On Friday, CTV News made the brilliant editorial decision to air war footage provided by neo-Nazis from Ukraine’s Azov Battalion.
The footage documents missile damage to a building near Lviv airport. Pretty standard stuff for war footage and something that CTV News could likely acquire from alternative sources. But they don’t draw from any of those sources, boldly crediting “AZOV” in the top-right corner of the footage.
The Azov Battalion is well-known for its blatant adoption of Nazi principles, seeing themselves as a successor chapter of the Third Reich. They have been frequently filmed assaulting ethnic Russians and others for their Slavic heritage, performing Roman salutes, and donning the insignia of the SS.
There’s no ambiguity here: The Azov Battalion is composed of neo-Nazis.
Moreover, CTV knows this.
On October 20, 2021, CTV News published an article entitled “Far-right extremists in Ukrainian military bragged about Canadian training, report says.”
The article is surprisingly well-written and details many of the abhorrent acts perpetrated by the Azov Battalion.
As CTV News wrote, “The group [that was trained in Canada] is led by those with ties to the internationally active far-right Azov movement, the report says. The Azov movement has attacked anti-fascist demonstrations, city council meetings, media outlets, art exhibitions, foreign student[s], the LGBTQ2S+ community and Roma people.”
Five months ago, the mainstream media outlet was happy to call out these acts. However, now that the old war machine has been dusted off, they’ve changed their tune and are actively using media that they’d previously had labelled ‘far-right propaganda.’
And this isn’t a one-off instance. CTV News actively uses such material for their daily news coverage of the Ukraine-Russia conflict.
As True North reporter Cosmin Dzsudzsa notes, “Looks like CTV gets its Ukraine footage directly from Azov Battalion.”
“CTV Vancouver credited them on Wednesday morning’s segment on the same day President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke before Parliament.”
So far, it appears that CTV News has no intention of condemning the acts of the Azov Battalion, apparently hoping their viewership stays ignorant to the abhorrent roots of their news sources.
