Are Western media standards washed away by water from the Kakhovka dam?

Ukrainian journalist and media manager Oleksiy Mustafin writes about this for Detector.Media

"It was not clear who was responsible for the destruction of the Kakhovka dam" - I don't know about you, but for me, this phrase, with which the New York Times article of June 6 began, has already become a symbol of the Western media's coverage of the events of this war. A war in which Ukraine is opposing Russia's attempts to destroy us. To destroy us with weapons. Destroy us physically. Destroy us informationally. In a word. That is why every word that is heard on the air and appears in the newspapers is important," Mustafin begins his article. 

The author notes that journalists could have written about "who did it" instead of "who was responsible. Or, instead of using the definition of "destruction," they could have used a more specific term, such as "undermining." After all, the official version of the Ukrainian government was talking about the dam being blown up. 

The same applies to headlines like Reuters’ "Ukraine and Russia accuse each other". 

Mustafin emphasize that there are no standards require journalists to put the victim and the aggressor on the same page, or to "balance" the reports of the rapists with the rapist's "versions". That a perfectly fair requirement to provide information does not mean "neutrality in relation to the truth." In fact, if information needs to be verified, it should be with the help of reliable sources, which Russian disinformation outlets are not by definition, as their task is to confuse and confuse both the media and their audience.

The article’s author highlights that Russia's aggression against Ukraine has been going on for more than nine years. And Moscow has been trying, if not to impose its own interpretation of events, then at least to pretend that all versions are "equally false." So, the the phrase "it's not so clear" has become a meme for so long that the New York Times' "it wasn’t clear" looks like just an English translation of it.

Even the fact that the next day after the Kakhovka dam breach, the NYT also talked to experts and began to "lean toward" the idea that the structure was most likely blown up from the inside does not make the situation any easier. After all, no one took back their words yesterday, and they are still spreading around the world. 

“Similarly, the "both sides" argument looks blasphemous. Bothsidesism in the form of engaging supporters of the "flat Earth theory" - which is how this term is usually understood - in discussions with scientists is actually a nice amusement against the backdrop of destroyed Mariupol and Bakhmut, which has been reduced to dust. But the point is that this is the paradigm that Russians still use to tell us that "Ukrainians shelled Mariupol themselves." And they insist that this, if I may say so, "version" be presented to consumers on a par with the "Ukrainian official" one,” the journalist writes. 

As for the opinion balance, the author of the article points out that it is not the same as mixing. Especially the mixing of reliable information and lies:“the problem is not in the percentages of one or the other, but in the ingredients themselves. If you mix honey and shit, even in absolutely equal proportions, you'll get twice as much shit.”

Mustafin also recalls his own experience, as an editor, when during the authoritarian regime of Leonid Kuchma, the "two-points-of-view standard" was often used by the media to report important but undesirable information for the authorities: “This was called "informing through refutation". The reader and viewer received information in this way, and the media had an "ironclad justification" for the authorities - the information was refuted! But that was a long time ago. Under the authoritarian system that once existed in Ukraine. Do Western media need to play hide and seek with their officials? What do you think?”