Sure, as soon as you say something along the lines of "oh, you can't believe anyone" or "all media does it" or "the propaganda is coming from both sides" you are branded a shill. Because it's a shill tactic intended to silence a discussion and spread FUD.

That's true. My wife is from Tajikistan, she called her mom and asked about that Malaysian airlines flight that got shot down, and it was like they were speaking two different languages. She goes 'did you hear about that plane that Russia shot down' and her mom says 'oh you mean the one that Ukraine shot down because they thought it looked like Putin's plane?' we were quite confused about what she said until we watched the Russian news and they had a completely different story. The Russian news agencies are state actors, and that's all they ever were.

Did you know that the United States navy shot down an Iranian commercial airliner in 1988? How do you think that was reported in western media compared to how MH17 was reported?

Like this?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/flight80... http://www.nytimes.com/1988/11/18/opinion/witness-to-iran-fl...

Yes, notice in the first article the copious justification and lack of denunciation or demonization. Completely different from MH17.

The first article reports the "copious" justification given by other sources. Please show me the denunciation and demonization in NYT or WP articles regarding MH17. It's also rather different since the culpable party owned up to the tragedy rather than trying to blame the other party. And this after celebrating the (mistaken) kill on social media...

> The first article reports the "copious" justification given by other sources

Which isn't done when it is the enemy. Here is a media analysis of the Iranian downing with the downing of a Korean airliner by Russia during the same period. http://fair.org/extra-online-articles/kal-007-and-iran-air-6...

Here are examples for MH17 after cursory searches (imagine swapping Russia/US in the sentences).

https://twitter.com/fstonenyt/status/489926529619476480

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/19/opinion/malaysia-airlines-...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/22/opinion/roger-cohen-malays...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/05/opinion/masha-gessen-does-...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/22/opinion/Putins-Unconvincin...

This isn't to equate Russian and American propaganda, only pointing out the material and serious distortions of western media.

Compared to how MH17 was reported in Russian media? I think the Iranian incident was pretty admirably covered by that standard.

No, how western media reported each incident. Virtually identical incidents (as close as you can get in history anyway), but completely different portrayals.