Former Senior Australian diplomat defends edits made to Reuters’ story by RNZ journalist.

In an article weighing in on the Radio New Zealand inquiry into alleged “pro-Russia propaganda” being sub-edited into Reuters’ stories, a senior Australian diplomat says he agrees with every word of the edits the RNZ staffer made.

Tony Kevin, a former Australian senior diplomat, ambassador to Cambodia and Poland, diplomat in Australia’s embassy in Moscow and author of six published books on public policy and international relations, says the “offending” exactly match the views he has been expressing for years.

Commenting on two articles published in The Guardian, Tony Kevin says, “The examples of journalistic misconduct identified in the two articles match exactly research and opinions on the historical context and causes of the war in Ukraine and mounting Russia-West tensions that I have been trying to express publicly in Australia, as an expert former senior diplomat, since publication of my book Return to Moscow in 2017,” writes Tony Kevin.

“And, as to Reuters’ copy being sacrosanct, the former senior diplomat goes on: “Australian Broadcasting Company journalists edit incoming feeds from Reuters and other wire services all the time. They add context, link to previous stories, add Australian-relevant material.”

The problem is, this person in RNZ was adding such context from the “wrong ‘side’,” he says.

A SINISTER TURN

But Tony Kevin’s comments take a more sinister turn when he identifies a tagline in the Guardian articles which reads; “Additional reporting by Luke Harding,” who Tony Kevin says is a leading “Western disinformation warrior.”

With “a formidable reputation as an inveterate anti-Russian British journalist with alleged strong links to the U.K. anti-Russian disinformation system and even to MI6, the U.K.’s secret intelligence service,” Luke Harding’s association with this story, “…should be a key warning to everyone in New Zealand’s and Australia’s broadcasting world, indeed in the entire English-speaking world.”

Luke Harding, says Tony Kevin, “was heavily involved in the Julian Assange affair and in the now discredited campaign to label former U.S. President Donald Trump as under Russian control. He is known as a leading Western disinformation warrior.”

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