Lest We Forget. Often said, sadly it seems too often forgotten.
The Auschwitz Memorial statement on the situation in Ukraine. pic.twitter.com/RIXjm4oZas
— Auschwitz Memorial (@AuschwitzMuseum) February 24, 2022
Many are comparing today’s situation to that of the situation in Czechoslovakia when Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler absorbed the independent country into the German Reich.
What no one is really examining is how this situation in Ukraine was in effect allowed to develop. Likely that will be something for historians to grapple with in coming years.
While Adolf Hitler’s 1000 Year Reich only lasted a mere 12 years, Vladimir Putin has been in power in Russia since 2021, ten years, although he had been in power as well from 2000 to 2008 as well.
Putin was witness to the break up of the Soviet Union. What appears one of his goals right now is a re-unification of the old Soviet Union.
That is not unlike the moves Adolf Hitler professed in wanting to re-unify Germany after World War One.
Putin in his invasion of Russia spent much of the past two years stating he had no interest or plans in an invasion of Ukraine.
Adolf Hitler professed that same promise and had British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain waving a piece of paper in his hand decrying “Peace for our time”.
In today’s world, we have more knowledge accessible right at our fingertips than at any time in human history. Yet we seem doomed to as the sign read above the chalkboard in Mr Enn’s grade eight history class I attended at Samsone Junior High School, “If you don’t learn from history you will be condemned to repeat it”.
Part of the problem perhaps is the speed and volume at which we get news and information today. Forty years ago, there was the daily newspaper, the nightly news at six and ten, and radio.
CNN, the ‘Cable News Network’ launched on June 1, 1980. That move by Ted Turner changed news reporting in a massive way. All of a sudden there was a 24-hour-a-day source for news.
News no longer has a ‘news cycle’. News is instant. Reports come in and are relayed almost instantly to the public.
Social media including Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, and Instagram allow anyone with an account to post images, videos, or opinions instantly. There are efforts ongoing to by social media giants to fact-check some of the false claims but it is a daunting task.
For NetNewsLedger we have set protocols on how we report news. First is having sources we see and trust as reliable. Second is going directly to the source to get either confirmation or denial of the information. In reporting news, it is also key to recognize that it is often in the case of news tips, important to understand that there are potential bias on the part of someone submitting a news tip.
That is hard during war coverage as in most cases information from each side is going to have potential for bias.
Take the figures being supplied by Russia and Ukraine in terms of war casualties. Russia is now as of March 3, 2022 reporting just over 500 soldiers having died, and Ukraine is reporting that number as more than 6,000 dead Russian soldiers.
Getting to the truth is hard.
It will likely remain hard to dig out, but we will do our best to ensure you have the most accurate information we can provide.
James Murray
