[Update] Journalist of German Die Zeit loses it: "Yes, we journalists have treated Russia unfairly"

Disclaimer: As much as the blogster hates to admit it, it* fell for the headline "Yes, we journalists have treated Russia unfairly" [our translation]. 

To his credit, the Zeit writer came out in the second line: Russia should be treated as critically as the U.S.

Hyperbole?

The Zeiter says that the German press has always condemned American violations of international law much more vehemently than Russian ones.

Supporting his argument, the gentleman lists Zeit articles and OpEds critical of US policies regarding the Iraq War, Daisy Cutter bombs in Afghanistan, Abu Graib and Gitmo, drones and spying.

Reading all of these, the blogster can confirm they are critical of some US policies. To varying degrees, from outspoken (calling drone strikes murder) to wink-wink (CIA spying on Germany).

Die Zeit's Mr. Bittner then comes out swinging: none of these comes anywhere close to the violations of international law and the war crimes Mr. Putin put on Russia's conscience.

That is a strong claim, why he bases on two examples: the war in Chechnya and Syria. Mr. Bittner claims that Chechnya did not get much attention in the German press.

Which is simply not true.

The German media covered the slaughter and brutality of the Chechen War in depth. And they cover the "rebels" in Syrian Aleppo even more.

Thanks to the internet, getting a list of articles about Mr. Putin's Russia is as easy as never before. Take, for example, Mr. Bittner's publication, Die Zeit: Under this link, a German reader gets 104 results pages, each with over 20 articles, over 2000 pieces total. On the first page, a single article is less than "very critical". On page 2, the same pattern repeats.

Mind you, this is merely what Die Zeit wrote, a paper commonly regarded as liberal. And "liberal" is often construed as less friendly to the US than conservative or middle of the road papers.

Now, perform the same search for Mr. Obama. If the German press is more critical of the US than of Russia, shouldn't there be zero positive news? That was rhetorical.
Lo and behold, there are positive reads.

Maybe a benign interpretation of Mr. Bittner's onslaught can be found in the undisputed fact that there is vastly more reporting on all things American than on all things Russian? Any journalist at a venerated paper like Die Zeit should know that the U.S. is by far the most influential country on the planet, and that generates a lot of media coverage, much of it in areas where Russia has nothing or is not deemed interesting. Like Russia's answer to Hollywood. Have you heard of Mollywood yet?

So, especially in election season, you are bound to find a substantial absolute number of critical pieces - although many German media even treated Mr. Trump in neutral to friendly tones when he announced his run.

If you are a PhD student, you may want to extent the search to other mainstream German media, and you will find that Mr. Bittner's bold claim is bunk.

Since you have stuck with this post, the blogster would like to offer a factoid which it has not seen anywhere in the German news: German, as well as other Western mainstream correspondents, in Moscow tend to be a lot more critical about Russia than the folks from the very same paper or TV station who report from America.

Again, you can fact check this using targeted web searches for at least the past two decades.

[Update 10/21/2016] Innocently titled "Disaster Relief - What is to be done in Syria", Zeit Online lobed a propaganda doozie over the internet on 20 October.

The piece lists five measures advocated by the no byline article. We'll just give the measures, for justifications, read the (German) article.

1. Set up no-fly zones
2. Arm the opposition
3. Sanctions against Russia
4. Talks with Russia
5. Pressure Iran and Saudi Arabi 

Assuming that Mr. Bittner's commitment to treat Russia the same way as the U.S. is meant seriously, logic says that the statement is identical to "treat the U.S. the same way as Russia".

That sucks, because the blogster now has to read Zeit Online if it does not want to miss their OpEd calling for sanctions on the U.S.

* Gender neutral speech is a thing at the K-Landnews.