I am currently glued to the tv, even more than usual. The situation in Crimea seems to be becoming more and more tense by the hour; the prospect that we could be waking up to news that a third world war has broken out does not seem all that fanciful. I just tweeted that we should all go shopping to stock up just in case, but perhaps I was being slightly melodramatic.

I usually watch bbc news, of course, but I just had a cool idea. I just flipped over to Russian news (RT, channel 512 on our system) wanting to see the other side of the story. While I know every news source will have a bias, including the beeb, there is a staggering amount of bull being spouted here. To hear them speak, they seem to want the world to believe that Russia is acting entirely justly, liberating the Russian-speaking people of crimea from an illegitimate neo-nazi Ukranian government. Indeed, to them, the west is being hypocritical, even agressive, in siding with Kiev, and John Kerry was entirely unfair ian his criticism.

I was angry at first, but it is rather fascinating. Their claims might be true, and the bbc, CNN et al might be the liars; given we have no objectiv source of information, we have no way of being sure. Yet russia has a need to present the situation as it sees it, and what is being said here is being said so forcefully and one sidedly that it must be propaganda. To see this happening before my eyes, to be able to see state propaganda functioning and to compre this with what is being said on the bbc and CNN, is intriguing. We must treat every report with caution, pering away the layers of bias, whatever the news channel, to get to the reality beneath.