Alexander Mercouris

An unlikely nonwestern source of information

I would recommend anyone seeking an alternative view to the mainstream media narrative to what is happening in the Middle East and Ukraine to watch the channel of Alexander Mercouris on YouTube, Rumble, or Locals. He syntheses the day’s events in these conflicts and provides not only the big picture regarding international relations, but insightful political analysis of domestic activities of each of the main players. He has a pro-Russian bias but supports his views by quoting Western media and comments from Western politicians and experts. About 60% of his information comes from Western mainstream media sources, 10% from Western government sources, 20% from official Russian and Chinese sources, and the rest from a constellation of independent bloggers, many, but not all of whom are pro-Russian.  If anyone wishes to contest his observations and conclusions, they had better be prepared with hard data. He is not afraid to call out Russian propaganda that he thinks it’s misinformation or disinformation (can you imagine Anderson Cooper or Christin Amanpour doing the same for Western government propaganda?). He is also very diffident and often corrects something he said previously if it turns out to be wrong. He doesn’t claim to be a military expert and says he has trouble reading maps due to poor eyesight.

If he is a Russian propaganda construct it must be the most underplayed but sophisticated in history. His studio appears to be an office in a small home or apartment in England. You can hear the doorbell ring, dogs barking, and babies crying in the background. He never shows a graphic or video. It’s only his talking head. Most astonishing to me is the fact that he has several ticks and stutters. In this he resembles Emperor Claudius from the TV series of the same name. It is painful to watch him, but like Claudius his intelligence and insight comes through. If someone is paying him, it can’t be very much. He wears the same, not so clean, worn sweatshirt in every program. And yet his daily, more than an hour length show aggregates an enormous amount of material gleaned from news sources around the world in multiple languages. In addition, he has another show called The Duran with his partner Alex Christoforou. Furthermore, he hosts interviews with top tier political analysts like Jeffery Sacks and John Mearsheimer. I don’t see how he could do this on his own. There are not enough hours in the day for one person to research the material he uses. So, he probably getting assistance from someone somewhere somehow, but I haven’t figured it out. His persona is the opposite of any other influencer on the Internet.

Given his pro-Russian bias, I find it amazing that he is still on YouTube. That said, as the fighting in the Middle East has intensified, I noticed he has pulled back from his earlier incisive coverage of that conflict. I suspect he has been told to step back from this. It’s too bad because what he has to say is generally very useful.