The Progressive Era

 In today's Media Law and Literacy blog post, we will dive deep into the inter-workings of the progressive era and discuss current events that are intertwined with the former. 

My Reaction

After exploring the websites directed, those being antiwar.com as well as The American Conservative, it became quite shocking on how censored and topic based large and prominent media is in our country and around the world. An example of this is within articles about the Ruso/Ukraine war (Special Military Operation in Russian terms), and our (not so) beloved American way of sticking our nose in every conflict.  This article describes distention in the ranks among the American National Security Council (NSC) within the topic of peace talks in the ongoing conflict. Current Chairman of the Joint chiefs of staff, Mark Milley is calling for peace talks while others, including National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and Secretary of State Antony Blinken do not align their ideals with talks as they majorly side with US President Biden and his policies toward the conflict.

Photo Credit (i24news.com)

While the pentagon, the military headquarters of the United States believes that winter could bring a "chance for a political settlement while [US senior military officials] believe Ukraine cannot achieve it's war aims. (Fun fact: these same officials predicted the country would fall in 72 hours, they were wrong, so take this with a grain of salt) The Ukrainian military still continues to defy the odds and win battles and pushes Russia back daily. Honestly, it seems as if the US, or the US official quoted in the article wants to throw away the good work of the nations warfighters just for Russia to regroup and hit Ukraine again under the guise of peace talks saying "Why not start talking about [peace talks] before you throw another 100,000 lives into the abyss?"

All in all, Antiwar readings and websites are so hard to discover because it is not what production and news companies want you to hear. It all goes back to the process of media, if there are more clicks and more viewers on a story or a newscast, those who view are far more likely to come back at a later time to watch other stories. In connection with this, companies like Sinclair broadcasting can spin a message that all of their contracted news stations have to discuss. (view the hyperlink for an example of the former.)

Extra/Added Piece: What Do I Believe and Where do I see the News from Ruso/Ukraine

Photo Credit: (youtube.com/speakthetruth) 

As a person highly interested in the conflict in Ukraine, I have steered away from typical news media sources for updates regarding the war/special military operation/whatever you want to call this conflict. Daily, I watch updates on YouTube from a former American special operations sniper who has sources on the ground in Ukraine and publishes true and unfiltered updates of what is going on in the conflict. Speak The Truth is hosted by Robert Terkla and within the show, he and his team show mapping of the ongoing conflict, he predicts what is going to take place over a 24-48-72 hour timeline, shows videos from the ground (all except videos with blood, gore, weapons etc, due to YouTube T.O.S.), leaked Russian soldier phone conversations with their loved ones, and what may be the most comical piece of the conflict, Russian state media clips where there are constant stories and topic being made up by the Russian media to act as if the Russian military is winning the conflict in a landslide, or once they realized they were losing handily, start preaching outlandish ways to get back in the driver seat of the conflict. Some of those ways being the use of Chemical weapons like Napalm, White phosphorus munitions and others with the most severe being a nuclear strike.