Slashdot Mirror
Russia Today: Vladimir Putin's Weapon In 'The War of Images'
dryriver sends in a story at Der Spiegel Online about news network Russia Today, and how it is becoming a powerful propaganda tool for Vladimir Putin to use against Western audiences. Quoting:
"Since 2005, the Russian government has increased the channel's annual budget more than tenfold, from $30 million (€22.6 million) to over $300 million. Russia Today's budget covers the salaries of 2,500 employees and contractors worldwide, 100 in Washington alone. And the channel has no budget cuts to fear now that Putin has issued a decree forbidding his finance minister from taking any such steps. The Moscow leadership views the funds going to the channel as money 'well invested,' says Natalya Timakova, the press attaché to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. 'In addition, Russia Today is — and I hope the Germans will forgive me for this remark — significantly more modern than Deutsche Welle, for example, and it also has more money.' ... Russia Today sees itself as a champion of a global audience critical of the West. But it is also meant to amplify the self-doubts of Europeans and Americans who have been forced by recent events to wonder if their own countries — like Russia and China — are corrupt and in the grip of a pervasive intelligence apparatus. In any case, the station has a rare knack for propaganda. ... To spice up the news, directors sometimes use Hollywood-like special effects, such as a computer-animated tank that looks like it is rolling over the newscaster's feet or Israeli fighter jets that fly a virtual loop through the studio before dropping their bombs over a map of Syria."
In 10 or 15 years, Edward Snowden will be remembered as a defector in the New Cold War during Putin's reign. Once enough Russians become unhappy with the puppet show, they will push Putin and Medvedev out.
I skim RT daily. But you know what? An *awful* lot of their content is blatant and clumsy propaganda.
It's truly the "National Enquirer" of the news sites I visit on a daily basis. The only reason I don't go anywhere else for a Russian perspective on the news is I haven't found any other english-translated Russian sites. Given a choice, I'd never go to that trash-rag again.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
The station was even more triumphant when it signed Larry King
I know Larry King wasn't that bad (I found him insightful), but maybe if they take enough of our cable talking heads we might get actual journalists on the news.
At least RT is outwardly funded and influenced by the state so you can make your own determination as to the validity of any of their reporting. I would prefer to know there is a government backed bias instead of having secret influence on the media like there is in many US news outlets.
Russia Today has an edge simply because it has a big reporting staff. This is unusual in the US today. Only the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post have serious world reporting staffs any more.
RT is biased, but it's no worse than Fox News. The embarrassing thing for Americans is that RT doesn't have to make up bad stuff about the US. They just put the bad stuff at the top of their pages.
Go ahead and watch online: Two channels in English. Sad that there is a demand for news bent to the side of a human right abuser like Russia. But the Obama administration (like the Bush administration) before has been so corrupt that outside views are needed.
Does "the West" have a patent on this methodology?
"To spice up the news, directors sometimes use Hollywood-like special effects, such as a computer-animated tank that looks like it is rolling over the newscaster's feet or Israeli fighter jets that fly a virtual loop through the studio before dropping their bombs over a map of Syria."
Based on the last election, I'd say CNN does.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
Just don't get stuck into the trap of aiming for the middle simply because both sides have a bias. Then you are no better than the Americans.... who continually shift beyond Mussolini's Fascism without realizing it.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The modern Russian media is if anything worse than the old Pravda was. If you've recently had the pleasure of trying to have a political discussion with a Russian national, you'll notice quickly that they basically live in an entirely different universe than everyone else. Seriously, day-long Fox News viewers are well-grounded in reality compared to these folks.
In the Russian universe, the driving force behind everything is the USA. Literally everything, even stuff your typical American would claim to neither know nor give a shit about. The entire Arab Spring was started and driven by outside USA agitators. All those protestors you see on TV? All fakes (or paid US agents). They'll do the same in Russia too, given half the chance. You see, NGO's are also all CIA organizations acting to overthrow governments. Thus attacking NGO's is a patriot's duty.
It'll be fun when they start trying to seriously peddle this stuff in the West. I'd laugh it off as clearly unbelievable, but I used to do that with the 700 Club when it started on TV too. Some people bought it, and that made it important, no matter how clearly silly it all was.
For that reason I'd actually advocate taking in some Russian media, just so their behavior will start to make some sense to you. Syrians, wonder why Russia works so hard to keep your local tyrant in power? The answer's there. Americans, wonder what Russians seem to have against anything at all your country publicly seems to want? The answer's there too.
Indeed. The best news I have found in the English-speaking world are the various *BCs of the Commonwealth countries. BBC being the most well-known example, but the CBC (Canada) and ABC (Australia) are both excellent too. Public broadcasters, no ads, less political bias (not to say there is none - but they generally have much tougher editorial guidelines and charters of responsibility than corporate news organisations). All three have a good, free web presence. All three have good 24h news TV and radio channels ... the latter are freely available globally if you have the right equipment and can be streamed online/accessed via an app like TuneIn Radio). The TV channels are a bit trickier to get - BBC is available in the US if you have cable I think, the others stream online but would require a VPN.
u mad that one outlet disagrees with the rest?
Personally, I'm a bit surprised at how many people fall for that whole faux adversarial relationship.
Substance-wise, all mainstream US news outlets are identical, in that they're completely lacking.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
The BBC frequently runs AP stories just like Fox. I think world wide they have more and better reporters, but those people are not often published.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
You know what's a more interesting site?
English Russia. Mostly photo-essay / slideshow style, but with really high quality, large images. Tons of urban exploration themed stories, for example. Very neat.
One of the reasons that I think the mainstream press has been biting it online is that many of them still think 300-pixel-wide images are acceptable for covering a story. I have a camera where I can shoot someone's photo from a block away and practically see their nosehairs, news photographers are shooting with the same or better, and they're posting crappy, overcompressed, over-contrasted, tiny garbage.
The Boston Globe's Big Picture posts images 990x660, and they're so much better it's astounding. They're standard newswire photos - just not compressed to hell and shrunk to the size of a postage stamp like they are almost everywhere else!
Please help metamoderate.
So are we pretending now that the United States doesn't have it's own State Media propaganda outlets? And no I'm not talking about Fox news or MSNBC. They are basically extensions of their respective political parties but not directly run by the feds.
I'm talking about Voice of America: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voice_of_America
They broadcast US propaganda all over the world at the behest of the state department.
But wait you say? This is only directed at foreign audiences like the middle east to counteract the state run media there?
Ah, but no... Congress just repealed the decades old "propaganda ban" and directed Voice of America to start broadcasting inside the united states:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130715/11210223804/anti-propaganda-ban-repealed-freeing-state-dept-to-direct-its-broadcasting-arm-american-citizens.shtml
That's right, The United States of America, beacon of freedom, land of the free, home of the brave, will now have a State media organization dedicated to manipulating the American people into believing their government is Righteous and good.
greater than 1% of our population is in prison.
We have a never ending nebulous "War on Terror"
We have a secret domestic spy network that captures all of your communications
Our government now imprisons people indefinitely without warrant, cause or judicial oversight.
Our president now orders the death of foreigners AND American citizens without any oversight what-so-ever as long as he feels they are an imminent threat.
Welcome to the the Police state.
Russia's not looking so bad now is it?
You will rarely if ever hear one of those outlets cast a critical eye towards liberal policies. They are are just as biased left as fox is biased right.
You might try looking at the networks' coverage of Snowden to see how wrong this is. "Liberal" MSNBC and NPR (can't speak for the others) have actually been mostly neutral, sometimes supportive, toward him; Fox is the one insisting he's a traitor or bringing on Washington talking heads who do.
But no, don't do anything drastic like examine your beliefs. Just keep it up with the "both sides are equally bad" meme, but actually requires no critical thought whatsoever.
Dislike the Electoral College? Lobby your state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
I could point out that the BBC is really just Britain's Russia Today, and go into details why, but it would be a distraction from the more fundamental issue.
Most news organisations operate in the same non-objective way whether they are government controlled or completely commercial. They report more favourably on their host country (and allies) than on enemies. For example, the BBC will report on Iranian police violence against protesters very harshly. It will be implied that the police violence is extreme and unwarranted and the unarmed and peaceful nature of the protesters will be emphasised (with protester violence even being ignored). In contrast, the same kind of violence perpetrated by UK police will be reported very differently. It will either be under-reported ("Police scuffled with protesters") or the focus will be on protester violence.
All you have to do to see this for yourself is do a search and replace on country/city names in articles. Suddenly that article damning Russia for the Seige of Grozny will be an article damning the US for the Seige of Fallujah. You will notice that sentences like "What right does the US have to order the citizens to leave." are quite jarring and do not seem like the kind of thing the news would normally say in this situation. This is your clue that something is very wrong with mainstream media reporting.
Russia Today sees itself as a champion of a global audience critical of the West. But it is also meant to amplify the self-doubts of Europeans and Americans who have been forced by recent events to wonder if their own countries â" like Russia and China â" are corrupt and in the grip of a pervasive intelligence apparatus.
I find it odd that this role is considered bad. Certainly it would be bad in an authoritarian regime. But in a democracy that is the precise role of the 4th estate - they shouldn't be telling us everything is fine when it isn't and frankly it is never fine, how does that saying go? The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
RT?
Not as transparently fake and manipulative as CNNBCFox.
Or NYT and WashPo.
American propaganda is shaped and manufactured by the mega-corporations that captured US government, decades ago.
Example:
GE. They bring you the "News" and the bombs dropped. And the planes that carried them. And the un-earned income for the former congressman who voted to both fund their development and purchase, as well as vote the extra-constitutional "authorization of force", by which they are expended.
Or you never saw the fake Scud feed? Or the "first gulf war" Charles Jaco, CNN fake?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Same thought here ... I grew up watching CBC and the french "Le Journal" for news. When I see Fox/NBC/CNN news ads on American networks I don't even register them as 'news' but something akin to Entertainment Tonight (which has better journalism).
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)