allowed to recruit from Providence, which was the party newspaper and was discouraged from recruiting from is Vestia, which was the government newspaper, uh, because in case these people got exposed, that would kind of tarnish the communist party or the Soviet government, uh, subsequently. So the practice of recruiting journalists was more prominent with all sorts of news agencies that the Soviets also had. Um, but the people who are most of the people who are in my book were actually reporters for kind of prov is yes. Yeah. And this is kind of, that's my engagement with them Americans. This is the sea Americans were very worried about the CIA recruiting their journalists. And so if you look kind of at the correspondence inside the New York times, for instance, they are really worried that the CIA might be approaching foreign correspondents. And they knew that the CA was approaching foreign correspondence in different places around the world. So they would hear about this from their journalists. So they were preoccupied with kind of where this thing as well. And you absolutely, there is no way of knowing today unless people, you know, come out themselves, whether or not somebody was a spike. That's sad. I think that at the end of the day, it's not, it's not like that terribly important in the sense that I'm interested in the press, because the stories that journalists told shaped, how people thought about the cold war about their country space in the world and the cold war adversary, the rival superpower. And in that case, it doesn't matter what, whether you, whether you write the story as like a Hayden, you know, cloak and dagger, CIA operative, or a secret service person, or just as a journalist at the end, what really matters at the end is there were presentations that went out there and informed people's knowledge and worldview. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's very interesting reading your book because I continually think to myself as I, as I'm reading through parts of it, I didn't read cover to cover, but I read a lot of it that because you come from the west, you start looking at what was taking place in the Soviet union, not only from a Western perspective, but you kind of feed into that believing that's what your readers want to hear about it. That's what your viewers want to know about. Um, and the dog starts chasing the tail after a while. And it's the same with the Soviet reporters. I'm sure who in anticipation of trying to please their bosses who were ultimately, um, you know, could put them in jail if they didn't, uh, if they, they threatened their own system or report a negatively on the other system to positively is that after a while, even if those reporters could walk a more neutral path, um, in the end, you really do see in that book, how people approach this already with, uh, with, with a very kind of square lens. If I can say it like that,
Speaker 4:Correct though, people did try to too many people try. We're very aware of, um, how they own prejudices and backgrounds and for the reporting and try to, and really made an effort to understand the other side. There was also a great deal of, I guess, creative reporting on the SABIC part or efforts to kind of, um, they did, they didn't just fall in line. They actually try to circumvent these, uh, regulations and they were pretty experienced in the system. So they knew how to do this. So, uh, like a seasoned foreign correspondent knew what would fly past the sensor or what wouldn't, or
Speaker 2:An example in one. And it was really interesting where one of the reporters, the American reporters you've talked to said that they used to kind of bury the lead and then they would write about the same thing, maybe three different ways, knowing that maybe one of them would get past the Soviet sense.
Speaker 4:That's so Americans where Americans were kind of terrifically, uh, clever about outsmarting the sensors. And there's a great deal of, um, of efforts and the waste to do so, but somewhere the Soviets, right? So the Soviets also try to outsmart their assessors and sometimes they would just try to sneak things out, hoping that the assessors would have noticed, or sometimes they would talk about things in such a way that they would hope that it will pass. So a lot of them, for instance, made an effort to talk about the, the 1960s, right? The public protests against the war in Vietnam and the civil rights demonstration. So the antiwar demonstration. So they live in disparate each sin, exciting time. And they were actually the first people to tell, uh, Soviet readers about, you know, cool American stuff like hippies and cool American stuff, like, like all these kind of young activists when they were doing the right thing. And just going to dress in it in the right language would make it pass. But at the end of the day, what the Soviet reader was reading is, you know, descriptions of a hundred thousand strong antigovernment demonstration sanctions and running in America's major cities, for example. Um, and I think kind of just, um, just by broadening the horizon of what Soviet people knew about the United States and introducing them to these like vignettes of American daily life and American culture made a big difference.
Speaker 2:So do you worry that there are parallels today? What's taking place, first of all, again, we have a new cold war and slowly the two sides see each other kind of, you know, through the cross hairs of conflict and that, you know, people on the Russian side now tend to report, you know, America's not such a great system and they, they feature a lot of, you know, the police shootings, the racial tensions, um, and they are, they go out of their way to say, you know, look at the, the black guy on American democracy. And at the same time, you know, Western reporters, I'm not sure what the parallel there is, but, but, uh, certainly, you know, every time they report on Russia, it's, it's a loss of, of human rights. Uh, Putin's a bad guy, um, you know, computer hacking, uh, election interference and there becomes this kind of rhythmic narrative that doesn't let you really see the other side very well. There's a lot going on beyond those headlines.
Speaker 4:I think one of it's really interesting that America and Russia are still very important to each other, right. And so the major theme in the book, uh, is that Americans and Soviets really needed each other to understand who they are and to articulate what they are about to articulate their core values. And this in a sense continues to this day where I'm sad, I guess, and worried is that how maybe the levels of reporting or the kind of stuff that would not pass the checks previously and is now allowed to be published and, um, which then in turn influences kind of this international conversation and mutual perceptions of how each side even see the other talking about that, right. It's offensive for instance. So
Speaker 2:We're gaining far less understanding of the other side, no matter whether you're seeing it on the, in Russia, are you seeing it in America, there was less and less understood about what's taking place,
Speaker 4:Right. And one of the reasons is that, uh, on both sides, there is a decline in actually preparation and knowledge about international reporting. I think, I don't think in the cold war, foreign correspondents were super well prepped. And if you wrote about Russia or the United States, you really were, you were country specialists. You want to still be ecologist or an Americanist, and you really knew your stuff. You didn't have to like them, but you had to know them really well. And what we have today is that in addition to knowledgeable voices, to voices that do spend time there, uh, the do have kind of insight knowledge, and especially, we also have all these like really, really uninformed voices. And then first of all, the uninformed voices can really overshadow the better informed than the more nuanced or the, and there is excellent reporting out there. It just that in like the greater cacophony and the greater voices that exists in the public sphere, that reporting is not always noticed. And below us, um, the most sensationalist and less accurate stuff actually gets noticed and produce fake likes and clicks and, you know, gain views and followers. And so again, then you have the system where like more, sensationalists more angry, more click baiting thinks are reinforcing each other. And when, and then when you say something sensible your peers, if you right and against the grain, and they do some kind of some kind of great visitation, whereas in fact, you really are trying to be more nuanced and conveying deep understandings of what's going on
Speaker 2:The standings and the media today. Good luck with that. Dina Feinberg has just authored the book. As I mentioned at the beginning of the cold war correspondence. And it's, what's important here is that Dina also is a lecture in modern history and the director of history, a BA program, and her research explode, explores the history of the Soviet union, modern Russia, and emphasizes on the cold war, late socialism, mass media, propaganda, and Russia's relationship with the west and Dina. I know I'll make it into your next book. Thanks so much. Good to talk to
Speaker 4:You. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Backstory on Ukraine's unending war with Russia and cold war correspondence. I'm Dana Lewis. Thanks for listening. Please share this podcast and subscribe. We put one out weekly and I'll talk to you again soon.
Speaker 3:[inaudible].