Quote Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh View Post
Ideally, yes, but in practice no. As Aristotle noted quite a while back, Ethos, Logos, and Pathos are all routes of appeal that function persuasively for the audience. Hyperbolic blogs etc. arouse the passions (pathos) but generally fall short in credibility (ethos). So even when they are relating facts accurately and making reasonable conclusions therefrom (logos), their credibility still gets called into question and may well undercut the reader/viewer's trust in message.
And therefore all of Gilrandir's ukrainian news sources do at least get a silent approval here? And why should I trust US or British sources on the conflict when both countries have traditionally seen Russia as their arch-nemesis even after the fall of the iron curtain? A source that is reliable on a current plane-crash or on internal policy of the country it comes from is not automatically reliable when it reports on a country that is seen as a traditional or current enemy of the country the source is based in.

As for the rest, there are still three links that conclusively prove that the west has absolutely no problem in dealing with or supporting countries which manipulate public opinion on the internet. Why should Russia not do that if it works for others? There was also a report a while ago where Putin bought the services of some US PR agency to improve his own image. If he was always so bad, why did a US PR company help him improve his image for 9 years? It's a bit like Gadhaffi with whom we did business until we decided we don't need him anymore.

Here are some unreliable links:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/...98C00S20130913
http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/12/medi...in-pr-ketchum/

And from the related links it seems as though Ukraine ain't afraid to use the same tactics itself:
http://money.cnn.com/2015/02/25/tech...ex.html?iid=EL

But I guess it's only evil when the other side does it.