Hey,
I read a strange news story earlier today from my Facebook feed. It was about how a news site that was supposedly pro-Russian reported a news story about Finland's and Russia's relations; the news site was called "fake", and the news story "nonsense".
The site in question is Finnbay, which advertises itself as an online publication which enjoys anonymity of writers (much like The Economist) and does its best to provide a neutral and factual standpoint. They, of course, weren't too happy about being called a fake site by none other the Finnish-Russian ambassador.
The site has since written two other articles, one of them directly confronting the Finnish-Russian ambassador, asking for an apology, and the other about the integrity of Finnbay.
However, a lot of damage has already been done. A lot of Finnish news sites have talked about the story, and so far I haven't seen practically any of them thoroughly investigate or comment on the site's neutrality. However, as the stories include the ambassador's accusations and sometimes even an expert's analysis on "information war" between Russia and Finland, the overall look is that the news site is regarded as a fake site, and this is reflected in the user comments below these articles.
Furthermore, since there has been a lot of controversy around Russian medias and a lot of western countries, Finland included, sometimes like to think rather highly of themselves when it comes to press freedom and neutrality, Finnbay's retorts seem very targeted, and could in my imagination cause a lot of awkwardness if Finnish government / news agency officials were forced to thoroughly reply to them.
Articles in question from Finnbay:
http://www.finnbay.com/russia-foreign-cabinet-finland-hands-tight-to-cooperate-with-russia/http://www.finnbay.com/finnbay-pledges-finnish-ambassador-in-russia-to-revise-his-accusations/#prettyPhotohttp://www.finnbay.com/letter-from-finnbay-regarding-its-authority/An article from the government-funded news agency of Finland, Yle (in English):
http://yle.fi/uutiset/finnbays_english-language_news_reporting_under_scrutiny/7177044Have you come across such news stories? What do you think of these ones?
