On Election Day 2008, two African-American men in black fatigues and berets stood outside a polling station in a predominantly black neighborhood of Philadelphia. They were members of the New Black Panther Party, which the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League have labeled a hate group. One of the men wielded a police-style nightstick, and there were complaints about voter intimidation. Police eventually escorted the armed
man away without incident, but the outgoing Bush administration filed a civil suit against the party alleging violations of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In May 2009, against the advice of prosecutors who had worked on the case, President Obama’s Justice Department dropped the suit, a move that caused barely a ripple in the press at the time. The case came back to life in July, though, when a former Justice Department lawyer testified before the Commission on Civil Rights that the case was dropped because the Justice Department did not want to protect the civil rights of white people.
Fox News began to air allegations of an anti-white bias at the Obama Justice Department. But almost no one else reported on the case—it was old, tenuous, and even a prominent conservative commenter called it “small potatoes.” One outlet that did pick up the story, however, was Russia Today, a fairly new and still mostly obscure English-language cable news channel funded by the Russian government.
Russia Today was conceived as a soft-power tool to improve Russia’s image abroad, to counter the anti-Russian bias the Kremlin saw in the Western media. Since its founding in 2005, however, the broadcast outlet has become better known as an extension of former President Vladimir Putin’s confrontational foreign policy. Too often the channel was provocative just for the sake of being provocative. It featured fringe-dwelling “experts,” like the Russian historian who predicted the imminent dissolution of the United States; broadcast bombastic speeches by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez; aired ads conflating Barack Obama with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; and ran out-of-nowhere reports on the homeless in America. Often, it seemed that Russia Today was just a way to stick it to the U.S. from behind the façade of legitimate newsgathering.
So it was fairly unremarkable when Russia Today, in a July 8 segment called “Fox News stirring up racial fears in America,” interviewed the chairman of the New Black Panther Party, Dr. Malik Zulu Shabazz, who lambasted Republicans for playing on people’s fears in an effort to dominate the fall midterm elections.
But then Russia Today did something out of character. When Fox’s Glenn Beck attacked the segment, asking why Russian state-run TV was suddenly “in lock-step” with the Obama administration, Russia Today fired back in a way that was puzzling to anyone familiar with the channel. On July 9, Alyona Minkovski, who hosts a daily program called The Alyona Show, laid into Beck—“the doughboy nut job from Fox News”—with patriotic American fervor: “I get to ask all the questions that the American people want answered about their own country because I care about this country and I don’t work for a corporate-owned media organization,” she said, her voice rising.
Fox …you hate Americans. Glenn Beck, you hate Americans. Because you lie to them, you scare them, you try to warp their minds. You tell them that we’re becoming some socialist country…. You’re not on the side of America. And the fact that my channel is more honest with the American people is something you should be ashamed of.
Huh? Forget the Obama administration, since when does Russia Today defend the policies of any American president? Or the informational needs of the American public, for that matter? Like many of RT’s journalists, Minkovksi is a Russian immigrant, born in Moscow, raised and educated in the West, and hired by the network for her fluency in both English and Russian—she is someone who could be both Russia’s ambassador to the West as well as its Sherpa into the Western mind. But her tirade against Fox offers a glimpse into the mind of a changing Russia Today.
On April 25, 2005, Russian President Vladimir Putin went on national television and told his nation that the destruction of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century.” He meant that the union’s dissolution had ushered in years of sinusoidal financial crises, but also that he mourned the passing glory of a great empire he had once served as a lieutenant colonel in the KGB. In the speech, Putin also expressed his hope that Russia would become a “free and democratic country,” but at its own pace. “Russia will decide for itself the pace, terms, and conditions of moving towards democracy,” he said, laying the foundation for a political creed that would become known as “sovereign democracy.” It is a phrase that became shorthand for what the West called Russia’s “resurgence,” and what Russia called its independence of an externally imposed Western morality.
Putin could do this because in 2005 things were going well. Oil prices were rising—they had more than doubled since he became president in 2000—and the Russian people were increasingly behind him and his brand of paternalistic nationalism. But with the return of Russia’s pride, so wounded during the first decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Kremlin’s reputation suffered as Western and domestic critics attacked Putin for the steady degradation of democracy on his watch. Gubernatorial elections were eliminated, potential rivals—oligarchs like media king Vladimir Gusinsky and oil magnate Mikhail Khodorkovsky—were either driven from the country or unceremoniously locked up. Unsympathetic journalists were turning up dead.
Just over a month after the speech, the Kremlin announced the solution to its image problem. It would not change its defiant rhetoric of exceptionalism. Instead, it would launch a new international television channel that explained its actions—and its terms—to the rest of the world. It would be in English and would broadcast twenty-four hours a day.
"It featured fringe-dwelling “experts,” like the Russian historian who predicted the imminent dissolution of the United States; broadcast bombastic speeches by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez; aired ads conflating Barack Obama with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; and ran out-of-nowhere reports on the homeless in America."
Hm, so how can I get myself a subscription to Russia today?
"Reports on the homeless in America"? How ridiculous! Don't they know, as Ms. Ioffe clearly does, that serious news channels tastefully ignore such issues?
But the most shocking development here is that this Russian news network conflates our friendly, wholesome Commander n' Chief Mr. Obama with the really scary and crazy Iranian president -- (oh wait, no they just failed to censor ads that did that.) Those wacky Russian propagandists, don't they know that Our Leader is good and just, and even if he makes mistakes he Means Well, while our Middle Eastern enemies are crazy and evil and in no way comparable at all. Just don't make good ol' Barry upset or he'll lock you in his island prison for the rest of your life, or kill everyone in your neighborhood with bombs dropped from flying robots.
Sorry CJR, but I couldn't continue reading this hackery. I'm sure there's some interesting stuff about Russia Today, but if you want a study in propaganda, look no further than Ms. Ioffe's drivel.
Posted by LorenzoStDuBois on Tue 28 Sep 2010 at 06:14 AM
Julia,
I was really left rather mystified by this piece. I fail to see how what RT does (relatively non-hackish government-suppoting propaganda) is in any way distinguishable from the activity of Agence France Presse, Radio Free Liberty, the BBC, or any of the other Western government funded media outlets. And the less said about Fox News, the better.
Now, is RT a haven of sparkling professionalism, fearless truth-telling, and no-holds-barred reporting? No, I suppose it's not, but what outlets would you feel comfortable putting in that category? The standards of US television "journalism," if they still exist, are so uniformly reprehensible that it really takes a leap of faith to suggest that our media outlets are somehow categorically different from those ignorant fools laboring at RT.
I mean come on, have you actually watched Fox News (the US' most popular cable betwork) lately? Unless the RT people are running around naked with their hair on fire, they could hardly evidence less of a respect for truth, honesty, or the most basic precepts of journalism.
That RT is a government mouthpiece, and that its reports should be treated with skepticism, is a given. But governments have always had mouthpieces and they always will. Compared to Western countries, Russia is poor and ramshackle, and it's therefor not at all surprising that its pet media outlet is often not quite as flashy or presentable as RFE/RL, the BBC, etc.
Posted by Mark Adomanis on Tue 28 Sep 2010 at 02:37 PM
How ironic that on the same day, CJR should describe FOX News, the de facto mouthpiece of a political party, as part of a great American tradition of opinionated media, and perhaps the wave of the future, while Russia Today, the de facto mouthpiece of a foreign political party, is labelled straight propaganda. Can you spell double standard?
This piece says as much about CJR's biases as it does about Russia Today. And these are revealed most clearly by the stories you consider wacky?
It's considered crazy for Russians to ask who is the greater nuclear threat, Obama or Ahmedinejad? Well, let's see, Obama controls thousands of nuclear warheads, Ahmedinejad controls none. Obama controls a military that has been steadily ringing Russia with bases, in fact actually accelerated that process after the end of the Cold War, and has numerous bases with nuclear weapons inside the former Soviet Union. Ahmedinejad has never threatened Russia and couldn't if he tried. So who is the greater nuclear threat to Russia? Wow, it's the guy with all the nuclear weapons, from the country with a formerly open and now unspoken policy of encircling Russia. Whodathunkit? Those crazy Russkies.
And they interviewed a fringe loon who "claims that the CIA is testing dangerous drugs on unwitting civilians." Where would anyone get such a crazy paranoid anti-American idea? Maybe he got it from the US Senate's Church Committee investigation, which found that the CIA had been testing dangerous drugs including LSD on thousands of unwitting civilians (Project MKULTRA). Just last year, the CIA agreed to pay damages to completely innocent CANADIAN psychiatric patients whom the CIA had secretly drugged with LSD in Canadian hospitals.
And what about GW Bush's dismal efforts to build stations that would counteract the fair journalism of al Jazeera? Did CJR run snooty pieces about the one Iraqis called the "cooking channel"? I never saw them. Did you pan Radio Free Europe?
What about the US government's habit of dropping bombs on al Jazeera stations? What about their habit of kidnapping and disappearing journalists like AP's Bilal Hussein? What about the incredibly, suspiciously high death toll of Iraqi journalists at the hands of US troops? Did CJR come out swinging for press freedom against their own big, bad government?
Isn't it ironic? You accuse Russia Today of being trapped into the role of spokesmen for the Kremlin's worldview. But you are trapped by your own all-American prism. American journalists inhabit a landscape where to imply that Americans can be as mean as foreigners is to engage in "moral equivalency". The starting point is to assume that Americans at least mean well, even the misguided ones. Foreigners are sneaky and duplicitous, their true intentions always malign.
The simple fact is wise people from less nationalistic countries would do well to steer clear of both Americans and Russians if they're looking for objective news coverage.
Posted by OD on Tue 28 Sep 2010 at 07:45 PM
Very illuminating piece. It was obvious to me that RT is a propaganda outlet but I have some friends who treat RT as a legitimate news source. Hopefully, they will read this article and change their opinions, The Kremlin wouldn't spend millions of dollars just to educate foreigners. There is an ideological purpose behind RT's reports based on falsifications of reality/
Posted by Tom Klemensky on Fri 1 Oct 2010 at 04:57 PM
Юля, смешно черт побери. Даже писать не охото про "российскую" оппозицию, RFE/RL, VOA, BBC, непредвзятость американских и британских СМИ, деятельность различных фондов и институтов. Все уже написали выше.
Вот думаю, это жутко прикольно приехать туда где есть несомненные преимущества перед остальными забугорными журналистами типа Леви, Швирца, Кэмпбела и пр., где можно вести романтическую борьбу с кровавым режимом, где можно описывать свою дрехлеющую малую родину как "банановая" республика слегка сопереживая её судьбе при этом ясно и четко осознавая что в любой момент можно удрать в Нью-Йорк.
Posted by Alex on Tue 5 Oct 2010 at 11:26 AM
Julia,
RT has been designed for those who have no slightest idea of what Russia actually is; its audience consists of the narrow-minded outsiders with zero knowledge of both Russian politics and politicians.
In other words, you will never get comments "for" or "against" about RT from mature pragmatic people for whom RT is a naive approach to show nobody-knows-what to nobody-knows-whom.
Posted by Alexander on Fri 8 Oct 2010 at 09:47 PM
Russia Today is so far over the top that it is comedy. I mean really. They are about as subtle with their propaganda as a shark in a funny hat. Their stories are utterly predictable. Everything the US does sucks, Russia does everything better and always has. Then the truther stories... I mean straight out of the tin-foil-hat convention. This thing is government sponsored? Really?
From their Youtube channel: "The channel is government-funded but shapes its editorial policy free from political and commercial influence." Oh lol! Listen to a few of their stories... They should claim "unencumbered by the thought process."
More from their Youtube channel: "We are set to show you how any story can be another story altogether." Yeah, when you make things up you can sure change the story...
"New 9/11 photos 'prove WTC exploded from inside'" Is one of their "stories."
We should call Russia Today "Fiction Today."
These guys are Kruschev, yelling "we will crush you." Amusing, and pathetic.
Posted by Freeman Brook on Wed 13 Oct 2010 at 11:46 PM
So here is my question to those that just whine and moan about all media outlets. Why do you keep watching if you don't believe in the credibility of the station? Will some things get stretched? Yes, all of the networks have done it. What most of you that try to say one news agency is better than the other need to realize is this; you are most likely going to support the news organization that supports your political agenda. All the people that trash Fox News most likely watch CNN or MSNBC and vice versa. None of them are impartial. Quit moaning and bitching about who is right and who is wrong. If you don't like it then don't fucking watch it, plain and simple.
Posted by Justus Smith on Thu 28 Oct 2010 at 06:07 AM
"...she is someone who could be both Russia’s ambassador to the West as well as its Sherpa into the Western mind. But her tirade against Fox offers a glimpse into the mind of a changing Russia Today."
What did you expect, really?
Not some sort of revolution in journalism to take place in Russia, such as would make it start to "bubble forth" pure and fresh waters of truth, all of a sudden? ...Or, perhaps, its being "sponsored by Russian government" must produce some miracles, you imagine? I might even cry, for I haven't found such faith even in Russia itself...
Besides, you can't be serious about US news style being radically different from that? Ah, forget about it for I want to be only positive.
So, things being as they are, I'll tell you how to cope with this trouble:
1) you just keep watching both Fox News and RT and the rest o'them;
given that you know pretty well "who is who" you can appreciate the individual style of each one o'them. Just like folks do in a theater.
2)try to learn the truth itself perfectly well (this is a MUST, for you can't rely on news media for that),
3)you can now have mu-u-u-ch fun seeing how this "truth" you already know gets interpreted in them news media and will at last be able to see through it all...
4)gradually, step by step, you'll come to know from what's being said that, which has NOT been said.
Here, this is it.
Follow through these 4 stages I roughly described above, and it won't take long before you find, that you don't need to complain any more about any such things.
Ah, almost forgot: if you want to see the truth, which other channels will never give you, then I'd recommend Al Jazeera.
Posted by Kostya on Fri 29 Oct 2010 at 06:47 PM