Review of Mr. Jones

This is the story of journalist Gareth Jones who traveled to Moscow during the famine in the Ukraine. 

In 1933 he issued a press release describing the widespread famine in detail. The Holodomor, 'to kill by starvation’, was the greatest crime of the 20th century.  It is still being largely ignored.  Journalists assigned to Moscow were completely aware of the situation in the Ukraine.  They preferred to ignore it for their own selfish ends.  Millions of people perished without a care on their part.  Jones was cut from a different cloth. His report was unwelcome in a great many newspapers,
as some elements of the intelligentsia were in sympathy with the Bolshevik "utopia". The movie depicts the depravity of the media elite.  They may be described as Stalin’s degenerate bootlickers. This is not unusual behavior for the media.  Former CNN head Eason Jordan admitted in a 2003 New York Times op-ed piece titled “The News We Kept to Ourselves” that CNN distorted the news in order to maintain access.  

The movie deals with the significant role Pulitzer Prize winner Walter Duranty played in Washington’s recognition of the Soviet Union.  The New York Times published a denial of Jones's statement by Walter Duranty under the headline "Russians Hungry, But Not Starving".  The New York Time's ran the headline: "Russian and Foreign Observers in Country See No Ground for Predications of Disaster."  Of course, since they were not permitted to leave the city.  Unfortunately the movie does not deal with the June 4, 1931 Kliefoth memo.  This memo reveals that Duranty was aware of the massive deaths and that the New York Times had an agreement with Moscow to only report on issues approved by Moscow.

Jones was kidnapped and murdered in 1935 while investigating in Japanese-occupied Mongolia quite possibly by the Soviet NKVD.  This is a high quality movie but is definitely not a Hollywood production.