In any other news week, the title of most amusing story would certainly have gone to the BBC for comparing Putin to a character out of Brokeback Mountain: “Photographs of a bare-chested Mr Putin riding a horse through mountain scenery may of course put some people…in mind of a recent Hollywood film about gay cowboys”.

But that was before Twittergatesk.

You’ve heard the story: “Russian attempt to silence dissident stopped the tweets“, “Root of Twitter’s woes lies in Russia“, etc etc.

According to the overwhelming narrative in the English language media, a plucky Georgian blogger (named George, natch), who also happens to be a John McCain supporter, was targeted by Russian cyber-warriors for speaking out against Russian aggression last summer.

But because it was too difficult to bring down a single web-page or twitter account, the government hackers decided to take down every social networking site in sight, just to silence the pesky truth-teller.

How do we know this? Well, because he said so. “I’m certain the order came from the Russian government”, said George, and the major English-language newspapers have literally taken the blogger’s word for it.

Only the BBC deigned to point out that “despite the blogger’s claims, security researchers say there is “no suggestion the attack was state-endorsed”.

He may of course be correct. After all, recriminations have been flying from both sides in recent days, with many in Russia remain unhappy at the decision to not ‘go all the way to Tbilisi’ and depose Saakashvili when they had the chance.  None of this would explain, however, why George was selected for special punishment amongst millions of like-minded bloggers, in Georgia and all over the world, who skewer the Russian government every day.

But even if all bloggers were not by definition the narcissists and hyperbolic self-promoters that they are, the absolute credulity of the elite free press during instances of such accusations against ‘official enemies’ is striking and rather scary. Moreover, it often seems that a burden of proof is only required when challenging the established point of view.

Indeed, just yesterday the New York Times condemned Russia’s exaggerated claims of genocide by Georgian troops in Ossetia: “It was as if senior Russian officials pulled out a dog-eared Soviet propaganda playbook that called for hurling the most outlandish charge, without recognizing that in the modern global media climate, their credibility would quickly suffer if the facts proved otherwise”.

It would have been a compelling article, had the same paper that decried crude Russian propaganda itself not been so willing to swallow the Georgian variety.