Gonzalo Lira’s merciless attack by the Daily Beast will be remembered for years and make many hacks think before taking a swipe at America’s finest institutions.

The disappearance of U.S. citizen journalist Gonzalo Lira looked like a new low point for the war in Ukraine. Sure, at least six western journalists so far have been killed in the conflict but the Chilean-born Lira’s case was quite special on so many levels – chiefly that in mid-April he seemed to have been taken by Ukrainian forces (or neo-Nazi brigades which they support) after being tipped off by a western media outlet. Or at least that’s what Lira claims in his last video clip he posted just hours before disappearing. Remarkably, he claims if he were to be killed, it would be down to a petulant reaction from journalists working for the Daily Beast, who he seems to have clashed with – and who took it upon themselves to tell the Ukrainian government his exact location.

Another point which made Lira’s disappearance so unique and sets him above the others who have died is the man himself. It is practically unheard of for journalists in Ukraine to “cross the line” and to report from the side of the conflict where their own sympathies do not jar. In other words, Lira, although among Ukrainian citizens in regions which were held by Ukrainian forces was, unlike the vast majority of western journalists, not at all sympathetic in any way to Zelensky and his government and was considered to be pro-Russian. This makes Lira incredibly special and perhaps a one off. He took a very critical if not cynical view of the Ukrainian elite and tried to report from a colder, more neutral position – questioning everything that he was shown by the Ukrainians – than his colleagues, and in doing so was branded a “Russian spy” which was all it took for the hysteria to be whipped up and for the dogs to be set upon him.

But his claims that it was the Daily Beast which could have been responsible for his kidnapping is worrying as it is unprecedented. At first glance, it seems far-fetched until you read the character assassination article which The Beast wrote about him, red it tooth and claw dripping with vitriol, as a childish response to Lira posting a video on social media running down the outlet. Lira claims in his last tearful video clip to his followers that if he is not heard of within 12 hours, then his certainly captured by Ukrainian security services and that it is the Daily Beast which is responsible for his capture, as, he claims, it tipped off the Ukrainians to his exact whereabouts.

If this were to be true, then the war in Ukraine has hit a new low with western media apparently playing a more intensified partisan role than ever before and taking that position to new depths never seen before in Syria, Iraq or the former Yugoslavia. It spells the end of bona fide journalism in conflict zones, where journalists themselves accept to be used as nothing more than stenographers of fictitious material produced to be a tool of war, along with soldiers themselves. Is this what is going on in Ukraine? Is the Ukrainian elite taking 100s of millions of dollars in U.S. blood money to keep the war going, while PR executives manufacture entirely faked news reports which the western journalists are dutifully replicating without even offering up the odd annoying question? Is this the real reason why Lira feared that he would be killed, because he rejected the format and the narrative and went against the grain of the popular beguiling narrative? Was his blogging, which was gaining huge amounts of traffic, becoming a problem for Washington and Zelensky and had to be stopped as it threatened to derail the bigger plan?

The hit job from the Daily Beast is beneath their journalists. It beggars belief that a respected international news publication would stoop so low to smear the reputation of a blogger. Was it merely an act of repugnant petulance between journalists, a spat which got out of hand, which resulted in the appalling slur article which painted a picture of him as being someone of low moral fibre? Or is there something darker lurching in the shadows? Is the Daily Beast really what it claims to be or are the somewhat sensational claims on social media about it being a CIA asset of some sort, true?

We are being tricked in the Ukraine and Lira is an amateur who threatened to burn the whole circus down to the ground. His merciless attack by the Daily Beast though will be remembered for years and make many hacks think before taking a swipe at America’s finest institutions. Just read what the Beast summarised.

“He also created a 22-minute-long video preemptively warning his followers not to trust anything The Daily Beast writes, concocting a fantastical narrative in which every journalist secretly knows he and his ilk are right about the things they say but chooses to print lies because “everybody who works at the mainstream media is by definition a piece of shit.” He added that he is better than the mainstream media because he can “say the truth,” and suggested this article was developed at least in part because The Daily Beast writers envy and resent his freedom”.

Ain’t that the truth?

Since writing this article, Gonzalo Lira has emerged safe and well.