Friday, November 12, 2021

Crisis on the Polish border: enter CNN with its "journalistic standards"


 We all know by now that our online "attention span" is short. Most of us read the first one or two paragraphs and go to the next story. When I say 'we all know,' I mean that CNN knows that too. It's their business to know that. 

So here are CNN's opening paragraphs about the brewing crisis on the Polish border that may turn into a shooting exchange any day. The daily provocations seem to be designed for that outcome.

Thousands of people are stranded at the border between Poland and Belarus in terrible conditions, trapped at the center of an intensifying geopolitical dispute.

The migrants -- most of whom are from the Middle East and Asia, and who are hoping to travel on from Poland deeper into Europe -- have been gathering on the Belarusian side of the Kuznica border crossing. Authorities closed the crossing on Tuesday, with aerial footage showing large crowds congregating in the area.

Here's what you need to know about the crisis that's unfolding on Europe's frontier.

Charities say people stuck in the border area are battling freezing weather and lack food and medical attention, with reports of beatings and grueling conditions continuing to emerge. 

... 

Humanitarian groups are also accusing Poland's ruling nationalists of violating the international right to asylum by pushing people back into Belarus instead of accepting their applications for protection. Poland says its actions are legal. 

- CNN

If by now you don't think that Poland's ruling nazis are responsible for the crisis, you don't have a heart, and if you do, I can't blame you. This "report" was designed to get precisely this kind of reaction.

Here is what a spokesperson of the Minister-Special Services Coordinator, Stanisław Żaryn, had to say  about it yesterday on Twitter:

Dear @CNN, you missed the point. Migrants, who came to Belarus, are not „between Poland and Belarus” - they are on Belarus. Lukashenka's regime is fully responsible for those people. They are not refugees - they are migrants who paid a lot to be smuggled to EU. 

The whole crisis was deliberetly created by Belarusian state, we're not facing migratory crisis but political operation against Poland.

Interesting fact. Nowhere in this piece did I find any information on how those migrants got there. If you look at Google Maps, you will see that it is quite a hike through Russia. They were flown there mainly from Iraq and apparently Turkey, and they paid around $10,000 per person. BTW, using footage from Belarus state-run TV is a "nice touch," I don't even have to point it out.