A propaganda model suggests that the “societal purpose” of the media is to teach and defend the economic, social, and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state. The media serve this purpose in many ways: through a selection of topics, distribution of concerns, framing of issues, filtering of information, emphasis and tone, and keeping debate within the bounds of acceptable premises.
— Edward S. Herman & Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing Consent
When it comes to the most memorable and influential Britons in Ukrainian history, Gareth Jones is a name that stands out.
In recognition of his courage as the first foreign correspondent to expose the 1932-1933 Holodomor—a man-made famine under Stalin—Kyiv has renamed a street in his honour: Gareth Jones Lane.
Researcher Nigel Colley, Jones' grandnephew, suggests that George Orwell’s iconic novella Animal Farm was partly inspired by Jones' work. The character Mr. Jones, owner of Manor Farm, is believed to be a reference to Gareth Jones, and Orwell’s story hints at the famine and its cover-up.
Who’s Gareth Jones?
The historical thriller Mr Jones opened the door for me to discover Gareth Jones' incredible story—a man who risked his career and life to expose Stalin's atrocities at a time when many Western reporters chose to look the other way.
Gareth Jones was a young, sharp Welsh journalist driven by a passion for truth. With a background in political journalism and fluency in German and Russian, he had even served as a personal advisor to former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George.
In 1933, before entering the Soviet Union, Jones had just flown with Adolf Hitler, conducting an interview that predicted the rise of the Nazi Party. “The Europe of 1933 has seen the birth of the Hitler dictatorship in Germany. What will it see in the Soviet Union?” he wrote.
Once in Soviet Ukraine, Jones secretly recorded the widespread starvation, unattended deaths, and reports of cannibalism—offering critical evidence of the horrors happening under Stalin's rule. His reporting was vivid and haunting:
"I walked along through villages and twelve collective farms. Everywhere was the cry, 'There is no bread. We are dying'. This cry came from every part of Russia, from the Volga, Siberia, White Russia, the North Caucasus, and Central Asia."
Jones' observations were shocking. He described peasants fishing discarded bread crusts from spittoons and devouring orange peels, highlighting the desperate hunger that gripped the region. He noted villages where oxen populations had dwindled from hundreds to mere handfuls, and where people were reduced to eating cattle fodder.
Jones was utterly shocked by the reality he encountered, which stood in stark contrast to the reports from his fellow Western correspondents. For two months, he went undercover, investigating the truth.
He eventually called a press conference in Berlin to share his findings: Stalin's agricultural collectivisation campaign had forced millions of peasants onto collective farms and sought to suppress Ukrainian language and culture as part of shaping the USSR's national identity.
Despite his groundbreaking revelations, Jones' reports were dismissed by his peers, who believed they knew better how to interpret the situation. Many of them chose to fabricate stories that aligned with the interests of influential groups, turning a blind eye to the suffering he had uncovered.
Jones vs Duranty
Walter Duranty, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for the New York Times, used his platform to undermine Gareth Jones, accusing him of jumping to conclusions based on limited evidence. In 1933, Duranty infamously claimed, “Conditions are bad, but there is no famine.”
Echoing Soviet propaganda, Duranty acknowledged “food shortages” as a consequence of “the novelty and mismanagement of collective farming,” while dismissively stating, “You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs,” obscuring the reality of the man-made mass murder of millions.
In addition to Duranty, notable figures like George Bernard Shaw and H.G. Wells also publicly denied the existence of famine in Ukraine. During a visit to the region in 1933, former French Prime Minister Édouard Herriot declared that Soviet Ukraine was “like a garden in full bloom.” As a result of his courageous exposure of the Holodomor, Jones lost his reputation.
Tragically, just one day before his thirtieth birthday in 1935, Jones was kidnapped and murdered while investigating in Japanese-occupied Mongolia. Suspicions arose regarding a connection between his death and the Soviet NKVD, suggesting retaliation for his damaging reports on the Soviet regime.
While Jones paid the ultimate price for revealing the truth, Duranty was celebrated by ministers and governors at a lavish dinner party honouring the establishment of relations between the United States and the USSR. The toastmaster introduced Duranty as “one of the great foreign correspondents of modern times, serving a great newspaper of this city.” Sally J. Taylor, author of Stalin's Apologist: Walter Duranty: The New York Times's Man in Moscow, noted that he was “arguably the best-known foreign correspondent in the world.”
Who’s Afraid of Mr Jones?
Despite the Kremlin's official denial of the Holodomor for over half a century, Ukrainians continue to fight for recognition and understanding of this dark chapter in their history. In recent years, the Ukrainian government opened the National Holodomor Memorial in Kyiv and established numerous monuments worldwide to honour the estimated 3.3 to 5 million lives lost during this tragic event.
In recent years, there has been growing recognition of Gareth Jones' crucial role in exposing the Holodomor. Beyond the street naming in Kyiv, several other honours have been bestowed upon him:
In 2008, Jones was posthumously awarded the Ukrainian Order of Merit.
A plaque commemorating his work was unveiled at his old school, Aberystwyth University, in 2006.
In 2019, the film "Mr. Jones" directed by Agnieszka Holland brought his story to a wider audience.
The University of Wales, Aberystwyth established the Gareth Jones Memorial Travelling Scholarship in his honour.
These recognitions serve as a testament to the enduring impact of Jones' courage and integrity in journalism.
Gareth Jones's story and the haunting memory of the Holodomor resonate deeply within us. Today, the mainstream media in both the East and West persist in serving political and economic interests, controlling public narratives, restricting the flow of information, and fuelling extreme rhetoric and behaviour.
In our current world where fake news saturates the media landscape and distorts our understanding of reality, it is more crucial than ever to study historical events and recognise the dire consequences of media manipulation and disinformation. Journalists like Gareth Jones embody the bravery needed to pursue the truth, guiding us through the chaos of today's world.
As a journalist myself, I began my career guided by three principles: to be passionate about journalism, to fear no hardship or authority, and to remain curious and courageous throughout my life. I admire Oriana Fallaci and Marie Colvin for their devoted work ethic and fighting spirit. I also hold in high regard writers like Hemingway and Orwell, who bravely documented the truth during times of war, placing themselves on the front lines.
Although I lost many battles against censorship, I never surrendered and never ceased the fire to fight for human rights in freedom of expression. The good news is with the development of technology, I have more tools to seek the truth and protect myself with pseudonymity and decentralisation.
Balaji Srinivasan shares his insights on why the future lies in trusting distributed “cryptographic truth” rather than the values of centralised news organisations. More and more people join the journey to proactively challenge the mainstream narrative and focus on building sovereignty and agency to navigate complexity.
The truth may arrive late, but it never will be absent. Gareth Jones’ name may not have been recognised in his time, but it never will be forgotten. The lessons from Jones' story are more relevant than ever in our digital age. As we navigate a world of social media echo chambers, deep fakes, and state-sponsored disinformation campaigns, we must cultivate the same courage and commitment to truth that Jones exemplified.
P.S. I wrote a novella in 2020 after watching Mr. Jones, dedicating Chapter Six to the media and referencing Jones and Duranty. I chose to publish my novella on June 8 to honour the anniversary of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, which was released on that date in 1949.
Ah !!!!
另一道美味的菜
We are lucky you posted again another this week. I like this post about disinformation and adverse effects on society. it is a huge topic that covers all aspects of society particularly Politics, Business , Big Tech and the Economy. Certainly about control and protecting power.
I guess you must be a writer that writes well into the night after the day has faded and you have mulled and reflected on thoughts that have sprung like green shoots during the day. But be careful not to overdo and burn yourself out. Rest is important. Protect your boundaries and energy.
I am not familiar with the movie Mr Jones, so thank you -- yet another to add to my must view list as I no longer work have more free time to design my time by study and of course create. It is uncanny though , just the other day I started reading articles about journalism: ethics, how to interview , do research, the myths of journalism and outlets for one's journalism. I never have been interested in Politics in the past, but strangely this behavior has made me belatedly realize that I have willfully ignored the workings of the world. So I intend to remedy and level up my understanding by reading more politics and social history. Even though most of friends do not like or discuss politics, I feel they are missing out if they do not cut through the hype and disinformation like a detective economist with penetrating X-ray glasses !
Thank you again. I did not know you are a journalist.