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20261012 100000 UTC
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[00:00:43] press investigation claims that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
[00:00:46] Netanyahu would have been warned about Hamas'
[00:00:49] plans. This will be the story of the week. At
[00:00:53] the fake week, we find out what are the latest strategies of Russia
[00:00:57] in disinformation campaigns regarding Ukraine. At
[00:01:00] Brussels Gossip, we find out why it seemed inconceivable 20
[00:01:04] years ago to kick out of the White House the press institutions that you
[00:01:08] don't like. In its history and stories, we talk about
[00:01:11] Soviet imperialism and its heirs. Finally,
[00:01:14] the FakeNews breakers found out why it's risky to get on a
[00:01:18] plane and drink water from
[00:01:20] the well.
[00:01:32] contested in the streets on the
[00:01:58] An investigation published by the newspaper claims
[00:02:00] that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would have been
[00:02:04] warned by the leader of the United Arab Emirates, Mohammed bin
[00:02:07] Zayed, 10 days before the October 7
[00:02:10] attack that Hamas was planning a major operation against
[00:02:14] Israel. Netanyahu claims it is a lie and an electoral
[00:02:18] attack. The opposition accuses him of treason.
[00:02:21] The legislative elections of October 27 are
[00:02:24] considered decisive, not only for the longest-serving Israeli
[00:02:28] prime minister, but also for the Middle
[00:02:30] East.
[00:02:35] Cătălin, therefore, the investigation by Haaretz journalists caused
[00:02:38] consternation and anger in Israel. Netanyahu would
[00:02:42] have been warned by the leader of the United Arab
[00:02:45] Emirates, Mohammed bin Zayed, 10 days before the October
[00:02:49] 7 attack that Hamas was planning a major operation against
[00:02:52] Israel. Netanyahu states that it is a lie and
[00:02:55] that he will sue the publication. A
[00:02:58] few days
[00:03:00] later, The Atlantic, Wall Street Journal and again Haaretz reported
[00:03:04] that the head of the Egyptian Secret Services, Abbas
[00:03:07] Kamel, secretly traveled to Israel to warn
[00:03:11] Netanyahu again after previous warnings had remained
[00:03:15] ineffective. How credible is the
[00:03:19] information? Could it just be an attack in the electoral campaign
[00:03:22] currently taking place in Israel, against Netanyahu, as he
[00:03:26] claims? It can certainly be linked. and
[00:03:30] it is also linked to the campaign, because Netanyahu
[00:03:33] has enough political adversaries to instrumentalize
[00:03:37] such information and use it, which logically, anyone
[00:03:41] would do in an electoral campaign, but
[00:03:44] the information is quite credible, on the
[00:03:48] one hand we are talking about some publications that
[00:03:51] are among the most known and
[00:03:53] verified in international
[00:03:57] and Israeli journalism, Haaretz, although it is left-wing and
[00:04:02] it is a prestigious publication that has had a series of extremely
[00:04:06] serious investigations over time. On the other
[00:04:09] hand, this information has not
[00:04:12] been denied convincingly, so to speak, by the
[00:04:16] others involved in this whole story, Egypt has not
[00:04:21] denied it either. The United Arab Emirates said something like
[00:04:25] they don't comment, so they didn't confirm or
[00:04:27] deny it, which again
[00:04:31] suggests that Netanyahu would
[00:04:34] have indeed been warned,
[00:04:38] but we must take into account
[00:04:41] an aspect here, it is similar
[00:04:43] to the September 11
[00:04:46] attacks, it's the kind
[00:04:49] of information where you are told that something is being prepared, it
[00:04:52] was a specific one, on the date that Hamas would
[00:04:56] attack Israel in the following way, although. uh,
[00:05:00] this
[00:05:03] is the big problem related to October
[00:05:06] 7, including those data regarding the specific
[00:05:10] way in which the attack. was to take
[00:05:13] place, had reached
[00:05:16] the possession of Israeli officers, let's say, of
[00:05:19] Israeli services, of the Israeli army, long
[00:05:23] before, a year before, Netanyahu was warned, he received these
[00:05:26] general warnings about 10 days before and there were
[00:05:29] multiple ones, including from Egypt, but
[00:05:33] the services knew the plan, it was in their possession, they
[00:05:36] had given it a code name, the Wall
[00:05:39] of Jericho, approximately a... a year
[00:05:43] before, this is actually the story that is known
[00:05:46] in Israel, it became known almost immediately after the October
[00:05:50] 7 attacks, on the one hand they had come into possession of the plan, which was
[00:05:53] followed step by step, a plan of several tens of pages, which was
[00:05:57] followed step by step by Hamas when
[00:06:00] it attacked, a few months before
[00:06:04] the actual attack, they identified
[00:06:06] training by Hamas that
[00:06:09] matched what was written in... the PLA
[00:06:13] Why didn't they take these warnings seriously?
[00:06:17] Netanyahu, for example, apparently didn't even communicate after he was
[00:06:20] warned, he didn't communicate to his subordinates.
[00:06:24] Yes, Yoav Galant, the Minister of Defense, stated that Netanyahu never
[00:06:28] informed him or the Chief of Staff of the
[00:06:32] army about these warnings. And here there are several
[00:06:36] explanations, one that his
[00:06:39] opponents suggest. Some
[00:06:43] say it openly, but nothing
[00:06:46] has been proven in this regard, it
[00:06:49] is that he knew and let it happen,
[00:06:52] period, the second, which in my opinion
[00:06:55] is somewhat more plausible, is that even if
[00:06:59] these warnings existed, no one in
[00:07:03] the Israeli security establishment or almost no one
[00:07:06] believed that Hamas was really capable
[00:07:09] of carrying out such plans,
[00:07:13] they believed that they were very well controlled there in the Gaza Strip,
[00:07:17] Gaza was practically an area under siege,
[00:07:20] encircled, heavily militarized
[00:07:23] border, not just from yesterday, but for years, and there were numerous
[00:07:26] wars before in which Israel
[00:07:30] limited Hamas' ability to attack and they
[00:07:33] imagined, I think, that Hamas
[00:07:37] would not be capable from a military point of view to
[00:07:41] launch such an operation and after
[00:07:44] that, I think they thought, because there were other types
[00:07:47] of information, they thought that Hamas was not even interested
[00:07:51] at that moment? Opposition leader Air
[00:07:54] Lapid, former prime minister, says that Netanyahu knew months before
[00:07:58] October 7 that a violent eruption was taking
[00:08:01] shape, he says, the disaster could have been prevented,
[00:08:05] but the prime minister seemed bored when he was told about the dangers during
[00:08:09] the joint briefing. The paradox is that as early as
[00:08:12] 2023, a few days after the attack, the New York Times published an
[00:08:16] article claiming that Israeli military and intelligence
[00:08:19] officials had obtained this detailed
[00:08:22] plan, so not just a year ago regarding
[00:08:25] the October 7 attacks. And here
[00:08:29] the question arises and accusations also arise against this
[00:08:32] establishment you are talking about. Not only
[00:08:34] Netanyahu knew, perhaps, and did not
[00:08:38] do anything, but also the establishment. It was
[00:08:41] enough to... read the New York Times, the information has been
[00:08:45] public for a long time, now it has a
[00:08:48] much greater effect and weight, because it is about
[00:08:51] people who, as you said, neither confirmed
[00:08:55] nor denied from Egypt and the
[00:08:59] Arab Emirates. How can the return to this
[00:09:02] information after more than three years be explained? Because
[00:09:05] new data appeared, the initial data was
[00:09:09] that the security establishment had been informed.
[00:09:12] to a certain level and Netanyahu always
[00:09:15] denied it, this has been his strategy in these three years that have passed
[00:09:19] since then. Now the latest information that has come in
[00:09:23] this month is that on the contrary Netanyahu
[00:09:27] personally was warned that he was about
[00:09:30] to be attacked. We don't know if he
[00:09:33] also saw this plan, the Wall of Jericho,
[00:09:37] or it was just that general
[00:09:40] warning, but he didn't take any measures and beyond the fact
[00:09:44] that he didn't take concrete measures when Mohammed bin Zayed
[00:09:48] called, because after all, Israel
[00:09:52] controlled very well from an informational point of view, but not only did
[00:09:55] he not take measures to strengthen the border with
[00:09:59] Gaza then, but some time before
[00:10:02] the war in Gaza broke out,
[00:10:05] Israel, through the composition of the government, the last
[00:10:09] government that Netanyahu formed, the current government that
[00:10:12] depends on the extreme right and focused
[00:10:15] its attention on the Palestinian territories
[00:10:19] in the West Bank. Before the outbreak of the war
[00:10:22] on October 7, if we remember, it was... the most violent year
[00:10:26] in the West Bank, I think, in the last few decades, since the
[00:10:30] intifada, clearly, from multiple points of
[00:10:33] view, Palestinian protests, attacks by
[00:10:36] terrorist groups, some coordinated from Gaza and there are
[00:10:39] information, for example, that Netanyahu, in order
[00:10:42] to maintain the status quo in Gaza, refused
[00:10:46] the advice or exhortations
[00:10:48] of his people in the security apparatus,
[00:10:52] to eliminate the Hamas officials in Gaza who
[00:10:56] coordinated attacks in the West Bank, but also in
[00:10:59] the West Bank there was a serious
[00:11:02] increase, which has continued since then, in attacks by
[00:11:05] Jewish settlers against the Palestinian
[00:11:08] population, military operations, so some
[00:11:12] of the army was moved in the direction of the West
[00:11:14] Bank, which the extreme right,
[00:11:18] because here comes the explanation, the extreme right wants
[00:11:21] annexed by Israel, for them it is. extremely
[00:11:25] important the West Bank and then that's
[00:11:28] why Netanyahu focused
[00:11:31] his attention on the West Bank, believing
[00:11:34] that Gaza was secured. And because that brings
[00:11:38] him votes from the parties.
[00:11:42] Because here we already have another problem, that brings him
[00:11:46] political survival. Let's also think about the political
[00:11:49] situation in Israel when the war in Gaza broke out.
[00:11:53] Netanyahu was extremely
[00:11:57] one hand, but not only in the streets, he was
[00:12:00] contested even by reservists from the army, there
[00:12:03] were, if I'm not mistaken, even letters signed
[00:12:06] by air force reservists, the air force being the elite
[00:12:10] arm, the pride of the Israeli
[00:12:13] army, Netanyahu had legal
[00:12:16] problems that could
[00:12:19] become extremely complicated if he lost
[00:12:22] power, so Netanyahu had. to
[00:12:26] remain in power at that
[00:12:29] moment when the war in Gaza broke out and this has
[00:12:33] also been seen, there are numerous
[00:12:37] reports that a series of moments when he could
[00:12:40] have ended the conflict, after half a year, for example, were
[00:12:44] missed precisely because Netanyahu was
[00:12:47] faced with a choice between his political survival
[00:12:51] and the end of the war and the benefits that would have
[00:12:55] been brought to him as an image and his political legacy, because at
[00:12:58] one point, six months after the war in Gaza had broken out,
[00:13:02] when the destruction had not yet reached this
[00:13:06] scale as it is today, he could have made peace
[00:13:10] in Gaza and that would have also led to mutual
[00:13:13] recognition with Saudi Arabia, so practically you would have had peace in
[00:13:16] the Middle East, the continuation of the Abraham
[00:13:20] Accords, practically what has been pursued for decades
[00:13:24] there. but he was threatened by those on the extreme
[00:13:27] right, by Smotrich, if you do that, the next day you will be
[00:13:31] without a government and Netanyahu would have chosen
[00:13:34] the government. And in the meantime the conflict has expanded to
[00:13:38] Lebanon and Iran. Netanyahu again seems
[00:13:42] to have missed a great opportunity. It was a
[00:13:44] disaster for his image on October 7, so it was
[00:13:48] clear that the Israeli
[00:13:51] electorate would find him responsible, he couldn't really escape
[00:13:55] this responsibility, that the signs were missed.
[00:13:58] We are not even talking about intention here, simply
[00:14:01] negligence, if you will. So he would
[00:14:04] have paid for that. In the two years that passed until the summer of
[00:14:08] 2025, in the next two years, Netanyahu managed
[00:14:12] to make a remarkable comeback,
[00:14:15] winning the war in Gaza, as it happened with
[00:14:19] the terrible excesses that were committed there, because
[00:14:23] that territory was destroyed, not to mention the over 70,000
[00:14:26] dead, winning the war in Lebanon,
[00:14:30] practically eliminating a good part of the Hezbollah threat
[00:14:34] through several exceptional operations from the
[00:14:38] pager one to the elimination of Nasrallah and
[00:14:41] winning a war with Iran, the 12-day war
[00:14:45] in 2025, at that moment in June
[00:14:48] 2025 Netanyahu, I think, was
[00:14:52] again like in his good times in terms of. popularity, and
[00:14:55] Israel was doing extremely well
[00:14:59] in the region, it was the great power, hard to
[00:15:02] challenge, the mistake was when the other war with
[00:15:06] Iran began in 2026. On
[00:15:08] October 27, legislative elections will take place in Israel,
[00:15:11] they are decisive not only for Israel,
[00:15:15] but also for the Middle East, and
[00:15:17] for Netanyahu, who is the longest-serving prime minister of
[00:15:21] Israel. The Guardian documented the electorate's options
[00:15:25] and writes that those who support Netanyahu say he is the only one who
[00:15:28] can, I quote, finish the job in Gaza, Lebanon, Iran and
[00:15:32] the West Bank. Those who criticize him and will
[00:15:35] not vote for him say he is guilty of October 7,
[00:15:37] of the permanent state of war and the economic crisis. October 7
[00:15:41] will count enormously in this
[00:15:43] election, but what could Israel look like if, for
[00:15:47] example, Netanyahu's opponent, who is now
[00:15:51] leading in the electorate's options in polls, the former
[00:15:55] head of the army, were to win. What
[00:15:58] would happen, what are his options regarding
[00:16:02] the regional conflict? No matter who would come to
[00:16:05] power in Israel, I don't think we can
[00:16:09] talk about overnight changes, yes,
[00:16:12] what we could see is a
[00:16:15] less aggressive
[00:16:18] policy in the West Bank, perhaps
[00:16:21] the government would finally get involved to
[00:16:25] calm down the settlers a bit, because
[00:16:29] they do a disservice,
[00:16:31] a serious disservice to Israel's image, on the one hand there we
[00:16:35] could see...
[00:16:38] a moderation of Israel, to
[00:16:41] see again a moderation
[00:16:44] in Gaza, the Trump administration is pressing
[00:16:48] very hard for Israel to move now towards the next steps
[00:16:51] of the ceasefire agreement from
[00:16:55] 2025, until now Israel has been
[00:16:59] reticent, practically the campaign has continued
[00:17:02] this year in Gaza, even if with a
[00:17:05] much, much lower intensity. but still we are talking about
[00:17:08] I think about 1500 deaths there, meaning it is quite serious
[00:17:12] what is happening, reconstruction, what
[00:17:14] reconstruction, so we cannot talk about a
[00:17:18] serious reconstruction effort, it is a
[00:17:21] humanitarian crisis unfolding and the next stages of the
[00:17:24] plan, the White House has publicly pressured for them to be
[00:17:28] implemented, and Netanyahu has
[00:17:31] resisted because the extreme
[00:17:35] right does not even conceive,
[00:17:38] they have publicly stated this, that Gaza should be
[00:17:41] recolonized, not to mention certain statements
[00:17:45] that are downright extremist, even in
[00:17:48] the sense of emptying Gaza, encouraging the population there to
[00:17:52] leave, because at one point there were such
[00:17:55] statements made in Israel, but massive
[00:17:58] changes in Israeli politics in
[00:18:01] the sense of, let's say, a rapid
[00:18:05] return to what it was... in the 90s, when they talked
[00:18:09] about the two-state solution, towards,
[00:18:12] I don't know, handing over the West Bank to the Palestinians, I
[00:18:16] don't imagine that can happen now, because
[00:18:19] the public and the Israeli
[00:18:22] electorate is now much more
[00:18:25] right-wing on average than it was in the 90s, for
[00:18:28] example.
[00:18:34] Moscow is resorting to increasingly sophisticated strategies in its
[00:18:37] disinformation campaigns regarding Ukraine, from manipulated
[00:18:41] images to articles and video reports, falsely attributed
[00:18:44] to well-known newspapers and television stations, with the
[00:18:48] aim of undermining public trust in democratic
[00:19:00] boxes with the label for the servant of the people. This is
[00:19:04] the title of an article published in English on September
[00:19:07] 23 on a Ukrainian news website. The alleged
[00:19:11] news is accompanied by a video that allegedly shows a raid by the National
[00:19:15] Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine, NABU. The story claims that
[00:19:18] the money was found in the offices of Arsen Zhumadilov, the former head
[00:19:22] of the agency for defense procurement. The
[00:19:25] $140 million would have been in cash, in boxes that had
[00:19:29] a sticker with the text "for the servant of the people" in
[00:19:33] Ukrainian, thus referring to President Volodymyr
[00:19:37] Zelenskyy. "Servant of the People" was a Ukrainian
[00:19:40] television series in which the main role was played by President
[00:19:44] Zelenskyy, who was an actor before his political
[00:19:47] debut. The clip also contains the logo and name of the Ukrainian
[00:19:51] Anti-Corruption Agency, NABU, as well as the Specialized Anti-Corruption
[00:19:54] Prosecutor's Office of Ukraine, SAPO. However, NABU denied
[00:19:57] the information and specified that the video is a fake created with
[00:20:01] the help of artificial intelligence. Furthermore,
[00:20:04] AFP verified and there is no footage on the official channels
[00:20:08] of the Ukrainian Anti-Corruption Agency or the
[00:20:11] Specialized Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office. The sequence
[00:20:14] went viral on social media in various languages,
[00:20:17] including Romanian. However, the authors did not stop at creating
[00:20:21] an AI-generated video. To give this
[00:20:25] story the appearance of authentic news, the perpetrators created
[00:20:29] a fake website on another domain that mimicked the site of The New
[00:20:32] Voice of Ukraine. They copied all elements of the
[00:20:36] original site from Disney. sections and contact details,
[00:20:39] up to real articles, sneaking a fake one
[00:20:43] dated September 23 among them. In addition to the
[00:20:46] Ukrainian version of the alleged news, they also published an
[00:20:49] English variant. The next
[00:20:53] day, on September 24, the Center for Strategic Communications and
[00:20:57] Information Security of Ukraine found that the fake
[00:21:00] news had been picked up on important Russian Telegram channels, on
[00:21:03] X and on other Russian propaganda sites that support
[00:21:07] the war. On September 25, the fabricated news was
[00:21:09] distributed by Kirill Dmitriev himself. Dmitriev is
[00:21:13] Putin's representative in discussions with United States officials and
[00:21:17] the director of the Russian Direct Investment Fund. On September
[00:21:21] 25. New Voice of Ukraine issued a statement drawing
[00:21:25] attention to the fact that the article in question did not belong to it and recommended
[00:21:29] careful verification of the web domain. It can be observed that
[00:21:32] the original version of the site has a different domain from
[00:21:36] the fake site. According to verifications carried out by AFP,
[00:21:40] the site that disseminated the news regarding the $140 million in cash that
[00:21:43] would have been found in Ukraine, was registered on
[00:21:46] September 21, 2026. The website
[00:21:50] was populated internally with articles taken from the authentic New
[00:21:54] Voice of Ukraine site, including the titles and photographs
[00:21:57] used. The article about the alleged NABU
[00:22:01] raid was published on September 23, 2026, and on
[00:22:03] September 28, the fake site was no longer available. In
[00:22:07] short, the scheme was as follows: They created the images and text with
[00:22:11] artificial intelligence and to make them
[00:22:13] credible, they built a fake version of the New Voice
[00:22:17] of Ukraine website. Then the fake news was amplified
[00:22:20] on Russian social networks and pushed by Russian propagandists to
[00:22:24] the international public. It is
[00:22:26] interesting that this fake appeared one day before the meeting that took
[00:22:30] place in New York between US officials Steve Wildkov and Jared
[00:22:34] Kushner and Kirill Dmitriev. CNN reported
[00:22:37] that among the topics discussed was the resolution of Russia's
[00:22:40] war against Ukraine. Practically,
[00:22:43] Russia and Russian propaganda promoted this fake news in
[00:22:47] an attempt to present to the West that Ukraine is. fighting, even
[00:22:51] while Vladimir Putin's special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, was holding
[00:22:54] discussions with the American delegation in New York. It is true that in
[00:22:58] Ukraine, since Russia's invasion in 2022, there have been several
[00:23:02] major corruption scandals confirmed by official
[00:23:05] sources. Just recently, on September 15, President
[00:23:08] Volodymyr Zelenskyy dismissed the Prosecutor General of Ukraine,
[00:23:12] Ruslan Kravchenko, who denies the accusations that he received bribes
[00:23:16] and states that he initiated a lawsuit against the
[00:23:20] Anti-Corruption Agency. In November last year, a NABU investigation
[00:23:24] revealed a $100 million corruption scandal, which
[00:23:28] involved dilapidation in the Ukrainian energy sector.
[00:23:31] The head of the presidential office, Andriy Yermak, was forced to
[00:23:34] resign after information emerged regarding his involvement in this
[00:23:38] case. The way this fake news was created and propagated
[00:23:42] online shows how the enemy can use the latest artificial
[00:23:46] intelligence tools in information warfare. This
[00:23:49] time the goal is to discredit anti-corruption
[00:23:52] bodies, undermine trust in state institutions and
[00:23:55] damage Ukraine's image abroad. According to a report
[00:23:59] by NewsGuard, a company specialized in media monitoring
[00:24:02] and news credibility assessment,
[00:24:06] the Western press is facing a systematic attack that
[00:24:09] exploits the reputation of credible news sources to
[00:24:12] spread propaganda and undermine public trust in
[00:24:16] democratic institutions. The report
[00:24:19] demonstrates that... these campaigns aim to weaken the military and
[00:24:22] financial support given to Kyiv by Western
[00:24:25] nations, relying on the trust that readers place in established
[00:24:29] media brands. Russian operations faithfully
[00:24:32] reproduce the logos, fonts and official graphic elements
[00:24:36] of newspapers. In some cases, to mislead
[00:24:40] less informed users and camouflage the false
[00:24:43] content, even web domains with addresses almost
[00:24:47] identical to the authentic ones are registered. According
[00:24:50] to NewsGuard, since the launch of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the network
[00:24:54] of counterfeiters has generated 906 articles and
[00:24:57] video reports, falsely attributing them to a total of
[00:25:01] 163 newspapers and television stations from
[00:25:04] 21 countries. Among the targeted publications are
[00:25:07] La Repubblica, Il Fatto Quotidiano, BBC, CNN,
[00:25:11] Bloomberg, Politico. The Euronews channel, based in France, is the
[00:25:15] most targeted, being attributed 82 fabricated
[00:25:18] materials. Frequently imitated media are
[00:25:21] French publications such as Liberation, the satirical magazine
[00:25:25] Sharley Hebdo, the public broadcaster France
[00:25:28] 24, Le Figaro and Le Parisien. Most
[00:25:31] of these fake materials are produced by three Russia-associated
[00:25:34] influence campaigns, known as
[00:25:38] Matrioshka, Storm 1516 and
[00:25:41] Doppel Ganger. Matrioshka produces numerous
[00:25:45] fake videos daily, which it attributes to real publications. They are
[00:25:48] distributed on X and Telegram and target Ukraine, Europe and
[00:25:52] the United States. Storm 1516 produces fewer
[00:25:56] clips, but builds more elaborate fake stories,
[00:25:59] using the names and images of real publications, journals, or
[00:26:02] organizations. The materials are then distributed on
[00:26:06] X and can reach millions of users. Doppel
[00:26:09] Ganger has used similar tactics of imitating real news sites,
[00:26:13] but currently seems to have reduced
[00:26:15] its activity.
[00:26:22] President Donald Trump banned CNN,
[00:26:26] MSNBC and Politico from his press events,
[00:26:29] accusing them of producing fake news. The next day, however,
[00:26:32] ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News announced that they were
[00:26:36] withdrawing their White House correspondents in solidarity
[00:26:39] with their media colleagues. How it once was
[00:26:42] in America and why the American president's gesture would have been
[00:26:46] inconceivable then, Gabriel Giurgiu tells
[00:26:48] us.
[00:26:53] The America of the 90s is the one I knew and fell in
[00:26:57] love with. I went several times to Washington, Norfolk or
[00:27:01] New York for journalism study scholarships. I also
[00:27:05] caught George Bush senior and Bill Clinton,
[00:27:08] meaning both Republicans and Democrats in power, a certain
[00:27:12] type of power, a certain type from each, Democrats and Republicans. In
[00:27:16] those times, people with sympathies in both camps would
[00:27:20] meet, drink beer, watch election results
[00:27:23] together on TV and tease each other, like at a game
[00:27:27] where some supported the Washington Redskins and others the Dallas
[00:27:30] Cowboys. The example is not chosen randomly at all, you know.
[00:27:34] Back then, the separation of powers worked perfectly and the only
[00:27:38] stridencies in the public space were emanating from the buds
[00:27:41] of political correctness. Thus, the question
[00:27:44] regarding the legitimacy of the word
[00:27:48] "history" had already appeared. Perhaps "herstory" would have been more correct, right? Similarly,
[00:27:52] the formal rigor of "Menstruation" was questioned.
[00:27:55] Correct would have been "Femstruation",
[00:27:58] right? We all laughed. Back then, Wokism and its
[00:28:02] offshoots, all sorts of
[00:28:05] Maga-isms, did not exist and were not even in
[00:28:09] the pipeline. Just as rationally and naturally, the
[00:28:12] press functioned through newsrooms, whether at CNN Washington, where I
[00:28:16] had the privilege of being an intern on the late
[00:28:20] Larry King's show, or at Channel Seven ABC in Norfolk, things were
[00:28:23] settled, clear, without many question marks.
[00:28:27] The supreme value was considered equidistance, meaning
[00:28:30] journalistic objectivity. The relationship with politicians was
[00:28:34] based on mutual respect, commercial was separate from
[00:28:38] editorial, and no congressman or member of
[00:28:40] the administration would even dream of trying to
[00:28:44] interfere with the content of a news story. If they had only
[00:28:47] tried to express themselves about journalist X or Y, they would have been
[00:28:51] eaten alive by public opinion. And years
[00:28:55] passed. Political correctness became wokism, and
[00:28:58] as if from nowhere, as a reaction, Trumpism also came, that is,
[00:29:02] the MAGA movement. Inter-party beers slowly
[00:29:06] disappeared, and benign teasing was replaced by
[00:29:09] harsh words, unbridled sarcasm, threats of
[00:29:13] all kinds of reprisals. If you had told the average American of
[00:29:17] the 90s that, in 20 years, a
[00:29:20] president would ban some publications from the White House
[00:29:24] because he doesn't like their
[00:29:27] editorial content, you would have been frankly
[00:29:31] told to get lost.
[00:29:55] The next day, the other four big ones, namely ABC,
[00:29:58] CBS, NBC and especially Fox
[00:30:02] News, sent a clear message of solidarity. They withdrew from
[00:30:06] the group of television stations that provided the White House broadcasts, those
[00:30:10] so dear to Mr. Trump, without which the shows from
[00:30:13] the Oval Office no longer make any sense, because they are not seen on
[00:30:16] television. Meanwhile, the United States has reached
[00:30:20] 64th place in the World Press Freedom Index,
[00:30:24] while Romania is 49th, and the Republic of Moldova is even
[00:30:28] 31st. That's how I come to regret the 90s,
[00:30:31] because I was younger, not for any other reason,
[00:30:33] obviously.
[00:30:39] Empires continued to exist even after the Second World
[00:30:42] War. Capitalist or socialist, they continued
[00:30:46] to expand their territories through wars, coups or
[00:30:50] alliances, in the name of democracy. Today we are talking
[00:30:53] about the Soviet Union and