It happened again. There’s another news story going around about how Gonzalo Lira died in Ukraine. Gonzalo Lira went by his pen name, Coach Red Pill. Remember him?

This story was brought to us by The New Voice of Ukraine via Yahoo News. As you read through the story, you’ll probably get an idea of just how things are going for journalism in Ukraine. Anyone who has ever voiced any amount of skepticism about the war in Ukraine is made out to be pro-Russian.

In a previous post, I pointed out that Gonzalo was jailed and possibly killed in Ukraine after The Daily Beast’s Mark Hay wrote a hit piece on Gonzalo, calling him pro-Putin. At the time, Gonzalo was staying in a country where if a journalist accused someone of being pro-Putin, that’s something that can stick.

I could ask Mark Hay how he feels about this development, but the fact is, when you libel someone, it’s your desire to destroy them. You know how guitarists like those decals that read, “This machine kills fascists”? Perhaps Mark Hay would want one for his keyboard, which reads, “This device kills bloggers”.

While I’m not familiar with Gonzalo’s career, I know that when he went by the handle Coach Red Pill he was outspoken about the state of world affairs, and advocated running off to another country for safety. This was some time before the Ukraine war popped off, and the country that Gonzalo chose to run to for safety just so happened to be Ukraine.

In hindsight, that wasn’t a great choice.

There is an expression that goes like this: truth is the first casualty of war. As I see it, the truth exists independent of anyone’s acceptance of it, and survives any attempt to destroy it. There are far too many journalists who are trying to do just that. And now, a blogger who was in the wrong country at the wrong time has become another casualty in a war between one bad guy and another.