Obviously, Canada and U.S. are entirely different political systems with different media environments and so forth, but as someone who likes the content of podcasters like The Daily Show, Trevor Noah, Hasan Minhaj and podcasters/tech journalists like Scott Galloway and Kara Swisher and "free thinkers" like Bari Weiss and her ilk, I am wondering if Canada has any similar content that I am just unable to find with google/duck searches? As a Canadian, I think I should be consuming more content that goes over Canadian news rather than American but our media environment seems really barren if you are trying to avoid CBC produced material.

The closest I could find was Canadaland but after a few episodes, I found that host is of a particular brand of "progressive" that I don't particularly care for.

so, Trump's first term, from what I remember, the news media didn't try to kiss the ring or pay him off to stop him being mean. they took an antagonistic (maybe too antagonistic) role to the trump presidency. Which fair enough, that's their job, to hold the government to account.

But this time around, I never fully understood why the left leaning news media is kissing the ring?

• Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski flew down to Mar-a-Lago to kiss the ring
• Trump and CBS '60 Minutes' near settlement in $20 billion lawsuit

There is also Jeff Bezos revamp of the 'Washington Post' although that one surprises me a bit less given the tech oligarchy and Bezos being a modern day Lex Luthor. Surprised that soulless sack of s**t left the Washington Post alone as long as he has tbh.

There may be more instances of the left-wing media kissing the ring but these are just the ones I am aware of.

An easy answer to the second instance is: cause the executives at these news agencies didn't want to deal with a lawsuit by Trump and the money it would cost them, but if that is true, then how come this didnt happen the first time around? Did Trump just not sue the news agencies until this time? Any ideas why?

And that doesn't answer the first instance of those MSNBC hosts flying down to Mar-a-Lago to appease the baby in chief?

Heretofore, I have held the idea that, 1)Russia is a despotic aggressor, 2)Ukraine is largely innocent holder of resources and land, and 3)Ukraine is largely winning due to a combination of pluck and western supplies.

But I heard a recent podcast, however, that caused me to question my line of thinking. The podcast was Chapo Trap House* and they had guest podcasts hosts War Nerd or something, who seem to have some expertise in the slavic world. And they presented a very different narrative. Namely, 1)Ukrainians really want the war to end, even if the country loses some land, 2)There’s tons of corruption in the military, as bad as leaders demanding payment from soldiers to avoid deployment to the front lines, 3)There are fascist units in the military, and they shake down the civilians, 4) Zelensky was of a mind to deal with Russia until Biden asked him not to, 5)Russias economy is very resilient and has adapted to sanctions, and 6)Russia has been very adept at neutralizing new western military tech, and 7) there is a conspiracy of silence about Ukrainian casualties. Side note, there may be problematic funding of all the open source intelligence arms, especially bellingcat, by US Governemtnt intelligence interests.

I managed to confirm at least partially one of the objections:

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/05/politics/russia-jamming-himars-rockets-ukraine/index.html

But some of the claims seem less strong:

https://kyivindependent.com/a-very-bloody-war-what-is-the-death-toll-of-russias-war-in-ukraine/

Mixed on some of the others:

https://theintercept.com/2024/06/22/ukraine-azov-battalion-us-training-ban/

The podcast was a useful reminder, at least, to retain a humility about my beliefs, and that news media is especially suspect in our present moment.

It’s not like I have any power to influence the outcome, but I do still buy into the myth that a responsible citizen retains some degree of information about events around them. My query to tildes is, what’s your narrative about the war, and what sources of information are you drawing upon?

*I’m vaguely aware that there’s somce controversy around these guys. I find the podcast entertaining, however, and they seem to share some of my values about how a sane society would function, and, like this report, they sometimes really challenge my understanding of what I think is going on.