Media

[TsarSamuil]

House panel urges US to fight Russia's ‘weaponized information’

RT.com
April 16, 2015 01:01

The House Foreign Affairs Committee blasted “Russia’s weaponization of information” on Wednesday, urging the US government to invest more in media warfare around the world.

Committee chairman Ed Royce (R-Ca) set the tone for the discussion at Wednesday’s hearing by asserting that “Russia’s propaganda machine is in overdrive, working to subvert democratic stability and foment violence in Eastern Europe,” while the US broadcasting was in “disarray.”

Royce’s choice of witnesses for the committee consisted of Russia critics Peter Pomerantsev, Helle Dale, and ex-RT journalist Liz Wahl. This drew criticism from Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) who said he wished that “we had at least one other person to balance out this in a way that perhaps could’ve compared our system to the Russian system, to find out where that truth is, just how bad that is.”



“Russia is engaged in a major effort to, basically, support its own policies and promote changes and effects on other populations that further the interests of Russia. I would be surprised if that wasn’t the case,” Rohrabacher said. Noting he used to be a journalist himself, Rohrabacher cautioned against a return to the Cold War mentality. “We don’t need another Cold War. We don’t need to take that belligerent stance,” he said.

Peter Pomerantsev, of the London-based Legatum Institute, disagreed. “Russia has launched an information war against the West – and we are losing,” he told the committee.

Helle Dale, of the Heritage Foundation, called the content and commentary from RT and others “polished and slickly produced,” so that “unsophisticated audiences are eating it up.” Dale also falsely claimed that RT had a budget of “$400 million for its Washington bureau” alone. At the current exchange rate the budget for all of RT’s operations is $275 million.

Read More: Info war-mongers: Usual suspects in cash call to fight ‘anti-US messaging’

Last week, the director of Voice of America (VOA) resigned, following the resignation of Andrew Lack, CEO of the Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) after just six weeks on the job. Lack had infamously equated RT with the Islamic State and Boko Haram, continuing the series of attacks on RT and Russia by senior US officials.



This is not the first time the US government has invoked inflated figures of RT’s funding to plead for more funds for the BBG. Then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton famously said the US was losing the “information war” to RT and other media. Her successor John Kerry called RT a “propaganda bullhorn” and asked for hundreds of millions of dollars to “promote democracy” in Eastern Europe.

Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, on the other hand, dismissed RT as having a “tiny, tiny audience” and representing no threat to a US media space “full of dynamic truthful opinion.”

Renowned linguist and public intellectual Noam Chomsky explained the reasoning behind this seemingly contradictory approach. “The idea that there should be a network reaching people, which does not repeat the US propaganda system, is intolerable” to the US establishment, Chomsky told RT.

“If the House wants to study the weaponization of the media, they can look right at the front pages of the newspapers that they get every day,” the MIT professor-emeritus said.“If we look closely at the conflict [in Ukraine], you can find plenty of problems on both sides, but the way they’re interpreted here, is we’re necessarily right about everything. And if anyone’s in the way, they’re wrong about everything.”

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Ex-RT anchor tells Congress how Putin’s media works.

IN THE NOW
Apr 15, 2015



There's been heated competition today on Capitol Hill - who knows more about propaganda machine called Russia Today? Former RT anchor Liz Wahl, Legatum Institute Fellow Peter Pomerantsev and the Heritage Foundation's Helle C. Dale took part in it. No facts or examples - just common phrases "Russian propaganda", "manipulation", "lies", Kremlin-funded". Wahl even said that the Russian media propagates war. Interesting. All of this to apparently attract more funds for the BBG - The Broadcasting Board of Governors or BBG - the organization behind a set of Cold-War-era media projects, funded exclusively by the US government.

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State Dept. wrote to Sony for help in countering Islamic State, Russian narratives.

RT.com
April 17, 2015 21:15

Emails published this week by WikiLeaks reveal that a senior State Dept. official asked the CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment for help in countering the narratives of the Russian Federation and the so-called Islamic State.

Internal Sony correspondence that was leaked to the web following last year’s colossal SPE hack and now mirrored by the anti-secrecy group shows that Richard Stengel, the US under secretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, asked for Hollywood’s help in advancing the State Dept.’s agenda as recently as November 2014.

“As you could see, we have plenty of challenges in countering ISIL narratives in the Middle East and Russian narratives in central and Eastern Europe. In both cases, there are millions and millions of people in those regions who are getting a skewed version of reality. And it's not something that the State Department can do on its own [by] any means,” Stengel wrote in an Oct. 15 email to SPE CEO Mark Lynton, using an alternative acronym for the Islamic militants also known as ISIS.

“Following up on our conversation, I'd love to convene a group of media executives who can help us think about better ways to respond to both of these large challenges. This is a conversation about ideas, about content and production, about commercial possibilities. I promise you it will be interesting, fun and rewarding,” Stengel wrote.

The State Dept. official re-sent the email two days later, and nearly a month down the line Lynton responded with the names of five other media execs, including representatives for Disney and Fox.

“Is that enough for you?” Lynton asked.

In the span between emails, Stengel sent another brief communique from his personal Gmail account in which he asks “Who are folks…I can or should see in NY re: anti-Russian messaging – and also anti-ISIL messaging?”

The emails do not indicate if the meeting ever occurred, but Marie Harf, the State Dept.’s active spokesperson, told RT’s Gayane Chichakyan during a scheduled press briefing on Friday that the US government doesn’t hide its effort to combat threats abroad.

Harf said the State Dept. reaches out “to social media organizations, entertainment organizations, other people on the outside that are unaffiliated with the government” with regards the anti-ISIS actions of the US.

“I wouldn’t draw any big analytical statements” from the email, Harf said, “…other than we’re very clear that we believe people who have platforms who can speak out against ISIL should do this.”

With regards to “Russian narratives,” however, Harf said disinformation originating from Moscow has spawned a much different challenge for the State. Dept.

“There is a challenge with the extraordinary level of Russian propaganda. Factually, blatant lies about what Russia is doing in eastern Ukraine. That’s one challenge for us. There’s a very separate challenge that we’ve talked about in terms of the piece of the anti-ISIL coalition that deals with their propaganda and their narrative, and they are very different,” Harf said.

Last year, hackers penetrated the computer network of SPE and pilfered a trove of sensitive data, including thousands of internal emails. Although the data has been accessible on the web in the months since, WikiLeaks published the cache on the transparency organization’s site this week and along with a feature that allows visitors to search the stolen contents.

Nearly 30 emails hosted on WikiLeaks were either from or to Stengel, and RT reported previously that the correspondence includes dozens of messages between the entertainment company and officials from the US and UK government, including ambassadors others within the Obama administration.

“This archive shows the inner workings of an influential multinational corporation. It is newsworthy and at the center of a geo-political conflict. It belongs in the public domain. WikiLeaks will ensure it stays there,” editor-in-exile Julian Assange said Thursday.

"Working with the entertainment industry is a very small piece of the anti-propaganda efforts. A lot of what we’ve talked about is working with religions leaders, for example, who have platforms and credibility who can speak up against ISIL’s propaganda as well," Harf said on Friday.

Stengel was sworn in to his current role with the State Dept. last February, and previously served as managing editor of TIME magazine from 2006 to 2013.

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US revives MSM propaganda arm in ‘big way’ against Russia.

RT.com
April 18, 2015 05:12

The US media industry has been the arm of the government for decades, but now the Cold War tool is being resurrected in a “big way” to tackle any Russian influence on the information flow, foreign affairs expert Richard Becker told RT.

RT: The revelations show that US authorities are trying to counter what they call propaganda by using propaganda techniques themselves.... what's your take on that?

Richard Becker: Well it is very interesting. This is really a revival, if it ever was allowed to die, of the Cold War. And the Cold War particularly in the field of culture – there is a famous book about it, called the Cultural Cold War - but it appears that the United States which for decades used reporters, film companies, radio broadcasting, all different forms of communication and culture to promote the Cold War against the Soviet Union. And now they are doing the same. And it is very clear and it has never stopped. You mentioned the Broadcasting Board of Governors which has funded anti-Cuba propaganda by paying journalists, and creating radio and TV stations, hundreds of millions of dollars over the years. So that the notion presented by the State Department spokesperson that this isn't something that the US government engages in, or it is up for the entertainment companies to decide is completely false. This is a collaborative effort and it has been going on for decades. And now it is being revived in a big way against Russia as well as against others.

RT: In one of the leaked emails, the State Department asks the CEO of Sony to work with them to tackle the narratives from Islamic State and Russia...how is Sony supposed to do that?

RB: Well of course we can think about different forms that it could take. Again this shows the utter ridiculousness of the State Department claim that it is just to the companies. They can produce TV shows. They can produce movies. They can produce all forms of music videos. It just goes on on and on and on. Sony is an extremely large corporation and they certainly not the only who being approached to do this. But they have many means by which to propagate a narrative, their narrative which shows them the bastion of democracy while whomever they are targeting is portrayed in the worse possible light. And clearly this is continuing to go on.

RT: This revelation shows us a case of a private company becoming an arm of US interests... does this surprise you? Do you think that this is a sign of the transformation of the American private sector into a policy tool?

RB: Well these corporations, the entertainment corporations are huge capitalist corporations. And they have a government that is very much on their side along with other big corporations. And there is nothing really new about this. But after the end of WWII , which as we know just ended 70 years ago, this collaboration was intensified exponentially to turn the media, the big business media, newspapers, movies, TV, radio, etc, the big corporations into arms of the government. And in fact they serve that purpose as arms of the government.

RT: The WikiLeaks revelations also mentions that Sony reached out to an organization specializing in research for the US military and intelligence sector and for advice regarding its North Korea film "The Interview". Do you think we will see more of this kind of cooperation in the future?

RB: Yes. I think this has been going on for a really long time. I think that most people are hearing about it for the first time, but in reality the Pentagon and the military, again really going back to the time of WWII, have collaborated with the movie studios and TV production and other forms of media, when they were doing the programming that the military, that the Pentagon felt was helpful to the US wars around the world. That has been going on for a really long time. It is good that at least some of the population is finding out about this.

[TsarSamuil]

Entire Western Media is a Troll Army.

Sputnik
COLUMNISTS 19:03 20.04.2015
Finian Cunningham

The frantic spell of Western media behaviour could be a case-study in how it is centrally manipulated with a political agenda and thought-control. Editors at major Western media corporations are evidently following a political line cast by Washington and its European allies.

The multi-billion-dollar Western news media networks are replete with an unquestioning, unwavering anti-Russian agenda. This agenda is recklessly inflaming international tensions to the point of inciting further conflict and even an all-out global war.

The roll of dishonour includes "stellar" corporate names, from CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Financial Times, Guardian, France 24, Deutsche Welle, and many more. It is a veritable troll army marching in lockstep with their governments' agenda of disinformation.

In unison, they are functioning as a global ministry of propaganda.

Reputable Russian news media have not indulged in the unquestioning Western narrative asserting that Russian aggression is the cause of the entire Ukrainian conflict. In other words, the Russian news industry is providing proper journalistic services.

Russian media do not talk blindly about Russia's "annexation of Crimea". Russian media have refused to toe the Western media line that, against voluminous evidence, denies the Neo-Nazi character of the Western-backed Kiev regime. Therefore, the Western reasoning goes, the Russian media are a Kremlin propaganda tool and Moscow has despatched a "Troll Army" to disseminate disinformation. How richly ironic is that?

Typically, Western claims of "Kremlin propaganda" are just more assertion layered upon assertion, unsupported by any evidence. The "evidence" is simply that the Russian media do not peddle the mainstream Western viewpoint. So with totalitarian-like mentality, the Western conclusion is that Russian media "must be" propagandist.

A US Congressional hearing last week tendentiously described how Russia is "weaponising information" and declared that Russia is "winning the information war". No evidence is presented, just more provocative assertions piled up on more provocative assertions.

Paradoxically, the charge of propaganda and media trolls is actually substantiated if applied to the gamut of Western corporate news media.

We are not talking about clandestine media impostors, bloggers and cyber-trolls on the payroll of the CIA or MI6 who infest the media. We are referring to the entire professional media industry — a multi-billion-dollar global industry.

Examples abound. Look how the Western media — lock, stock and barrel — went into a collective hysteria over the public absence of Russian President Vladimir Putin last month. It's astoundingly weird when you look back at that frenzied episode.

Putin returned to normal work after not being seen in public for over a week, and he has since continued presidential duties, brushing off the brouhaha. Likewise, the Western media seem to have forgotten their fit of madness, even though at the time American and European outlets had gone into a paroxysm over Putin. The madness has subsided, but only a few weeks ago, the Western news media were uniformly transfixed with feverish rumours and speculation on Putin's absence. Was it a "palace coup?" or "was he dead?" Was he receiving "plastic surgery?" or had his partner "given birth to a baby in Switzerland?"

This frantic spell of Western media behaviour, based on that incident alone, could be a case-study in how it is centrally manipulated with a political agenda and thought-control. Editors at major Western media corporations are evidently following a political line cast by Washington and its European allies. That line is: demonise Putin and destabilise Russia. It may be a subtle form of control, and partly also down to lazy follow-the-herd editorial instinct, but nevertheless the behaviour amounts to spectacular control. And this in a supposedly "free thinking, independent" industry.

Or take the assassination of Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov in Moscow last month and then this week the spate of assassinations in the Ukrainian capital Kiev. When Nemtsov was gunned down near the Kremlin again the Western media went into frenzied overdrive, as did Western governments. Wall-to-wall "coverage" played allegations and speculation that somehow the shooting was carried out by the Russian authorities to silence a dissident voice.

US President Barack Obama's calls for a "transparent criminal investigation" were amplified by Western news outlets who openly speculated with unabashed sensationalism that Putin "may have ordered the contract-killing".

The US State Department's "deputy for coups" Victoria Nuland, while testifying before Congress about "thousands of Russian troops having invaded Ukraine", also presumed to interfere in Russian internal affairs when she "demanded" a criminal probe into the Nemtsov shooting "that meets international standards" to "find the shooter and who ordered it". The latter was a scurrilous swipe at Putin.

Contrast that hyped-reaction with the relative dearth of concern over the contract-killings of three opposition figures in Kiev this week.

One of the victims was well-known newspaper editor Oles Buzina; the other was a former senior lawmaker in the Ukrainian parliament. All victims had been outspoken and effective critics of the Western-backed regime. Their killings follow a spate of at least four other suspicious deaths among opposition figures associated with the ousted government of Viktor Yanukovych, who was deposed last February by Western-backed Neo-Nazi demagogues and their SS-styled paramilitaries.

Those combined deaths point to an orchestrated campaign of political murders to snuff out critical voices.

However, the Western media's response to the political killings in Kiev, compared with the shooting of Boris Nemtsov, has been studiously muted. There are no high-profile calls for "transparent investigations" and no innuendoes against the Western-backed President Petro Poroshenko, or other members of the Kiev regime.

Indeed, the Western media in its relatively scant coverage of the recent Kiev killings have perversely inferred that the victims were either deserving of their fate, or that the murders were carried out by Russian agents in a bid to smear the Kiev regime and further destabilise the country. Talk about not dealing with the facts!

France 24's correspondent Gulliver Cragg told the news anchor in Paris that his Kiev "sources" described the victim Oles Buzina as a "polemicist" (inferring trouble-maker) and that it was "wrong to even describe Buzina as a journalist".

That broadcast by France 24 is a disgrace to journalism, ethics and international law. In effect, it purports to say "Buzina deserved it".

By the way, it is by no means the first time that France 24's Gulliver Cragg has acted as a shameful mouthpiece for the Kiev regime. Back in May last year following the murder of more than 40 people in the Odessa Customs Building massacre, he alluded to claims that those killings may have been carried out by Russian agents to blacken the Kiev regime. Again, in complete denial of the facts that implicate the Kiev regime as the perpetrators.

Which brings us to the Financial Times' spin on the latest assassinations in Kiev. Its report quotes Kiev's interior ministry advisor Anton Geraschenko as claiming that the "murders were organised by Russian intelligence agencies to create an atmosphere of terror and hysteria in Kiev".

From a Kiev ministry figure that's hardly a statement adhering to "international standards" of criminal investigation.

Additionally, the London-based FT prominently quotes the president, Poroshenko, as suggesting that the killings were also sanctioned from Moscow. With incandescent rage, Poroshenko says that the shootings "played into the hands of our enemies… aimed at destabilising the internal political situation in Ukraine, at discrediting the political choice of the Ukrainian people."

Neither France 24 nor the Financial Times quote people who could more plausibly claim that the murders were the dirty work of the Kiev regime.

We pick those two media outlets merely as examples of the general Western response, not only on the topic of political assassinations in Kiev but on the whole Ukrainian conflict.

Rather than investigating the real political climate under the Western-backed regime in Kiev — Neo-Nazi, anti-Russia, illegal, fascistic, war criminality, proven gangsterism — the Western media swing into denial mode, whitewash mode and disinformation mode to cast aspersions on Moscow.

Western media may pride itself with vain self-congratulating descriptions of "independent news, freedom of thought and expression, fearless defenders of truth" and so on. But the truth is that Western corporate so-called news media are simply this: one giant troll army marching in lockstep with the political agenda of Washington and its coterie of Western allies.

Ukraine and Russia are merely one manifestation among many of the Western media's total propaganda function. That function has been around for decades, but it is only now becoming abundantly transparent.

Western politicians may fret about the Western public being invaded by an alleged Russian troll army and Kremlin propaganda. When the reality is that the Western public is already under oppressive occupation of a troll army — otherwise known as Western corporate "news media".

[TsarSamuil]

How mainstream propaganda works.

Margarita Simonyan is RT's Editor-in-Chief.
April 22, 2015 10:58

​The Western media’s starkly different reactions to the murders of two opposition figures – Russian politician Nemtsov and Ukrainian journalist Buzina – is a case study in biased reporting.

Following the killing of a well-known Russian opposition figure Boris Nemtsov, US media outlets released over 100 articles, stories, live broadcasts and reports concerning Nemtsov’s relationship with the Kremlin, the progress of the investigation, as well as statements by Russian and foreign public officials – all in the space of just four days. The rate at which the stories were published only increased with each day that passed. Nemtsov’s funeral procession was extensively covered by CNN, Fox News, CBS News and ABC.

Following the killing of a well-known Ukrainian opposition figure Oles Buzina, leaders within the US media published about 20 articles in four days, the majority of which were short newswire notes. There were a handful of opinion pieces, too. Only Radio Liberty decided to report Buzina’s funeral on April 19 and even this was miniscule in content: a one-minute video and a few words about Kiev suspecting Russia being behind his death!

It’s all quite simple and highly effective.

May they both rest in peace. Senseless victims of a mad world.

[TsarSamuil]

Xinhua News Agency -- New China TV.

New China TV
Mar 4, 2015



China Insight, Global View. Xinhua News Agency, first port of call for the latest and exclusive China and world news.

www.youtube.com/user/ChinaViewTV/videos

[TsarSamuil]

Does anyone watch this nonsense?

CNN broadcasting in Russia again following 4-month break.

RT.com
April 29, 2015 16:09

US broadcaster CNN has gone back on air in Russia after changes to the country's legislation caused a four-month freeze in its operation. It is broadcasting again to paying TV subscribers.

"We are happy to say that CNN International has already resumed its broadcasting in Russia," a Turner Broadcasting Company representative said, as cited in the press release by Trikolor TV, the operator that was the first to launch CNN in its network. Turner Broadcasting is the media conglomerate which owns CNN.

CNN received a renewed broadcast license in Russia on March 23. It allows the network to remain operational on the country's territory for the next 10 years.

It originally stopped broadcasting in Russia in December 2014, after the country's legislation regarding paid TV changed. One of those changes was the ban on advertisements on paid channels.

Russia's media watchdog Roskomnadzor rebuffed suggestions it had something to do with CNN going off air.

“CNN shareholders should be asked about the reasons behind stopping broadcasting,” its representative Vadim Ampelonsky said. Sources close to the network were cited in the media as saying the reasons were purely commercial.

Cable News Network (CNN) was created in the United States in 1980 by Ted Turner and was the first channel to begin broadcasting 24/7. CNN International was launched in 1985. Its overall viewership includes over 200 million households in 212 countries. It began broadcasting in Russia in the early 1990s, following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

[TsarSamuil]

‘Dictator-arming’ BAE boss must resign from BBC Trust, say activists.

RT.com
April 30, 2015 15:25

A petition signed by thousands has been delivered to the BBC calling for the removal of its new vice-chair, Roger Carr, because of his continued chairmanship of BAE Systems, Europe’s biggest arms company.

Delivered on Thursday morning by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT), the petition was signed by 6,350 people with the aim of having Carr removed.

CAAT spokesman Andrew Smith said: “BAE Systems is Europe's biggest arms company and has made its money through arming dictatorships and human rights abusers around the world.

“Carr is the public face of the company and is the last person who should be given the legitimacy of a role at the heart of public broadcasting.”

He pointed out the deep historical connections between the government and BAE, a global arms powerhouse.

“The government spends around £4 billion a year on BAE's arms and services. It is vital to have a national media that can hold them to account.

“Not only does this send out a terrible message, it also raises serious concerns about how the appointment could impact on the BBC's coverage of the arms trade.”

The BBC Trust is the organization’s governing body and is charged with many critical functions such as output and creative direction, and the license fee.

Appointments to the trust are made on the recommendation of UK government ministers. The board of trustees consists of 12 people, including a chairman, a vice chairman and members representing England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.

BAE Systems has sold weapons to despotic regimes and human rights abusers in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Israel. The firm’s reputation has been further damaged by bribery allegations that have sparked multiple anti-fraud investigations in Britain and America.

Despite his prominent role at the firm, Carr will be paid £70,610 a year to ensure the BBC acts in accordance with license fee owners’ interests.

CAAT suggests the arms dealer’s appointment could pave the way for the broadcaster to whitewash the arms trade’s destructive impact across the globe.

The charity warns arms dealers care little about broadcasting or the public interest and are primarily driven by a desire to bolster arms sales, and attract a veneer of legitimacy in the process.

[TsarSamuil]

US introduces $30 mn bill to target ‘Russian propaganda’, ISIS threat.

RT.com
April 30, 2015 14:19

US legislators have introduced a new bill which proposes adding $30 million to target ‘Russia’s propaganda,’ which they claim “pose[ s ] a challenge to the NATO system.” The House Armed Services Committee’s bill also targets the Islamic State activities.

“Our adversaries around the world are using propaganda to shape the battlefield, drive up their support and inspire imitators,” the committee Chairman Mac Thornberry told the Washington Times' Inside the Ring. “We’ve seen [the Islamic State] and al Qaeda use this tool in the Middle East, and Russia use it in Eastern Europe.”

The House Armed Services Committee bill proposes spending at least $30 million to counter what they call Russian and Islamic State propaganda.

“It is something America does not always do a good job countering,” said Thornberry who has recently visited crisis-torn Ukraine. He added that the bill “acknowledges this serious communications gap, and takes steps to correct it.”

According to the bill seen by the Washington Times, the propaganda tactics of Russia are not new but “Russia has combined them in new, effective, and troubling ways.”

“It has fomented and taken advantage of ethnic disputes to train, build and equip a separatist army in Ukraine under Russian direction.”

Russian information outlets pose “a challenge to the NATO system,” the bill says.

“The committee believes that the Department of Defense and NATO should fully explore how the United States, NATO and member-states can, as necessary, establish deterrence mechanisms against activities such as those undertaken by the Russian government in Ukraine.”

This is not the first time Russian media and Islamic State propaganda have been equated in the US media.

In January a newly-appointed chief of US Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), Andrew Lack, named RT one of the agency’s main challenges, alongside extremist groups like the Islamic State and Boko Haram. He subsequently stepped down in March.

“We are facing a number of challenges from entities like Russia Today which is out there pushing a point of view, the Islamic State in the Middle East and groups like Boko Haram,” he said. “But I firmly believe that this agency has a role to play in facing those challenges.”

In February Secretary of State John Kerry asked US lawmakers for more money for propaganda and “democracy promotion” programs around the world.

“Russia Today [now RT] can be heard in English, do we have an equivalent that can be heard in Russian? It’s a pretty expensive proposition. They are spending huge amounts of money,” Kerry told the House Appropriations Subcommittee.

He apparently forgot that US Voice of America had been broadcasting in Russian since 1947.

Kerry’s words were followed a statement from the House Foreign Affairs Committee in April which blasted “Russia’s weaponization of information,” urging the US government to invest more in media warfare around the world.

Committee chairman Ed Royce asserted that “Russia’s propaganda machine is in overdrive, working to subvert democratic stability and foment violence in Eastern Europe,” while the US broadcasting was in “disarray.”

[TsarSamuil]

Kremlin's Tsarnaev conspiracy? Accusations Russian media plays down Boston bomber's Chechen descent.

IN THE NOW
May 4, 2015



The Guardian says a decision appears to have been taken that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's links to Russia should be played down. TV channels intentionally don't mention his Chechen descent. All because it can undermine Putin's reputation of a man who defeated terrorism- the Guardian says 'insurgency'- in Chechnya and the rest of North Caucasus. In the Now we say why it's unlikely.

[TsarSamuil]

Wow...this is a new low..

Kremlin conspiracies about Royal Baby? How UK press feeds Brits with FAKE news.

IN THE NOW
May 5, 2015



In the headline, the Daily Mail makes it seem like Russian paper "Komsomolskaya Pravda" newspaper made "bizarre" claims about Kate, while it didn't. But then goes on citing people's comments. One said Kate gave birth several days before appearing on public. Another one says the baby doesn't look like a newborn. And a third comment claims it's a surrogate not Kate who gave birth to the baby. Seriously? These were user comments. Other outlets not just in the UK but worldwide picked it up including the Independent and Now This News - and what was just a piece of unprofessional journalism turned into a scandal.

[TsarSamuil]

Mar 31, 2015 12:41:28 GMT -5 TsarSamuil said:

RT and Venezuela TeleSUR journalists unite to provide fresh perspective on news.

RT.com
March 30, 2015 21:02

RT's Spanish channel and pan-Latin American network TeleSUR in Venezuela launched a new joint project on Monday, aimed at providing a different perspective to Western mainstream media.

Titled “Venezuela and Russia. At gunpoint” ("Venezuela y Rusia en la mira" in Spanish), the project will feature a series of programs about the two countries and other international news relating to them. Broadcast as a telebridge, the format of the show will enable discussions between the studios on the two continents.

Hosts in both Moscow and Caracas studios will be joined live by experts from Latin America and Europe, to discuss news issues concerning both Russia and Venezuela. US sanctions and joint efforts at creating a multipolar world are expected to be some of the program’s hot topics.

“Within our cooperation with TeleSUR we’ve united our efforts towards fighting mainstream media and their way of lopsided coverage of events in our countries,” RT’s Spanish channel head Viktoriya Vorontsova said, adding that the project will “provide a ground for alternative views on US foreign policies.”

The two channels have previously had a broadcasting partnership, with TeleSUR having shown some of RT's programs to its audiences.

The two channels have also exchanged videos and other news content, including correspondents' broadcasts during breaking news coverage.

RT's Spanish channel has already been widely present on TV screens across Venezuela. It joined the country's state TV network TDA last year, and has also launched its broadcasting there as part of one of the world's largest satellite service providers DIRECTV.

Venezuela y Rusia en la Mira (E2) - Los Medios de Comunicación.

teleSUR tv
Apr 27, 2015



Venezuela y Rusia en la mira (E2)

En la segunda entrega del programa especial 'Venezuela y Rusia en la mira' se analiza el papel de los medios de comunicación en tiempos de conflicto y cómo se oculta -y a veces se tergiversa- la información que se ofrece a la gente. ¿Quién gana y quién pierde en la guerra informativa?

[TsarSamuil]

World War III will start with Pentagon bombing of RT – Kusturica.

RT.com
May 16, 2015 00:01

Award-winning Serbian director and musician Emir Kusturica believes that when Washington eventually starts World War III, RT will become one of its first and primary targets, being an extremely powerful weapon challenging US state propaganda.

In an article published by the Serbian daily Politika, Kusturica has aligned RT with Russia’s most powerful weapons, specifically the SS-18, an intercontinental ballistic missile which NATO is calling “Satan”: “The devil never comes alone! At the same time with this rocket and numerous other innovations, the TV Channel RT has also appeared among the Russian arsenal.”

The RT network, Kusturica says, is destroying the “Hollywood-CNN stereotype of the good and bad guys, where blacks, Hispanics, Russians, Serbs are the villains, and white Americans, wherever you look, are OK!”

“[US Secretary of State] Kerry and the congressmen are bothered by the fact that RT sends signals that the world is not determined by the inevitability of liberal capitalism, that the US is leading the world into chaos, that Monsanto is not producing healthy food, that Coca-Cola is ideal for cleaning automobile alloys and [is] not for the human stomach, that in Serbia the percentage of people who die from cancer has risen sharply due to the 1999 NATO bombings ... that the fingerprints of the CIA are on the Ukrainian crisis, and that Blackwater fired at the Ukrainian police, and not Maidan activists,” the filmmaker wrote.

Most of what Kusturica mentions in the article, indeed, are topics RT covers extensively... except maybe Coca-Cola’s cleaning properties.

RT is a real threat to US state propaganda as it reaches Americans “in their own homes, in perfect English, better than they use on CNN.” And that is why, according to the director, Washington could get fed up and seek to silence RT by force – much like NATO did to Serbian state TV in April 1999.

In turn, Kusturica predicts, Moscow would destroy CNN, which he considers the flag-bearer of pro-American propaganda: “CNN in direct transmissions assures that since the 1990s America has been leading humanitarian actions, and not wars, and that its military planes rain angels, not bombs!”

Until the Pentagon resorts to force, Kusturica believes, “RT will ever more demystify the American Dream and in primetime will reveal the truth hidden for decades from the eyes and hearts of average Americans.”

Born in what is today Bosnia-Herzegovina, Emir Kusturica is a 60-year-old Serbian filmmaker, actor and musician. He has won numerous international awards for his films, and was appointed Serbia’s ambassador to UNICEF in 2007.

[TsarSamuil]

How Louis C.K. doesn't know a damn thing about Russia.

IN THE NOW
May 20, 2015

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QmtF5Cwjpw

Comedy and politics go together perfectly! Russians have been the butt of Americans jokes for decades. Louis C.K. came to Russia in 1994 and is still using it in his routine today but it’s the same old stereotypes as two decades ago. NBC’s Saturday night live twist facts in their fake news segment about a very serious bloody war in Ukraine. Does this count as misinformation even if it makes you laugh? Danielle Ryan of Russia Insider and The Sunday Business Post is In the Now.

[TsarSamuil]

Who the hell watches VoA? I might have, once in my life, I forget they even exist!

Voice of America falling behind RT on Facebook & YouTube – BBG Watch.

RT.com
May 22, 2015 18:19

The US taxpayer-funded Voice of America is losing out to Russian multimedia broadcaster RT in popularity on social networks and services, according to analysis by BBG Watch, an independent watchdog blog that follows American media outreach abroad.

The Broadcasting Board of Governors, the United States’ bipartisan agency that supervises government-sponsored media, targeting international audiences, is being closely monitored by volunteers, “including many current and former employees of US international broadcasting,” who call themselves BBG Watch.

The group compared social media statistics of what it described as the “coolest” videos from the American and the Russian media outlets posted during the first two weeks of May. They said they did so to get a better idea of how the rivals are doing their job in the “information war, at least in the competition between VOA and RT among English speaking social media users worldwide.”

“This is not by any means a small or insignificant group and includes millions of media savvy and well educated people outside of the United States — Middle East, Africa, Eurasia, Latin America,” BBG Watch noted, pointing out that RT’s YouTube stats “do not appear to be driven primarily by US viewers.”

One of the video pairs in the “contest” was VOA’s “New Military Technology Goes Public,” about the Pentagon’s first ever Defense Department Lab Day versus RT’s “Putin puts his skates on for NHL, scores 8 goals.” The videos were posted at approximately the same time.

Russian-made video got seven times more views and six times more likes on Facebook than the VOA one. The number of YouTube views was 21,471 for the Russian video and 485 for the American one.

Two more pairs of rival videos – featuring World War II Victory anniversary content, as well as a news interview and a news report – also demonstrated RT was significantly ahead in terms of both views and “likes” on social media.

Although the American media is generally accustomed to conducting an “information war” of its own essentially unrivaled, the latest results of "competition between VOA and RT" show that progress made by new rivals of US media does not go unnoticed.

READ MORE: EU readies action plan to counter Russian media ‘disinformation’

Last year, a meeting of US international media chiefs concluded that the crisis in Ukraine had shown that Russia was strong in getting its message across to international audiences, with the BBG having outlined the need for Washington to create a Russian-language TV news channel.

Obama foreign policy adviser Ben Rhodes has then mentioned "many different platforms," including YouTube and Twitter, which the Russians have been using widely in conjunction with TV broadcasting. Just months after the meeting, 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.

In January, the new BBG chief Andrew Lack listed “Russia Today” (sic) in the same breath as the Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and Boko Haram terror groups, having claimed that RT posed a significant challenge his agency was dealing with.

A month later, Secretary of State John Kerry asked US lawmakers for more money for propaganda and “democracy promotion” programs around the world, having directly referred to RT’s influence. RT’s budget for 2015 is 13.85 billion rubles (some $277 million, according to the current exchange rate). By contrast, the US government media receives $721 million.

[TsarSamuil]

Western media

[TsarSamuil]

Falling out of mainstream? German channel probed for broadcasting RT show.

RT.com
June 02, 2015 19:36

Salve.TV in Germany is being inspected by a local media watchdog after the channel broadcast an RT Deutsch show. The check was initiated by German lawmakers who complained the show was biased towards Russia.

The channel is being looked into by the media watchdog in the federal state of Thuringia (TLM), regional MDR Thüringen media service reported. The German broadcaster showed RT Deutsch’s 'The Missing Part' ('Der Fehlende Part') news talk-show.

The channel attracted the watchdog's attention after several lawmakers complained that the program was one-sided and "biased towards Russia's position," and didn’t allow viewers to get an "objective" impression. Blaming RT Deutsch for a lack of "critical journalistic delivery," deputies from the local left and green parties said "the Russian channel was too close to the government," as quoted by MDR Thüringen.

Salve.TV co-owner Klaus Dieter Böhm said German viewers could decide for themselves whether or not to watch the RT Deutsch program. He noted that viewers were also dissatisfied with the current situation, saying a variety of opinions should be present on the regional German television.

One of the viewers commented on Salve.TV’s website that RT's coverage helped "realize again what I lack in the public media and big private broadcasters," and urged the German channel to "keep it up."

"It is very good if I can see both sides: the NATO and their organs of speech, and the other side. That's the only way I am able to make my own opinion. The fact that German media is worried about the circumstance that not only their side is now represented provides food for thought," another viewer commented on salve-tv.net.

RT's editor-in chief Margarita Simonyan said it was the regional German channel's initiative to broadcast RT content. "And now deputies from the parliament and German media stand against their own TV channel, practically calling on it to be censored," RT’s head said, adding that the local broadcaster in "democratic Germany" is under fire for showing something that is not in line with the mainstream.

RT Deutsch was launched last year and 'The Missing Part' show has been broadcast on rtdeutsch.com since November. The daily program features interviews with experts discussing news of the day and talking about problems avoided by the local mainstream media.

The majority of citizens of several European countries, including Germany, would like to have access to alternative points of view on news events, and particularly to the Russian media angle, a joint survey by Sputnik agency and British ICM Research company conducted this year showed. According to the poll, 57 percent of respondents in Germany do not trust their domestic mainstream media, particularly in its coverage of Ukrainian crisis.