So, for example I followed a Ukrainian youtuber who said he was leaving because of the invasion, that added considerably to my confidence. Also, meeting refugees arrive in the UK displaced from the Russian invasion made for near 100% confidence that it was actually happening (a video of a couple of tanks on a highway just looks like propaganda however, but the tanks were probably there, something happened [it wasn't impressive enough to be AI generated!]).

As for comparatives: if BBC, Al Jazeera, Russia Today all agree on details (in the context of the Russian war) then I'm pretty confident. Though the Wagner situation appears to be a subterfuge, as all these sources are reporting it I'm confident that vehicles were driven towards Moscow in at least an attempt to display to the World that something was happening.

What is an example of a large lie that you see in Western media today, that you confirm to be untrue from direct personal experience?

What is a trusted source? How can I find one? I think this is close to impossible. Of course, everyone reads what one consider "trusted" source, but I have doubt any of them is.

> So, for example I followed a Ukrainian youtuber who said he was leaving because of the invasion, that added considerably to my confidence. Also, meeting refugees arrive in the UK displaced from the Russian invasion made for near 100% confidence that it was actually happening (a video of a couple of tanks on a highway just looks like propaganda however, but the tanks were probably there, something happened [it wasn't impressive enough to be AI generated!]).

But does this prove anything at all? E.g. half of my family lives in Ukraine. You wouldn't believe and it's never mentioned in Western media, but large percent of Ukraine population is Russian. Actually, it's almost impossible to distinguish who's Russian and who's Ukrainian. What is the difference? My family is originally from Ukraine, but I consider myself Russian.

So, my relatives from Ukraine were always telling me completely different stories from official Western stories. E.g. about neo-nazi movement in Ukraine which became very active since 1991 according to my relatives.

> What is an example of a large lie that you see in Western media today, that you confirm to be untrue from direct personal experience?

I do not collect such stories (what would be the point?), but meanwhile I'm looking for some examples, I'll tell you that for several years I've browsed Western media and specifically searched for news from Russia on CNN, Washington Post, Bloomberg, and other prominent Western media websites.

One thing that is impossible to ignore is that all news from Russia are strictly negative. Even if they're true, this is clearly one sided presentation of situation to demonstrate to Western readers that "Everything is bad in Russia". I couldn't read anything positive about Russia in English for many years. It's always the same bingo bullshit composed out of "dictatorship", "bad Putin", "bad Russians", "Russian hackers", yadda, yadda.

I've just did a search `russia site:https://www.washingtonpost.com/`. While I cannot pinpoint an outright lie, because there're tons of results and I don't have much time now, you can easily see that there's a common theme in all the news articles: "Russia is bad", "Situation in Russia is awful", "Some unnamed source confirms that Putin is bad/afraid/eats babies for breakfast". Whatever year you put in the search: 2023, 2022, 2020, 2018, etc.

Sounds like you have become a perfect specimen of Putinist Russia: trusting no-one, doubting everything, doing nothing.

>> So, my relatives from Ukraine were always telling me completely different stories from official Western stories. E.g. about neo-nazi movement in Ukraine which became very active since 1991 according to my relatives.

Have you tried quantifying it? For example, when someone from that part of political spectrum participated in elections, how well did they do? Did the "very active movement" ever reach even 1% of support?

>> While I cannot pinpoint an outright lie, because there're tons of results and I don't have much time now, you can easily see that there's a common theme in all the news articles: "Russia is bad", "Situation in Russia is awful", "Some unnamed source confirms that Putin is bad/afraid/eats babies for breakfast".

Why would you expect to see much positive coverage? When you google Nazi Germany, the first results aren't innovations in TV transmission nor advancements in wildlife protection either. Should they be? Is that the main contribution of Germany to the world between 1933 and 1945?

Notice how the sibling/parent commenter avoids answering the question.

Along with bailing out your country's ass in its hour of greatest need.

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ленд-лиз

Just a couple of years after it entered into an alliance with the Wehrmacht, and did you-know-what in the Baltics and the Katyń forest and all.

>> People here were dying of hunger, but West was extremely happy with the "democracy" they built here.

Please spare me of this pathetic loser mentality that blames all of your failures on someone else. The CIA did not force upon you Stalin and the murder of millions home and abroad, nor did the CIA choose you Brezhnev and stagnation in all walks of life, nor did the CIA lock up in psychiatric hospitals the people trying to change the system.

It was your own making that by the end of 1980s, the costly war in Afghanistan, industrial accidents like Chernobyl, and stagnation along with hopeless attempts to reboot the rotting economy pushed USSR on the verge of starvation. As to the west, have you forgotten grain ships that provided much needed food aid that prevented the worst?

Beyond that, nobody in the west really cares or ever cared what went on in Russia. Russian obsession with the US and the vast conspiracy theories are merely a manifestation of your inferiority complex. You may think of yourself as the Third Rome and a superpower, but the size of your economy does not support the delusion; you're just a bunch of losers who inherited nukes.

The rest of your comment is a bitter vatnik blab that doesn't deserve a reply. You may blame the CIA, Ukrainian-Jewish cryptonazis, etc all you want, but unless you get rid of this loser mentality and blame game, face your past crimes like Germans have and seek reconciliation with your victims, develop a free society that respects human rights, establish mutually beneficial relations with neighbors, and start participating in the global economy in a constructive manner like the rest, you'll never live even remotely as well as people in the west do. That's a cold hard fact that you can not bypass with rhetorics, propaganda, misdirections and lies.

Cynicism of Russian population - of which you are a perfect specimen - is perhaps the biggest obstacle to development in Russia. It leads to grassroot-level inability to take responsibility and cooperate in things like HOAs, and poisons the whole society as it leaks upstream to local governments, federal government, business culture, etc. Once you've poisoned everything and have a failed state on your hands, you blame the CIA.

If you dropped cynicism, stopped mocking """""democracy""""", took responsibility and actually tried to work with each other in the name of common good, perhaps you wouldn't be such a shithole and would see the same fast development as everyone else who have taken this path have since 1991? Perhaps there would not be a need for daily terror attacks against Ukrainian cities to salvage the image of your god-emperor in that world?

You wouldn't believe and it's never mentioned in Western media, but large percent of Ukraine population is Russian.

Actually it's mentioned all the time. As is the neo-Nazi stuff. That said, there are all kind of people in Western countries, and many (especially in the U.S.) are quite ignorant and couldn't even find Ukraine on the map. And certainly don't read anything that doesn't pop up whatever news feed they have on their phone.

So even though these details about Ukraine/Russian a certainly mentioned in the media often enough, not surprisingly they just won't stick with many people.

To try to get to the main content of what you're saying - it seems to come down to this (which I am editing down slightly, but only to keep it short):

It is impossible or next to impossible to investigate most of the facts... I think this is close to impossible [to find trusted sources].

I agree that it can easily seem so from the outside, if one reads these sources only occasionally. But over time ... a long time, especially when one grows up hearing and reading these news outlets all the time ... a certain pattern emerges.

Specifically some sources are, at least one it comes to the basic factual narrative -- much more reliable than others. That is, basically true to fact, basically professional. They do screw up sometimes, and are sometimes fooled.

It isn't easy to tell just be reading only a few sources, or reading them occasionally. But over time -- one sees that their reporting (again, of basic facts) largely overlaps with the others are saying. Also, some of them have highly professional journalists who have lived in these countries (including yours), and know what they're talking about.

And also, what they report (again as to facts) aligns closely with what one can gather from friends or relatives. And of course from visiting these countries directly, and talking to people there.

Basically one can put WSJ, NYT, WaPo, Bloomberg and a few others in this box. CNN and BBC to some extent also (though they are frankly somewhat "dumber" than the first 4 and have much less original reporting). I could mention other sources (in other languages even) because of course not everything revolves around U.S. media sources, but I'm trying to keep things simple here.

That said -- they do have strong biases as to opinion. But in the above group -- while sometimes irritating (and in my view basically wrong) -- still not obnoxiously or fanatically so. Some people call them "propaganda" outlets, but I disagree (and find those do say that to usually have extreme political views themselves, on one end of the spectrum or the other).

Bottom line -- yes one can learn to "navigate" the news, find (reasonably) trusted sources, enough to "tell up from down", that is, which ones are basicaly reliable, and which ones not.

Finally - to address one more thing you were saying - about bias and views about what's going on in Russia. I think what you're saying is partially valid, partially not. (Again, as applies to what Western media say about Russia -- not what is going on there yourself, which of course you know infinitely better than I).

For example, here are things Western media does say about Russia, often enough: "dictatorship", "bad/afraid Putin, "Russian hackers", "situation in Russia is bad".

What they don't say (and where I think you may be misreading here) are things like "Russia is bad", "bad Russians" (as a people), or "Putin eats babies for breakfast".

I hope you recognize the distinction between these two categories. Statements in the first category are either a matter of simple opinion... e.g. "Putin is bad" -- which is an opinion anyone can have about the leader of any country. Or at most a very "charged" statement, but I'm assuming you will acknowledge with a strong basis in fact -- e.g. "Russia is currently governed by a dictatorship".

However, stuff in the last category -- e.g. "Russians (as a people) are bad", "Russia is a bad country" -- these are of course very ugly things to say. But we just don't hear them said to any significant degree, in either society or the media (except from Ukrainians of course, but that's a completely different topic).

Nor does one hear absurd factual exaggerations about Putin (e.g. "eats babies"). They do say all kinds of things about what he has said and done, which I'm sure you also know about. But absurd exaggerations like this -- one just doesn't hear or read those, in mainstream outlets.

https://youtu.be/aNBqjKFS1_c