Shooting Belgorod, Russia

[Hottentot]

Originally Posted by Herr-Berbunch

It's almost like the news is biased towards the west.

Originally Posted by Oberon

It is a sign of where we live, we live in a more western leaning nation so the news places more emphasis on events in the west rather than in the east, with the exception being of flashpoints like Korea, and westernised nations like Japan or Australia.

I agree with you both. As I follow the Russian media quite a lot, I see this all the time when comparing their news to the Finnish ones. Personally I don't see the problem with the media being biased towards what is close to their readers. I have problem with readers who don't follow any media but that of their own country. And sometimes just following the major English speaking sources don't seem to cut it either.

Finnish media is hilarious in its reporting about Russia. They may cite sources, but when you compare the original source to the piece of news, more often than not you can conclude that either...

a) The journalist spoke even worse Russian than I do and misunderstood the content.
b) The journalist understood the content, but left something crucial out of it.
c) The journalist understood the content and didn't leave anything out of it, but didn't bother separating his/her own thoughts and opinions from the source text.

And in almost all cases they cite tabloids as proper sources without bothering to mention or probably even check that they are tabloids. I have even seen them calling RIA Novosti a newspaper.

And this is how the vast majority of the population forms their opinion of our neighbor country and the people living there.