Media

[TsarSamuil]

Duma seeks limits on foreign ownership of Russian media companies.

RT.com
September 17, 2014 09:08

A group of opposition lawmakers have prepared a bill that orders Russian mass media companies to have at least 80 percent of their stock held by Russian investors.

The bill is backed by MPs from Liberal Democratic and Communist parties as well as representatives of the center-left party Fair Russia. Apart from lowering the maximum share in Russian mass media companies allowed for foreign citizens and firms from current 50 percent to 20 percent, the draft bans foreigners from being founders of Russian mass media companies.

The restrictions also apply to residents without citizenship and Russians who have citizenship of other nations.

The sponsors of the motion also plan to impose the similar restrictions on printed mass media, the ownership in which is not currently regulated.

If passed, the bill would come into force on January 1, 2016, but companies that have some of their stock in foreign hands will be given time till February 1, 2017, to bring the corporate structure in line with the new regulations, the lawmakers told Izvestia daily. Federal mass media watchdog Roskomnadzor will be made responsible for overseeing these operations.

One of the bill’s authors, MP Vadim Dengin (LDPR) noted that the main reason behind the motion was the desire to provide maximum information security.

“Those who own information own the world. It is obvious that when foreigners enter the mass media market of any country they practically gain access to people’s minds, to forming of the public opinion. And we must draw a clear line here – what are the reasons behind such purchases? Do they want simply to do business or do they want to enforce their policies and to change the situation inside the country?” Dengin said, addressing reporters.

MP Vladimir Parakhin (Fair Russia) said that the 20 percent limit was chosen because the 25 percent share would enable a blocking package, allowing its owners to exert serious influence on the information policy of any media outlet.

The lawmaker also noted that the need for restrictions became obvious after some Russian recent crisis in Ukraine had demonstrated that some of the Russian press can be biased in their coverage of important topics.

Both MPs added that the bill is in line with international practice as many countries in the world had already protected their informational space from excessive foreign influence. For example, Australia has set a 30 percent limit of foreign ownership in national mass media and Canada has a law limiting foreign ownership in electronic mass media by 46 percent. The United States allow foreigners to control not more than 25 percent of American TV and radio stations, which Japan has set this limit at 20 percent. France will not allow non-EU citizens and companies to possess more than 20 percent of its mass media. In the UK the shares of foreign stockholders in mass media corporations cannot exceed those owned by British investors.

Presently, many major Russian media outlets are owned by foreign firms – either international holdings, such as Sanoma or Hearst, or offshore companies.

Representatives of mass media community have acknowledged the importance of informational security, but urged caution in implementation of the bill in current economic conditions.

“If such a bill appeared under normal conditions it would be illogical, but in the modern environment of the new Cold War the step is quite predictable. Of course it would not improve the quality of our media outlets’ work,” said renowned TV journalist and a member of the Presidential Human Rights Council Nikolay Svanidze.

[TsarSamuil]

Moscow fast-tracks law limiting foreign media ownership to 20%.

RT.com
September 26, 2014 18:42

The Russian Duma has passed the final reading of a law forbidding holders of foreign passports from controlling or owning more than 20 percent of any media outlet. The law, proposed just ten days ago, will extensively affect Russia’s publishing sector.

“The freedom of the press is guaranteed by our Constitution, and won’t be affected,” said Mikhail Margelov, one of the 430 deputies who voted to support the law, with only two voting against.

“The law is designed to protect our national interests, to safeguard the sovereignty of our media, and our country.”

“The information war against Russia has its own laws, and has forced our hand,” said Vadim Dengin, one of the authors of the new legislation, which was proposed by the three minority parties in the Russian parliament.

If, as expected, the law ratified by the upper chamber of the Russian parliament and Vladimir Putin, it will come into force in January 2016, though existing foreign-owned companies will have until 2017 to re-organize their ownership structure. Media that violate the law can be shut down, although not without a court order.

While all terrestrial TV channels in the country are owned either by the state or large Russian media holding companies, numerous cable channels and more than 60 percent of the print media have significant foreign shareholders. Many others are held by Russian businessmen, who hold dual citizenship, which will also make the ineligible to continue as owners.

The legislation will affect leading political talk radio Ekho Moskvy, business daily Vedomosti, which is jointly owned by Finnish magazine publisher Sanoma, The Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal, Forbes magazine, published by German media giant Axel Springer, and the vast majority of franchised Russian-language version of glossy magazines, including Cosmopolitan, Men’s Health, National Geographic and GQ.

Several deputies also noted that foreign companies including the US publisher Hearst, have recently bought up more than 50 regional Russian publishers, including local news websites, which have often been influential in regional politics.

Communist MP Oleg Smolin tried to introduce an amendment that would exclude lifestyle and other non-political publications from the restrictions, but the Duma committee responsible for the draft law rebuffed the proposal.

“We are establishing fundamental relations between citizens and non-residents in the media sphere, and here no compromises are acceptable,” said Roman Chuychenko, from the ruling United Russia Party.

“Any loophole would open the door to machinations.”

The only exceptions have been made for media that have resulted from state-level international treaties, which are currently encompassed by the joint Russia-Belarus Mir television. One of the sponsors of the law, Leonid Levin, said that cooperation with China – which incidentally forbids all foreign media ownership – could spawn Chinese-owned media in Russia.

Previous legislation only forbade foreign companies from holding a majority stake in TV and radio outlets.

In the West, France has similar restrictions on print news media ownership, while the US considers foreign bids for majority stakes in TV and radio stations on a case-by-case basis.

[Krzywousty]

Good for Russia. Poland's media is 99% owned by Germany. German media is controlled by US until 2099.

[TsarSamuil]

Sept 27, 2014 0:56:47 GMT -5 Krzywousty said:

Good for Russia. Poland's media is 99% owned by Germany. German media is controlled by US until 2099.

That sounds...

..very bad..


the saying, "meet the new boss, same as the old boss" comes to mind, west is behaving in many ways very Soviet-like, media control and editing..

[TsarSamuil]

German journo: European media writing pro-US stories under CIA pressure (VIDEO)

RT.com
October 18, 2014 02:16

German journalist and editor Udo Ulfkotte says he was forced to publish the works of intelligence agents under his own name, adding that noncompliance ran the risk of being fired. Ulfkotte made the revelations during interviews with RT and Russia Insider.

“I ended up publishing articles under my own name written by agents of the CIA and other intelligence services, especially the German secret service,” Ulfkotte told Russia Insider. He made similar comments to RT in an exclusive interview at the beginning of October.

“One day the BND (German foreign intelligence agency) came to my office at the Frankfurter Allgemeine in Frankfurt. They wanted me to write an article about Libya and Colonel Muammar Gaddafi...They gave me all this secret information and they just wanted me to sign the article with my name,” Ulfkotte told RT.

“That article was how Gaddafi tried to secretly build a poison gas factory. It was a story that was printed worldwide two days later.”

Ulfkotte reveals all this and more in his book 'Bought Journalists,' where he mentions that he feels ashamed for what he has done in the past.

“It is not right what I have done in the past. To manipulate people, to make propaganda. And it is not right what my colleagues do and have done in the past because they are bribed to betray people not only in Germany, but all over Europe,” he told RT. “I was a journalist for 25 years and I was educated to lie, to betray, and not to tell the truth to the public.”

“I was bribed by the Americans not to report exactly the truth...I was invited by the German Marshall Fund of the United States to travel to the US. They paid for all my expenses and put me in contact with Americans they'd like me to meet,” he said.

“I became an honorary citizen of the state of Oklahoma in the US just because I wrote pro-American. I was supported by the CIA. I have helped them in several situations and I feel ashamed for that too.”

Many other journalists are involved in the same practice, Ulfkotte added.

“Most of the journalists you see in foreign countries, they claim to be journalists and they might be. But many of them, like me in the past, are so-called 'non-official cover.' It means you work for an intelligence agency, you help them if they want you to. But they will never say they know you.”

The journalists selected for such jobs usually come from big media organizations. The relationship with the secret service starts as a friendship.

“They work on your ego, make you feel like you're important. And one day one of them will ask you 'Will you do me this favor?'" Ulfkotte explained.

[TsarSamuil]

RT London ad campaign rejected and redacted as 'politically motivated' (UNCENSORED)

RT.com
October 09, 2014 16:31

RT ads were rejected for outdoor displays in London because of their “political overtones.” Though posters had to be redacted, the original images could still be seen on them, with the help of a special mobile app.

The censored posters, part of RT’s international "Second Opinion" ad campaign, were supposed to feature ex-US President George W. Bush and the former UK prime minister Tony Blair, but will instead show an empty space with a word “redacted” over it.

SEE MORE at secondopinion.rt.com

London outdoor advertising companies have refused to allow the original images to appear on the city’s telephone booths and underground stations, citing the Communications Act 2003, which prohibits political advertising.

“RT’s slogan is ‘Question More’ and our advertising campaign has been calling exactly for that – to ask yourself a question of how would events develop, if the world media reported on different points of view,” said RT’s editor-in-chief, Margarita Simonyan, reacting to the refusal to place the company’s advertising posters in London. “It’s sad that some people do not want these issues to be raised at all.”



The theme of the "Second Opinion" campaign is the Iraq war, and the politicians on the posters are the ones who launched the 2003 invasion of the country. The ads recall the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq, while the war launched under the pretext that Iraq possessed them led to more than 140,000 civilian deaths.

The RT ad campaign kicked off in August 2014 in New York and Washington, attracting the attention of many media outlets.

It was described as “provocative” by The Huffington Post, which added that it was “a serious dig at the way the US media reported on the Iraq war.”


Images of RT's 2014 “Second Opinion” ad campaign

“[With these ads RT] tries to persuade New Yorkers to view it as an alternative to American channels,” The New York Times wrote.

In the US, the ads appeared in the form of wild postings.

In London, the redacted posters can be viewed in full with the help of RTplus, an augmented reality mobile app. Having downloaded the application, people in the city will be able to scan the redacted image and see the pre-censored original ad.

[TsarSamuil]

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Red scarecrows: RT UK launches, mainstream trolls.

RT
Oct 31, 2014



RT UK is available - for free - to 90% of British households - initially for five hours a day. It's got big plans too - with ambitions to get into the top three most-watched news channels in the UK. Polly Boiko and Neil Clark.

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British mainstream freaks out over RT UK launch.

RT Eds
November 05, 2014 20:51

UK news outlets and personalities are reacting with predictable venom to the just-launched RT UK’s pledge to “challenge” the UK status quo.

The "red scare-mongering" portrays the network as a “Kremlin-backed mouthpiece” and a “key weapon” Vladimir Putin wields against Western societies. Even Reuters worried that RT is seeking “to extend Russia's soft power in a close US ally”.

The Guardian and The Mirror went for "laughs" - scrambling up two stories on RT’s ‘greatest hits’ that included an activist refusing to discuss Chelsea Manning’s sentence as he was invited to do, an interview with Steven Seagal who criticized western media coverage of the Ukraine crisis and a video of Putin singing Blueberry Hill at a charity dinner.

The Sunday Times columnist chose the way of personal attacks against RT staff.

RT UK’s launch also coincided with a London panel debate on "countering Russian disinformation", hosted by a UAE-funded NGO – its press release mentioning the only Russian channel – RT. Tory activist and Conservative Home executive editor Mark Wallace got so worked up that he urged British MPs to boycott RT UK on the premise that speaking to the channel would spread “propaganda.”

How could RT now welcome such a thorough promotion of what it does and represents? Never mind the fact that the channel-bashers failed to notice that RT is a Monte-Carlo TV Festival winner for best 24-hour newscast, and a three-time Emmy nominee for topics far less amusing – though no less noteworthy, including coverage of the global Occupy movement and Guantanamo detainees' hunger strike.

It follows that the issue of a singing president is far more difficult to ignore for the mainstream media in the West.

RT’s international stations have always strived to simply deliver news that people are struggling to get elsewhere. And despite these “funny” / fear-mongering UK press pieces, it seems that this is exactly what many are expecting of RT’s new UK channel.

People commenting on the Guardian website agreed:

- At least it might prove a bit of an antidote to the BBC / ITV / CHANNEL 5 news broadcasts from Tory HQ??

- Its coverage of the Scottish referendum was pretty fair and balanced, I thought, unlike some other broadcasters closer to home.

- Russia Today provide balance to the UK media. Counters a narrative and provides a platform for alternative voice. For that I'm grateful they exist in the UK.

- RT is more reliable now than our dear old graun. Great news that we will have another source to compare with what currently passes for journalism in the UK. How UK's oligarch press barons and the elitist London establishment must hate that!

Mr. Wallace’s appeal didn’t sit too well with others either, with Politics.co.uk editor Ian Dunt responding frankly, suggesting officials and commentators should not be “handpicking acceptable outlets”. RT offers “commendable” coverage of UK politics and is a “worthwhile part of a varied media diet”, Dunt noted.

In the end, all the listicles, the panicked appeals, the sneering and snide comments on the RT UK launch, point to the fact that those with a vested interest in indignation will carry on being indignant to their hearts' content.

For the rest – well, they are turning to RT on air, online, and on YouTube, where the outlet has already become the #1 TV news network with more than 2 billion views. As for the 2.5 million UK viewers who tuned in to RT International last quarter – now they have a news outlet that speaks directly to them and offers something different to the same stories in rotation on the mainstream networks. Let’s let Britons decide for themselves if they like this addition to their news menu.


Image from theguardian.com/uk

[TsarSamuil]

Rules for radicals: Songs in the key of Alinsky.

Nebojsa Malic for RT
November 06, 2014 10:45

Russophobic hysterics in Western mainstream media aren't a fad or a coincidence, but a pattern following Saul Alinsky's ‘Rules for Radicals’: constant fabrications, ridicule and personal attacks.

Just a few minutes perusing the Western media will leave one with the impression that the problem in Ukraine is ‘Russian aggression’, that ‘Russian planes’ are flying intimidation missions over Europe while a ‘Russian submarine’ is attacking Sweden, and that ‘KGB thug’ Vladimir Putin is personally to blame for it all.

None of this is true. And none of this is a coincidence.

Nor is this propaganda offensive a recent phenomenon. Long before the February 22 coup in Kiev, the Western press was talking about the (nonexistent) ‘fiasco’ of the Sochi Olympics. Before that, there was the ‘white ribbon’ movement and the demonization of Vladimir Putin's presidential bid in 2012. Indeed, the trail of anti-Russian and anti-Putin ‘news’ coverage goes back to the early 2000s. Meanwhile, Russians have been the favorite villains of American film and TV production – a major source of US cultural influence around the globe – from 1997's ‘The Saint’ to 2014's ‘Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit’.

With the audiences thus primed to see ‘Russian aggression’ everywhere, it is easy for the media to report seeing ‘Russian convoys’, but offer no photos to back that up – even in this era of ubiquitous cellphone cameras – or level the monstrous accusation that Russia or the Donetsk defenders shot down the Malaysian passenger jet.

The hysteria of “Putin's killed my son” (actual headline from the Daily Mail, UK) abruptly stopped the moment Russia offered evidence of Kiev's culpability; but just a month or so later, Western media would mention in passing that MH17 was ‘shot down by pro-Russian separatists’, as if it were an established fact rather than malicious fabrication.

Last, but not least, there is ‘flipping the script’: accusing Russia of things the West itself is doing. Thus US officials can say that Russia is ‘on NATO's doorstep’ when it was NATO's eastward expansionism that put this aggressive alliance on the borders of Russia. Or saying that Russia is the ‘aggressor’ that is ‘invading’ Ukraine, when it is the Kiev junta's troops (backed by the US and EU) invading the eastern regions refusing to recognize the coup government.

Shortly before his death in 1971, radical American political activist Saul Alinsky published a book called ‘Rules for Radicals’. Its 10 chapters are dedicated to 12 rules for successful political activism. All 12 apply to some extent to the propaganda war currently being waged against Russia, but five in particular are obviously in play.

Rule 12 (“Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it”) explains why the West is going after Vladimir Putin personally. Putin is made out to be a Bond super-villain, personally behind every perceived slight to the West, at the same time a Stalinist and a Tsarist and a reincarnation of Hitler. But there are also personalized tabloid tales about the Russian president – from his purported flings with Olympic gymnasts to rumors of pancreatic cancer. So far this tactic is backfiring in Russia itself, with Putin enjoying near-universal public support. But Western policymakers and propagandists believe that once the Russian economy collapses due to ‘sanctions’ (another bit of wishful thinking), the Russians will blame Putin personally.

This is the same propaganda matrix employed against Saddam Hussein in Iraq, Muammar Gaddafi in Libya, and Bashar Assad in Syria. With Russia, however, open military intervention is out of the question. This is where the Serbian precedent comes in: during the September 2000 presidential elections, the US propaganda and ‘democracy development’ agencies targeted President Slobodan Milosevic personally, after a decade-long campaign blaming him for the post-Yugoslav civil wars. Milosevic was overthrown by operatives manipulating the angry mob mobilized by the propaganda, in what would be the first ‘color revolution’. Unfortunately, it was not the last.

Western propagandists are keen on presenting Putin as the new Milosevic: two authors with Russian names made the accusation in a June edition of the New Republic, echoed a month later by the US government propaganda arm RFE-RL. The purpose of this comparison is to eventually persuade the Russians into recreating Belgrade's ‘Yellow October’. While the 2012 attempt with the ‘White Ribbon’ marchers on Bolotnaya Square failed, they are holding out hope for later success.

If it seems like every week brings a new accusation against Russia, that's because this is the point of Rule 8 (“Keep the pressure on. Never let up”): as the opposition answers one of your claims, bring up another, always keeping the initiative. And if these claims seem ridiculous – from the British press identifying a Latvian cargo plane as “a Russian jet” to the Swedish Navy searching for a nonexistent “Russian submarine” for a week – that's because Rule 5 states that “Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.” But there is also an element of mobilizing one's own populace by stoking fear of Russia, pursuant to Rule 1: “Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have.”

The thing about Alinsky's guidelines is that this weapon cuts both ways. The mere awareness of the Rules being in play diminishes their effectiveness, since the target knows to avoid the expected reaction. There are some indications that the Kremlin is aware of the problem: from Russia's refusal to take the bait and intervene in Ukraine militarily, to sending the West a message via Putin's visit to Serbia. All in line with Rule 9: “The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself.”

As the increasingly unhinged Western propaganda is demonstrating every day, the Russia they've created in their fearful imagination is far more terrifying than anything the Russians themselves can come up with.

[TsarSamuil]

Russia launches foreign news service to fight West's 'propaganda'

AFP - November 10, 2014 11:46 AM

Moscow (AFP) - Russia launched a new state-funded foreign news service Monday to challenge the "aggressive propaganda" of the West and provide an "alternative interpretation" of global events.

The new media brand, Sputnik, is the reworked foreign language service of the state-owned RIA Novosti news agency and Voice of Russia radio, which underwent a major rehaul last December under the leadership of notorious anchorman Dmitry Kiselyov.

Launching Sputnik before an audience including diplomats and government officials, Kiselyov said the new outlet will propagate a "multi-coloured" world where "Russia is Russian."

"We are against aggressive propaganda that is now being fed to the world and which forces a unipolar construction of the world," he said.

"We believe that it is unrealistic, that it leads humanity toward suffering and blood, and that there will be nothing good along this path."

Kiselyov is well-known as an anchor of weekend programming on the Rossiya channel, where he at one point boasted that Russia could turn the United States into radioactive ash.

In another infamous talk show appearance, Kiselyov suggested that homosexuals should be banned from donating blood and their hearts burned if they are involved in a car accident.

RIA Novosti was hastily disbanded in December and Kiselyov put at the helm of the newly-created Rossiya Segodnya.

While RIA Novosti continues to use the brand in the Russian language, its foreign language website and social networking pages now redirect to SputnikNews.

In March Kiselyov was blacklisted by the European Union due to his "propaganda supporting the deployment of Russian forces in Ukraine."

He said the new company would focus on radio and online formats, hiring up to 70 people in each of its "hubs" around the world, including all of the former Soviet countries, Washington, Beijing, and several European capitals.

"We will give alternative interpretations for which there is definitely a demand in the world," he said.

"The world is tired that one country is considering itself exceptional and bound to lead," Kiselyov said, clearly referring to the United States.

He stressed that total coverage every day in four languages -- English, Chinese, Arabic and Spanish -- will exceed that of Radio Moscow, the Soviet foreign broadcaster that was the Kremlin's mouthpiece during the Cold War.

Russia has been waging an information war over the crisis in Ukraine at a time when relations with the West are at their lowest point since the Cold War.

[TsarSamuil]

RT on Ofcom ruling: Impartiality requirements must apply to all media equally.

RT Eds: commentary, views, feedback and responses from RT’s global team
November 11, 2014 14:58

UK media watchdog Ofcom has threatened RT with “statutory sanctions,” having ruled the TV channel “failed to preserve due impartiality” in four of its news bulletins aired in March this year and covering events in Ukraine.

We at RT want to reassure our commitment to Ofcom requirements and state that our channel is devoted to continuing to abide by these requirements. But it also remains to be seen if other British broadcasters would be able to pass the monitor’s impartiality test, or if other broadcasters will stick to the same rules and conditions, which is currently hardly the case.

“We recognise that TV Novosti [RT], providing a service with a Russian background, will want to present the news from a Russian perspective,” the ruling issued on Monday says. “However, all news must be presented with due impartiality: that is with impartiality adequate or appropriate to the subject and nature of the programme.”

Specifically, Ofcom believes the RT reports “did not adequately reflect the viewpoint of the interim Ukrainian Government,” while its opponents received significantly more air-time.

RT’s Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan responded to the ruling by saying, “We accept the decision of Ofcom to have held, in effect, that a government’s viewpoint must always be reflected and given due weight when it is criticized in the reporting of major political controversies. We look forward to Ofcom applying today's ruling impartially to all broadcasters reporting on any government, irrespective of its political leaning."

“Broadcasters under UK jurisdiction do not always reflect the viewpoint of governments perceived as politically opposed to European and/or US political establishments. This ruling means that this will have to change, at least for those broadcasters regulated by Ofcom, if double standards are to be avoided.”

Examples of the BBC's 'impartial' coverage of the Ukraine crisis and other major events were not difficult to find. Simonyan mentions a few in her blog.

1) The BBC’s August 22nd report titled Russian Convoy Sparks Fury in Kiev, Ukraine, cited President Poroshenko accusing Russia of violating international law by sending an “unauthorized” humanitarian convoy, unaccompanied by Red Cross officials and bypassing customs. The report also cited Valentin Nalivaiko, head of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), who accused Russia of launching a “direct invasion” into Ukraine. However, the report contained no mention of Russia’s case for sending the convoy in the first place, including Russia’s earlier repeated statements warning of a “humanitarian catastrophe” in Eastern Ukraine.

2) Reporting on the fighting in Eastern Ukraine late in August, a BBC presenter bluntly told his audience that the town of Novoazovsk had been “mainly captured by Russian troops and armor.” The same report also cited Ukraine’s Prime Minister Arseny Yatsenyuk, US President Barack Obama and a NATO spokesperson, all of them claiming that Ukraine had been “invaded by Russian troops,” and that Russia was “responsible for the violence in Eastern Ukraine.” The only Russian source cited in the report was Vitaly Churkin, Russia’s Ambassador to the UN, who was quoted saying, “The violence in Eastern Ukraine is a direct consequence of Kiev’s policies and the war it has been waging on its own people.”

3) The BBC took down an August 23rd report by one of its correspondents regarding the MH17 crash, which featured eyewitness accounts and opinions from militia fighters. The broadcaster explained the report in question contained “a number of omissions” and failed to comply with the BBC’s “editorial guidelines.”

4) During a live debate on Gaza, an external commentator started questioning the BBC’s objectivity in covering the issue. The guest’s transmission was abruptly disconnected, ostensibly due to a “technical malfunction.”

5) In a September 11th report on the Scottish Independence Referendum, the BBC edited out a soundbite from Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond, who was accusing the broadcaster of distorting facts and colluding with the government in order to frustrate the Indyref campaign. The BBC insists its coverage of the referendum was fair and objective, “in line with the BBC’s editorial guidelines.” The report claimed that Salmond had not responded to a query from a BBC correspondent, although Salmond had, in fact, provided an extensive response.

[TsarSamuil]

Pussy Riot talk politics and RT in London.

RT.com
November 14, 2014 16:25

Former members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot are visiting to London for the first time. Besides Trafalgar Square selfies, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina spoke to the Guardian, extensively about RT.

Much of the Guardian’s ‘exclusive’ coverage of Tolokonnikova and Alyokhina’s visit was dedicated to slagging RT, no doubt in the wake of RT UK’s launch, which was met with a wave of sneering from the UK mainstream. The same week UK regulator Ofcom announced it was censuring RT, citing a lack of ‘due impartiality’ on Ukraine coverage in March this year.

“We have to conquer it,” Alyokhina told reporters. “Some on the [political]left regard it as an alternative source of media,” that “obviously it’s good to have all voices on the field,” but that “leftists in the West should realize it’s in no way a leftish channel.”

The girls touched on how watching and appreciating RT is a perfectly natural thing to do if you’re a disillusioned Westerner trying to make sense of the world.

Alyokhina and Tolokonnikova spent 16 months in a Russian women’s prison for hooliganism motivated by religious hatred. Upon their release under amnesty they pledged to fight for prisoners’ rights.

The two, who had previously won praise from western pop icons such Madonna and Bjork, began a US concert tour, causing a rift with other Pussy Riot members.

There was no singing in London, but both brandished new hair color.

[TsarSamuil]

CNN’s Amanpour show edits out criticism by visiting RT host.

RT.com
November 24, 2014 13:20

Last week, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour invited RT’s Anissa Naouai to discuss what the US channel called ‘a heated propaganda war’ by the Russian government. But it never showed viewers Naouai’s criticism of Amanpour's own propaganda exercises.

Naouai, host of RT’s In The Now, was invited to speak along with Mikhail Kasyanov, a former Russian prime minister and a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin’s policies.



RT offers a complete video of Naouai's answers, as well as the full transcript of the discussion below.

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Mr. Kasyanov, Anissa Naouai in Moscow, thank you both very much indeed for joining me. Let me first ask you, Mikhail Kasyanov, Mr. Putin, President Putin seems to believe that Russia has an image problem and wants to change the way Russia is portrayed around the rest of the world. It is an image problem or is there a problem, a policy problem?

MIKHAIL KASYANOV: That's a deep problem of the policy. The problem of Mr. Putin, because Mr. Putin believes that such a policy he pursues internally and externally, that's normality in 21st century, which is absolutely not. And therefore he is sometimes even angry on the Western society, why the Western society doesn't accept his regime as normal one. Therefore that's a problem of mentality rather than of image.

AMANPOUR: Anissa, let me ask you, do you feel that "Russia Today" and other state-sponsored media is specifically designed to counter what your government, your president believes is a bad image problem, an unfair shake in the West?

ANISSA NAOUAI: Just to be clear he's not my president. I'm an American. He's the Russian president. And "Russia Today" airs to a global audience. So it's not really watched in Russia; it's in English; many people across Russia don't really turn to Russia Today to get their news. And I certainly don't represent the Russian media as a whole. I represent RT and more so myself. But I think specifically about RT – because it's been in the media quite a lot recently to focus on that – I think the thing about RT which is misunderstood by a lot of people, not our viewers, because they know very well, is that we have nothing to hide. People know where our funding comes from. We're "Russia Today." We're funded by the Kremlin, despite the sort of addressing by foreign media that it's some kind of revelation of investigative journalists. Our budget is completely open. It's completely transparent, even though it's misquoted very often. And so it's interesting to us that these kind of questions are asked by the mainstream media, by a channel like CNN, who has journalists that have left the channel because documentaries on Bahrain haven't been run like "I-Revolution" a couple of years ago, which air programs like "Eye on Georgia," "Eye on Kazakhstan," "Eye on Lebanon," which are essentially government-sponsored programs. And that's barely, very, very secretly disclosed to the audience. You really have to go on the site and dig for it to find that these are not sort of just basic, unbiased reporting on the ground. These are government sponsored programs aired on television. So it's interesting to have questions asked of us, staff at "RT," how do we feel about kind of representing the Russian government. Our viewers know that we're funded by the Kremlin. They watch RT with this in mind. And this is why we're getting viewers. Because if you actually turn on RT, you'll see that we cite the Ukrainian government. We cite NATO. We cite the State Department. We cite the American side. Yes, of course, we also cite the Russian perspective, and of course maybe even more so because that's the perspective that we feel is being sidelined.

WATCH THE SHOW AS AIRED ON CNN



AMANPOUR: Anissa, you have now had a long preamble. But I didn't actually get you to answer my question and that is does one believe – do you believe that you're there specifically to counter a weight problem when it comes to the weight of information? And let me ask you specifically about the whole idea, which is one of the big issues at play inside Russia and RT’s representation of it abroad, and that is describing the nature of what's happening in Ukraine. For months and months and months now, Russians and Russian state media and Kremlin-funded media, such as yourself, have portrayed Ukraine as sort of phobic to pro-Russian separatists or minorities there as neo-Nazis, fascists who just want to abuse and assault them. And that has appeared on your channel. And President Putin has said it several times. My question obviously is what is the point of that? And let me first just play this piece of an interview from President Putin not to your channel, but he said it before to a German channel just this weekend. [TECHNICAL PROBLEMS] From President Putin, this past Sunday: "We're truly concerned that the wish to start ethnic cleansing may soon arise there." He's talking about Ukraine. "We're afraid that the Ukraine will become immersed in neo-Nazism. You can see people wearing swastikas on their sleeves and the SS insignia on the helmets of some units fighting in the Eastern Ukraine at the moment." And of course, you all remember the big – the big sort of billboards that Russian television and media put up during the Crimea referendum, equating, you know, Russia – or rather saying the choice is Russia or neo-Nazism. So I guess, Anissa, my point to you is, why go to such efforts to brand Ukraine as such, when the polling data itself says that less than two percent of the people actually voted for any kind of far right group? You know, I'm asking you because it's so important in the way people understand what's happening in Eastern Ukraine.

NAOUAI: Yes, I agree it's important. I think what you're trying to say is that it's perhaps being exaggerated, the threat of neo-Nazis, which perhaps is true. I'm not Russian. The Russian people lost almost 30 million people fighting fascism during the Second World War. Who am I to say that this is a made-up threat? There's clear documentation, Christiane, which obviously you have access to, obviously your audience, our audience has access to. There are people that walk through the streets of Kiev with swastikas on. There are – there is this trend of tying in this kind of glorification of Nazism with the anti-Russian sentiment that is trying to be up in the West. And there's also, I think what Putin was referring to there was not so much the Nazi trends, but the civilians being killed, which organizations like Human Rights Watch, like Amnesty International, like your own reporter – one of my, I think, one of the most powerful reports I've seen from the East, to be quite frank, was not from Russia Today. It was from your reporter, Diana Magnay. And she's in the East. And basically it's a phenomenal report. I mean, it's horrific and it was civilians in the East calling themselves Ukrainians and saying stop killing us, Petro Poroshenko. Stop killing us. So to imply that this is not going on, that civilians are not being killed by the Ukrainian army – let's be very specific here – and this is what you have on camera. Was this report run on CNN around the clock? No!

AMANPOUR: But that’s not what I was asking, Anissa. Anissa, I was asking - obviously there's a war going on and we understand there are hundreds if not thousands of people have been killed. I'm talking about the specific characterization of a policy of fascism and neo-Nazism, which your president – or rather the Russian president – and the foreign minister and other senior officials keep repeating. So let me turn to Mr. Kasyanov, who used to be prime minister there. Is there, do you believe – Anissa admitted there might be exaggeration. Is it more than exaggeration? And as such, is it a fair interpretation of what's going on and what are the consequences?

KASYANOV: That's not –

NAOUAI: I didn't admit that it was an exaggeration. I said who are we to say that it’s an exaggeration as non-Russians. 30 millions of them were killed in World War II. I said, “Who are we to say it’s an exaggeration?” That’s what I said exactly.

AMANPOUR: No, you didn't say that. You said they may – that might be an exaggeration, but then who are we to say that fears are exaggerated? I've got that on record. So don't worry about it. That's going to be played.

NAOUAI: Yes, I didn’t admit that it was an exaggeration.

AMANPOUR: All right. But you actually did and I'll play it and you can dispute it afterwards if you like. But I will play it and it's not a problem. It's what you said. Now I'm putting it to you, Mr. Kasyanov. What are the consequences of inflating these numbers? And I will say that there is a huge attempt to tar the Ukrainian government as neo-fascist when two percent, less than two percent, voted for far right groups in the last elections in May.

KASYANOV: I will say that’s not exaggeration, that’s deliberate policy of Mr. Putin. And just all these reasons and arguments Mr. Putin provides, they are simply bizarre. How can –

AMANPOUR: But it’s designed for something, Mr. Kasyanov. What is it designed to do?

KASYANOV: Yes, exactly. Just Mr. Putin thinks just all people just simply just idiots all over the world. Just you have just mentioned nice figures, just less than two percent voted for far right people, politicians in Ukraine. And what the reason for annexation for Crimea, what the reason of acceleration of these military conflict in the Eastern Ukraine? That is, as you said, correctly, that’s some kind of imagination that there is a danger for Russian-speaking people and for just pressing them and just putting them in a just bad position. That’s absolutely lie.

AMANPOUR: How successful, though, has Anissa's channel been and other Kremlin-sponsored state-funded media in Russia? How successful are they?

KASYANOV: All these channels, they never describe reasons why just this annexation and the war started. They prefer to describe what's going on now, there. Hundreds of people killed and just problems – other people just having problems because of the war.

AMANPOUR: Right, but my question to you is how successful is it in convincing people in Russia or around the world?

KASYANOV: In Russia, it’s absolutely successful. People are fooled by state propaganda. All media under full control of Mr. Putin. And this enhanced adoration by him and his team and in fact they popular social – sociological poll for 85 percent of support of Putin's policy in Ukraine, that is a result of – that's the result of this propaganda. And unfortunately, I have to admit that even educated people who understand that it's not possible to behave in 21st century in this manner Mr. Putin does, they think that annexation or just joining of Crimea to Russia is fair, because of the simple reason – all people living in Russia today, they got their information through their textbooks in schools, history that Crimea was always Russian. And they don't support Mr. Putin. But they believe Mr. Putin will disappear but Crimea will still be part of Russia. That's why that there is a such a - I wouldn’t say consensus, but popular view on what's going on in Ukraine.

AMANPOUR: Anissa, can I come back to you? Because that's one issue. But another gathering fear, certainly in the West – and the Financial Times has been writing about it – is the idea that President Putin, either publicly or with certain individuals who he talks to and other powerful figures in Russia, are, quote-unquote, "putting the nuclear gun on the table now." And let me read you a few things that have been written over here. Apparently President Putin has told domestic audiences that outsiders should, quote, "not mess with us, because Russia is one of the leading nuclear powers." Does it worry you, that kind of thing? And when Russians start to talk about their nuclear arsenal, do you – does your sensibility start getting heightened? How do you decide to cover this when you have your editorial meetings?

NAOUAI: Again, Russia Today airs to the West. So we have a global audience. And we cover stories that we think affect a global audience and especially with the Ukraine crisis, a lot of the mainstream narrative dictates what exactly we cover. We come to work and we see a lot of holes in the stories that you're telling your audience, holes that can be easily closed by just going online, trying to verify videos, trying to get kind of different sorts of perspectives on the air. So that helps a lot in trying to decide what we're going to cover. And I think it's careful when – you need to be careful when you start bringing these sort of nuclear threats taken out of context. This is a very serious issue. And as journalists, we need to be careful when we pick and choose what quotes we want to give to a global audience. I have to say I do not know what you're referencing specifically about this Russian – what Putin said to a Russian television. To be honest, I work a lot and I don't exactly watch the Russian media every night. RT airs to a global audience.

AMANPOUR: I know you keep saying that, but RT is –

NAOUAI: I’m not sure exactly what channel you’re referring to or what speech you're referring to. But I do know – but I want to – I want to make this clear, that I do know that Putin has made it very clear to the Russian people that he's not looking for war, but he will continue to protect Russian interests. And when you're talking about military aggression and about perspectives of Russia around the world, all you need to do is look at a map. Look at a map and look where Ukraine is and look where Russia is and look where the United States is and then look at all of the countries and bases surrounding Russia. And tell the audience again that Russia is the aggressor here.

AMANPOUR: Let me ask you, because you brought up verifying video – and again it's on a state-run television, it's not RT, but it's state-run television. And let's be – let's be fair also – RT and all its other incarnations does get traction inside Russia. But anyway, Channel 1 made international headlines last week because it broadcast, quote, "sensational photographs of what it said were satellite images of a Ukrainian fighter jet shooting down Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17." As we know, what happened then, 289 people on board. Now critics immediately pointed out discrepancies in this imagery. Apparently it displayed the wrong markings for the Malaysian flight and it just was a fake image. When that happens, do you feel that it's in your realm of responsibility also to point that out?

NAOUAI: Again, I have to point out that I don’t represent the Russian media, but RT. I know the image you're talking about, of course. It should be pointed out also that that image was on the Internet for quite a couple of months – unfortunately this channel took the bait. They didn't verify it. We did, of course. That's why we didn't show it. But to sort of condemn the First Channel for mistakes that we've all make – and I remember very well Jim Clancy of CNN showing a video in Donetsk in May of this year of a supposed helicopter being downed by these anti-Kiev fighters. We went online; we checked the video. The video was from Syria. We never even saw a retraction from CNN. So it's a little difficult to judge. Obviously this is a market, they were trying to perhaps have a scoop. It's a dangerous thing. It's very unfortunate that they took the bait and it's a very dangerous trend. So all I can do as a journalist is, yeah, condemn it. It was a mistake. But they're certainly not the only journalists in the world that make mistakes like that.

AMANPOUR: Alright, point taken. Let me ask you, Mr. Kasyanov, what I just started to talk to Anissa about. And this is a sort of a gathering private sending out messages of, “hey, we are a nuclear power, too”. And the NATO commander has said that Russia has moved weaponry into Crimea that is nuclear capable, should is so choose to make it such. Let’s face it. This is Europe; this is a hot war right now, and it’s between a major nuclear power, Russia, and a nuclear alliance. How dangerous is that right now? What message is President Putin trying to send?

KASYANOV: I think it’s very dangerous. That is absolutely irresponsible and reckless policy. I don’t want the president of my country to behave this way and just use us as some kind… getting people scared about just Russia’s behavior in the near future. Therefore, there’s perhaps such a tension between the West and Russia. And Mr. Putin simply destroys the future of our country. And through this policy he’d like to achieve some kind of acceptance that his policy and his behavior is normal.

AMANPOUR: Could this kind of rhetoric, though, this kind of chest beating or quiet warnings in private – could it have unintended consequences? I mean, one of the worst things in history is the tragic miscalculation.

KASYANOV: It could. That’s why I’m saying that’s reckless and irresponsible, because just the leader of such a country, a member of the Security Council, a prominent member of the Security Council responsible for global security, cannot behave this way, and cannot use this rhetoric just in settling other issues, which are absolutely of different nature.

AMANPOUR: All this really is to ask both of you or anybody whether we know what President Putin wants. Anissa, do we know what President Putin wants? There was a ceasefire agreed in Minsk, there was an agreement, it’s been violated, there are Russian forces moving again into Eastern Ukraine. What does President Putin want? What do you think he wants, given that you are a Kremlin funded sanctioned media? We cannot get Russian officials to talk to us.

NAOUAI: I think President Putin has made it very clear to both Russia and to the international community that what he wants is for Russia to be respected, mutually respected on an equal playing base, and that he wants dialogue to prevail. And so I think it’s very dangerous to sort of talk about these kind of warnings in secret. I mean, there’s nothing secret. All of this gets out. Obviously you went and found this apparent secret nuclear conversation that he had to Russian media that wasn’t supposed to get out. Everything is available.

AMANPOUR: I didn’t say secret.

NAOUAI: There are so many perspectives available. You can go online. You can analyze Russian media. You can analyze CNN. And the audience can go and view for themselves. But I think Putin has made it very clear that he wants stability in his – for his country, and in this region, and he wants to get there through dialogue.

TECHNICAL PROBLEMS

AMANPOUR: Mr. Kasyanov, what do you think President Putin wants?

KASYANOV: In fact, I think Mr. Putin doesn’t want just to build up a new Russian empire. What he wants, the main motivation for all these aggressions – first talking about for in Georgia and Mr. Putin at that time tested waters. And as we all remember, three months after this aggression, so-called just peace plan of Mr. Sarkozy – at that time he was chair of European Union – was destroyed. None of the points, none of the obligations of Russian government were implemented by Russian government. And three months after, the whole relations between the West and the Russian Federation stand on the point as business as usual.

AMANPOUR: But what's him aim?

KASYANOV: The aim is now…

AMANPOUR: The end game?

KASYANOV: - first just to strengthen his support inside Russia, to keep power. For authoritarian regime it's important always to have external enemy and quick victories. Georgia was one victory, which helped him to establish his own strengthening inside Russia. Now just Ukraine. And secondly, he, of course, wants to – the West to accept his regime as normal.

AMANPOUR: And what do you think his takeaway is about Western leaders, given how they've reacted over the last, I don't know, several months?

KASYANOV: That was a real shock for him. He didn't expect, first of all, transatlantic unity, which is absolute basis right now for all, I would say, just talking of normalization of all this environment, of all this situation. And secondly that European Union just taken just such unified position, together with the United States. And of course Mr. Putin spent quite a lot of efforts to have a – to divide the policy and to divide countries inside European Union. But when major European Union countries just initiated and directly supported those sanctions – sanctions I would underline, not against the Russian Federation, Russian people, but against individuals who are responsible for all just these misdeeds. And also against just instruments, which is in the hands of Mr. Putin, like state corporations and state banks.

TECHNICAL PROBLEMS

AMANPOUR: Listen, last question and then we'll say goodbye and you can get back to your work, because I know you have your show coming up. So here we go. Anissa, you told me that you're American and so I want to know from you what your thoughts are about the whole media landscape because there are less and less independent media there, certainly less and less independent television, more and more of them being shut down. I mean, even the Russian government is legislating to make it impossible for CNN and other external broadcasters to actually broadcast because of the tough terms they're putting on us. Do you think that's a good thing? Is that healthy or bad? I mean, if everything is state controlled media, is that healthy for the society or not?

NAOUAI: I don't think that's a really accurate picture of what's happening. I can’t name one television station that’s been shut down, first of all.

AMANPOUR: But it is…

NAOUAI: What - I can't name one television station which has been shut down. I just came back from News Exchange, where we asked CNN executives why they were supposedly stopping their broadcast in Russia. And they said it was a technical glitch with the cable companies.

AMANPOUR: Well, I'm telling you right now…

NAOUAI: You're announcing right now that the Russian government is making it difficult to work in Russia.

AMANPOUR: Alright. I'm telling you right now that there is legislation underway that makes it difficult for us to broadcast. And it's not just us. It's television all over the place. But my real question to you is: do you feel that it's healthy for a society just to get a diet of one side rather than the other? And that is what's happening.

NAOUAI: I disagree that that's what's happening. Certainly at Russia Today, like I said, we always cite the Ukrainian government. We always cite Western governments, Europe. If you want to analyze internal Russian news, I'm not sure I'm the best person to do it, to be honest. But certainly, at Russia Today, we always try to show both sides of a - do we show more of a Russian perspective? Of course we do, because that's the perspective that's being sidelined. But it's an absurd question coming from someone that's propagated the line of the State Department for over 15 years. I mean, it's absolutely absurd.



AMANPOUR: Well, are you talking to me?

NAOUAI: Yes. Absolutely I'm talking to you. Who else would I be talking to?

AMANPOUR: Are you talking to me?

NAOUAI: Absolutely.

AMANPOUR: You've got to be kidding me…

NAOUAI: You've propagated the line of the State Department for over 15 years, starting with Yugoslavia and all the way into Syria. And now you're doing it for Ukraine, essentially. Absolutely, I’m talking to you.

AMANPOUR: Oh, my goodness. Have you seen any of my reports about Syria? Have you seen any of my reports about Syria?

NAOUAI: I've seen lots of your reports and in not one report where you find you questioning the United States government and their policy. And we, with our Russian propaganda, question those arms to the FSA, question those arms to al-Nusra and other leagues. And now today we have ISIS.



AMANPOUR: Anissa, I'm really now - listen, I invited you on this program - I invited you on this program to have an adult discussion.

NAOUAI: Absolutely. But your audience should be aware of this, Christiane. Your audience should be aware of this. You should disclose this to them.

AMANPOUR: And I would like you to go back and… Oh, yes. They are aware of it, which is why they've been watching me for a long time. But listen to me, I would like you seriously…

NAOUAI: I’m glad they do, and I’m sure they know who James Rubin is, I’m sure they watch your work in Yugoslavia.

AMANPOUR: - as an act of research and as an act of education, go back and find all my work on Yugoslavia and all my work on Syria and match that with the - with the - with the policy of the United States government and furthermore, go back and watch what launched me and that was a to-and-fro with President Clinton challenging his policy on Bosnia and Yugoslavia. So Anissa, listen, I have respected you but I really don't think that you should be doing this to me, of all people, on this - on this broadcast and on this satellite link. And you're wrong. And I challenge you to go back…

NAOUAI: Yes, how dare someone tell CNN to check who their sponsors are, what governments they are working with!

AMANPOUR: No! No!

NAOUAI: How dare someone come on CNN and say that!

AMANPOUR: No! Hey, excuse me, no, no, no, you just said whatever you wanted to say. When you become ad hominem to me, that's a problem, because you're not doing it from a basis of knowledge.

NAOUAI: Well, let your viewers decide, Christiane. I think that's the fairest way out of this debate.

AMANPOUR: You're doing it - I don't know why you're doing it. But you're not doing it from a basis of knowledge.

NAOUAI: Let your viewers decide. Let them go back to your work in Yugoslavia.

AMANPOUR: What did you say?

NAOUAI: Let your viewers decide. Let them go back to your work in Yugoslavia and see if it doesn't fall exactly in line with the State Department’s line.

AMANPOUR: I tell you what. You just go and see the interview with President Clinton and then you'll be able to choose, because you can be sure I'm not putting this on the air, Anissa. It's a personal attack.

NAOUAI: I know that interview very well. I know that interview very well, Christiane, and you were propagating war.

AMANPOUR: You're… Exactly. Good.

NAOUAI: You were basically encouraging Bill Clinton to go to war.



AMANPOUR: Oh, and that was what Bill Clinton wanted, was it?

NAOUAI: I don’t know what Bill Clinton wanted. I'm talking about your work as a journalist.

AMANPOUR: Anissa, come on; you've lost me, babe. Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed. I really appreciate it. I'm sorry; I thought we could have an adult discussion. And we can't. Thank you so much. Alright. Now I have to pretend to thank you.

Anissa, Mikhail Kasyanov, thank you very much indeed for joining me.

KASYANOV: Thank you.

[TsarSamuil]

Lol

rt.com/usa/208767-cnn-ferguson-verdict-coverage/

'F**k CNN!" - Angry protesters disrupt Ferguson live coverage.

[TsarSamuil]

rt.com/op-edge/208947-russia-us-washington-think-tanks/

Menace of hypocrisy: Neocon propagandist frets over Russia’s ‘weaponization of information’

RT.com
November 26, 2014 10:36

There was a strong whiff of hypocrisy in the Washington air on November 13 when the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) hosted a discussion of a report entitled ‘The Menace of Unreality: How the Kremlin Weaponizes Information, Culture, and Money’.

The Menace of Unreality is co-authored by Michael Weiss, editor-in-chief of the Interpreter, and Peter Pomerantsev, author of a forthcoming book asserting that Putin’s Russia is a post-modern dictatorship.

Introducing the discussion, NED’s Christopher Walker noted that the US Congress-funded Endowment hadn’t been involved in the production of the report but that it does have “close ties” to Weiss’s online journal and the New York-based think tank that funds it, the Institute of Modern Russia (IMR).

In the course of their report’s self-righteous criticism of the widespread “opaqueness” about who funds think tanks, Weiss and Pomerantsev disclose, in an aside, that their work is “funded by a think tank that receives support from the family of Mikhail Khodorkovsky.” Their critique of the weaponization of money, however, neglects to mention its funder’s conviction for embezzlement and money laundering.

In Washington, Weiss and Pomerantsev were joined in the discussion of their “counter-disinformation” report by an analyst from the Foreign Policy Initiative, a neoconservative advocacy group founded by Robert Kagan and William Kristol, whose earlier Project for a New American Century had played a key role in pushing the lies that led to the US invasion of Iraq.

Inside the report’s cover, which features a reader oblivious to the fact that the broadsheet he’s reading is going up in flames, the Interpreter says it “aspires to dismantle the language barrier that separates journalists, Russia analysts, policymakers, diplomats and interested laymen in the English-speaking world from the debates, scandals, intrigues and political developments taking place in the Russian Federation.”

The similarity between the Interpreter’s stated aspirations and those of the pro-Israel Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) may be more than coincidental. As the liberal Jewish blogger Richard Silverstein observed about a blog in the Telegraph by the Interpreter’s editor-in-chief, “a number of Weiss’claims are based on the notoriously unreliable MEMRI,” which itself claims to bridge “the language gap between the West and the Middle East and South Asia.”

The bio that precedes that June 2011 Weiss blog describes him as “the Research Director of The Henry Jackson Society, a foreign policy think tank, as well as the co-chair of its Russia Studies Centre.”

In addition to a who’s who of neocon luminaries like Kagan and Kristol, the Henry Jackson Society’s international patrons include Ambassador Dore Gold, former permanent representative of Israel to the United Nations, and Natan Sharansky, chair of the executive of the Jewish Agency for Israel.

Weiss’s previous employment at the UK-based, pro-Israel advocacy organization, however, is conspicuously absent from the lengthy “About the Authors” section at the end of the IMR-published, anti-Russia report.

His updated bio, however, reveals that Weiss’ concerns haven’t changed much since his HJS days.

“Weiss has covered the Syrian revolution from its inception, reporting from refugee camps in southern Turkey and from the frontlines of war-torn Aleppo,” the IMR report notes.

As a profile of the neocon Henry Jackson Society observes, its members have been “active proponents of Western intervention in Syria’s civil war.” It singles out a March 2012 piece in the New York Times by Weiss advocating that the US “begin marshaling a coalition for regime change in Syria consisting of countries” like “Britain, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.”

In an interview with the Jerusalem Post last year, Israel’s previous ambassador to the US Michael Oren admitted that Tel Aviv “always wanted [President] Bashar Assad to go.”

Likewise, one suspects that Weiss’ “set of modest recommendations” on how the West should confront Russia’s supposed “weaponization of information” is motivated at least in part by the challenge Russian media such as RT poses to the monopoly over the narrative of the Syrian conflict coveted by his interventionist friends in the Western media.

Maidhc Ó Cathail, for RT

[TsarSamuil]

It's official: RT is most watched news network on YouTube with over 2bn views.

RT.com
December 16, 2014 09:18

RT’s five YouTube channels combined have hit the 2 billion views benchmark, strengthening the channel’s role as the leading news provider on the popular video hosting service.

RT content on Youtube has generated over 3 times as many views as CNN & Euronews respectively, and 2.5 times Al Jazeera's viewership. over 540 million views were generated by the network to date in 2014



The five channels – English-language RT International and RT America and the channels in Arabic, Spanish and Russian – have more than 2.5 million subscribers.

“Such a significant number shows that RT continues to lead in promoting alternative opinions online – the space that used to be dominated by the mainstream media,” RT’s Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan commented on the achievement. “We are proud of this, and we will continue working hard to remain YouTube’s number one TV news channel.”

Last year RT International was the first news channel to score over 1 billion views on YouTube.

RT’s footage of the Russian meteorite exploding over Chelyabinsk remains the most popular news video on YouTube, with over 39 million views so far.