Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey and the art of misrepresentation

Misrepresentation:

1. A misleading falsehood

2. A willful perversion of facts

A tough word that. Not the toughest, mind you, but early in the morning, before the caffeine started to spread through the old blood vessels, it is a challenge. So when I've stumbled on a Pravda piece titled The Misrepresentation of Sochi in the Western Media, I was kinda intrigued. The author, Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey, is not a stranger to this blog. Being as he is a past master of the Pravda style misrepresentation, I've expected the article to provide some hands-on advice to beginners.

But no, the article is one long lament about the execrable coverage of the Sochi Olympic Games by American press. It starts with the sweeping:

Surprise, surprise, surprise. The US media almost without exception concentrated on toilets, light bulbs, stray dogs as much as, or more than, the sport, the celebration, the party and the spectacle which is Sochi, the XXII Winter Olympic Games. It comes as no surprise that the showing of the Opening Ceremony in the USA was a study in manipulation.

So why should I raise that article from the dead almost a month after it was published? Because of another passage in it, pregnant with meaning and foreboding.

Usually the passion and general temperature of Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey's articles tend to rise toward the end, culminating in a paragraph or two of Wagnerian righteous rage. That one is no exception, and the third paragraph from the end carries a sublime passage:

Russian security forces, like their American counterparts, work daily to help protect the lives of ordinary citizens and their right to go about their daily lives without being confronted by some demonic maniac yelling Allahu Akhbar and going to meet his virgins. The difference is that Russia does not invade foreign lands and conduct a foreign policy which walks hand-in-hand with terrorism.

Yeah. It is March 4, 2014 right now, and some Russian soldiers are busy like little bees, providing brotherly assistance to the oppressed Russian citizens of Crimea as we speak. Talk about "misrepresentation " some more, folks. Please...

And notice that I didn't even mention the hilarious finale of that article:

How childish...as if anyone in the USA these days believes a word their media tell them anyway, given that most people have access to the Net and to places where they can read the truth, like Pravda.Ru.

Pravda means truth, after all, as we all know by now.

Update: fresh from the press, a new opus by Bankrupt-Hinchey, the servant of Pravda/Truth:

Before we have another display of butt-faced ignorance, pig-headed arrogance and unadulterated, jingoistic, xenophobic and chauvinistic bilge from Mr. Kerry and his NATO sidekicks, let us make one thing crystal clear...

Etc. This is Pravda's answer to critics of Crimean invasion... oh well.