Sputnik: What’s it actually saying about the credibility of the Western claims and the western media? Speaking to lots of experts now they’re actually saying that the general public are not buying into this propaganda anymore, they’re obviously more educated, they're more wise, they can do their own research, so the general public are not buying into this, but there’s a massive difference between the general public and the government strategy, what’s going to happen?
William Dunkerley: I don’t agree with that observation. I think that Russia is far away from the act of thinking of Americans. Americans are very self-centered, they’re concerned about their own lives, about the United States and for a long time it’s not about Russia. Americans have become less and less interested in foreign news, our big newspapers and news organizations for decades have been closing foreign bureaus, and they’ve been closing foreign bureaus because Americans are not interested in foreign news, so as far as the credibility is concerned, no, I don’t think Americans recognize things that are blatantly false about Russia because it just doesn’t matter that much to them.
Sputnik: What about the deep state attitude within America? We’ve had other experts who had actually spoken to the Senators in the Senate and they’re talking about the situation in Russia and the Senators are saying — you know the Soviet Union, the communism — and the experts are saying — sir, excuse me, the Soviet era ended 30 years ago and you’re talking about the Soviet era now. This ideology, this liberal ideology, this deep state seems to just to be engrossed within the political machine, how long is this going to continue? When is this going to finish?
William Dunkerley: Well what is deep state? That’s something that’s hard to define. As far as the Washington establishment I’d say that the Washington establishment is very unpopular with the significant segment of the American population, and that’s one of the things that propelled Donald Trump into President, dissatisfaction with the Washington establishment, the perception that Washington is serving itself and not the people around the country.
Sputnik: But in general is it the right way to describe how this media machine works? Someone gets this suspicion about Russia, like they can disrupt the cables, or they can arrest the gay athletes going to Sochi, and the media just picks it up and it becomes self-created reality.
William Dunkerley: For example, in the case of the Litvinenko story, it’s what I would call a manned story, that it was packaged and provided to the media, so it was very convenient, it was very attention getting, the main headline was: 'Ex-KGB spy poisoned on orders of Putin on the British soil', and the story was packaged by Berezovsky and his PR advisor Lord Bell, they put out the photos, they arranged interviews, they provided press releases, and so from the point of view of the broadcaster, here’s a very intriguing story, they don’t know whether there is any truth to it or not, and apparently they didn’t care, it was something that they could put on the air without expending a lot of resources on, it was an attention-getting story, and they ran with it.
Sputnik: What’s the main differences and inconsistencies, discrepancies that you’ve encountered during the course of your professional career? Is it getting worse? It appears to be getting worse in the last 12-18 months, can you see real differential between 15-20 years ago and what’s been happening now?
William Dunkerley: Yes, there’s been a difference, I first noticed a significant difference back when Obama and Hillary Clinton were competing in a primary election, and that’s when I saw the media becoming very polarized and biased. There was a lack of search for truthfulness and a carrying of a standard line on things and it’s gotten worse since then. We have three major cable news stations, we have Fox News, CNN, MSNBC, and when you turn on either CNN and not the CNN that you hear in Russia, not the international, but domestic CNN it’s a different story and with MSNBC also, it’s a constant effort to discredit Trump, and the effort to discredit Trump and the negative Russian narrative have come together and are at this point fused, they’re running the same issue in the American media and so you here nonstop denigration of Trump and his connection with Russia.
Sputnik: But the point is that the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee did not find any evidence of collusion. They came out with an official statement about that but sanctions were imposed on Russia because of this collusion, so it looks like the United States is contradicting it’s own parliament, the sanctions are not lifted even though the reason for the sanctions is obviously not there.
William Dunkerley: It’s like I said, anything that contradicts the narrative that had its foundation in the late 90's and has grown, and grown, and grown, anything that contradicts that narrative is going to seem nonsense to audiences and, therefore, media companies are going to be remissed to put that kind of thing on the air. You hear some of it on Fox News, they’re more willing to show the other side of the story than the others, and they get denigrated for doing it.
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