In 2016 I wrote an analysis I called “Counter-propaganda, Russian style” and, about a year later, another one I called “Re-Visiting Russian Counter-Propaganda Methods“. I ask you to please read them first, especially if you plan to post a comment!
What I tried to show in these articles that, in total contrast from acting like the bad old Soviet propaganda, the modern Russian counter-propaganda does the exact opposite of what most people in the West believe it does: far from suppressing western propaganda, the Kremlin tries its very best to make sure that as many Russians as possible become aware of what the West is saying about them, their country and their values. The Kremlin even PAYS anti-Russian pundits to go on Russian national TV!!!
Why? Simply, because considering the nature of what the western media outlets, and even entire specialized entities, write and say about Russia, the best thing the Kremlin can do is to make darn sure that everybody in Russia becomes aware of it.
During the Cold War, the Soviets had a strict censorship system, entire segments of literature was banned, you could not take certain books across the border and radios like RFE/RL, the BBC or DW were jammed.
Now the OPPOSITE is happening. Some anti-Russian talking heads on, say, DW declares that Putin eats babies for breakfast, and that is immediately aired on the main TV channels, with subtitles! Then it is discussed at length, with the “poor” Russian liberals trying to justify it. It is often quite hilarious to watch.
Another favorite topic on Russian TV are western threats against Russia, or the “master talks to his slave” tone of US Presidents: “we did Napoleon and Hitler and now the Muricans want to talk to us “from a position of strength, even after Kabul!!!” :-)
By the way, this is something the leaders of the West cannot admit, hence their continuous efforts to pay for these propaganda outlets to spew their nonsense and pretend like the Russians are living in an informational vacuum and that “Gulags” are full of freedom loving dissidents :-)
This will never happen, of course, but I believe that if, say, the US Congress decided to defund these propaganda outlets, the Russians would be glad to pay for the costs as what these outlets produce is a dream come true for Putin and the Kremlin!
But, alas, all of the above pertains only to Russian counter-propaganda efforts INSIDE Russia!
Alas, the picture for outside counter-propaganda is much less encouraging…
First, the two big ones RT, both as a TV station and a website, and Sputnik. Initially, I was rather enthusiastic about this alternative to the Cold War crap regurgitated on a daily basis by the western media. And, initially, it worked pretty well. Some shows were outright very good, and certainly good enough to get the western PTB quite hysterical, hence all the (freedom of speech crushing) measures taken by western “democracies” to, if not silence them, then make their work as hard as possible.
A simple conclusion would be “if the leaders of the AngloZionist Empire were so upset about RT and or Sputnik, then the latter must be doing a fantastic job”. Alas, the reality is more complex.
I got a lot of emails from readers asking me about my view of RT and Sputnik and, so far, I did not publicly comment about this. Now I feel that the time has come.
Frankly, I think that RT and Sputnik have tried to appeal to the worst and cheapest base instincts of the folks in the West to increase their audience. The RT website is the worst of them all. Here are just two recent examples:
I have an entire collection of examples of such truly disgusting stuff but I will spare you, and myself, any more these sights. Besides, those who read the RT website regularly already know what I am talking about.
This really begs the question of who their target audience is? I mean, seriously, the kind of folks who enjoy photos of butts and lingerie fights (plenty of such folks here in Florida, especially during “Bike Week”) will never tune into RT or Sputnik in the first place. May the target audience is sexually insecure teenagers? But, frankly, these teenagers won’t go to RT for that, there are other, “better” choices for them out there anyway.
As for those who would turn to RT for the right reasons (getting alternative infos and views) are going to be either bored or disgusted or both by such ridiculous “articles” (I am being kind here…). By the way, the audience which would turn to RT for the right reasons would include plenty of Orthodox Christian and Muslims which makes me wonder: is RT deliberately trying to offend or alienate them?
The shows on RT TV are better, but most of them are boring, just the same folks rehashing the same old same old without any originality. But compared to the very high quality of reporting and debating on the internal Russian TV, most of the shows on RT TV are boring.
As for Sputnik, I can share this about it: in the past, they interviewed me on several occasions. But then, I had to tell them that I would refuse to be interviewed by them. Can you guess why? For two reasons: they would not allow me to mention the 9/11 false flag or to use the term “AngloZionist”. Not even with the usual disclaimer about “the views expressed herein are not etc.”. Need I say more?
The truth is this: I rarely bother with either RT or Sputnik anymore, they bore me and, frankly, make me feel ashamed of a lot of their content.
But it is not just RT or Sputnik, there is much, MUCH worse.
Recently, the Kremlin did something really smart: they (FINALLY!) realized that need to move away from YouTube and released the website Smotrim and a Smotrim Android app (dunno about iStuff, I stay away from Apple/Mac products). Basically, you can think of Smotrim (which means “we watch”) as Russian TV on a website or app. Two problems with that otherwise very very good idea:
- It’s only in Russian
- The apps demands you send it your tel # to send you a back a sign-in code, which mostly does not work at all
On number one, maybe they will make an English version of it, at least for the news programs.
One number two, maybe it is the Empire (and their subservient IT sector like Google) which tries to block the sign-in codes. I had to try many times and finally I used a Canadian flag (since both the USA and Canada share the +1 international code).
So how about NOT asking for such sign-in codes?
There is also another problem with the Smotrim app: it is buggy, and demands a very high bandwidth. And, generally, it is still very “raw”. And they also mix some very interesting shows with, frankly, cheap crap (Russian TV has lots of that too).
At best, it allows Russian expats or Russian speakers in locations with a solid 4G Internet to watch Russian TV shows…
What about the Russian supposed “alternatives” to YouTube or Google?
I tried Rutube.ru and compared to YouTube it is sub-pathetic. And that in spite of the fact that Russia has better/modern Internet connectivity inside Russia than the US does! Then there is Yandex, which is actually pretty good in many ways, but which does not offer any video hosting alternative to YouTube. It does, however, offer a very good search engine, much better, and MUCH “freer” than Google (which de-lists and censors a lot of good sites, both for political reasons or to serve the copywrong interests of US media corporations).
Even worse, on YouTube Russian news channels file copyright complaints if somebody else reposts their videos!! It happened to us several times, and when that happens, we typically use RuTube. But think of the irony: these Russian news channels are, apparently, more concerned with ad revenue than with spreading the message, their *own* message. How stupid (and immoral!) is that?
Okay, let’s say that the Kremlin does not want, or cannot, create a serious alternative to YouTube. What about private corporations like, say, Gazprom, Sberbank or Rosoboronexport who are so awash with money that they could easily invest into a “FreeTube” not only as good, but much better than YouTube (removing the Woke propaganda and commercials would be a good start!). And if all they care about is money, then they could even make money with a real, effective, RussiaTube/FreeTube.
But nothing. Just nothing. Their attitude appears to be “we make gazillions and the rest ain’t our problem”.
And this gets even worse:
Both the Kremlin (Presidential Administration) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia are doing an ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE work in their public information efforts. The worst is the very slow pace at which they translate Putin’s or Lavrov’s speeches, interview or articles. Apparently, the folks running these departments don’t understand that time is of the essence in counter-propaganda efforts! Either that, or they don’t have the money to hire enough translators which, considering the disposable income of the Kremlin is ridiculous.
I worked as both a translator and an interpreter in my life and I can tell you that if give me a budget of about 5 million dollars a year (pennies by modern Russian standards) and I could get all of these very important speeches, interviews or article translated, well, at least overnight and made available on the Internet for all to access and download on the same day. But even with its truly immense financial means, the Kremlin seems to be working with Soviet era attitude about work (“a pretend to work effort is good enough for a pretend pay”).
[Sidebar: official speeches are pre-written, I know, I worked at the UN for several years, and then very quickly corrected if the speaker goes into some impromptu comment or tangent. So here is what the Russians are NOT doing and SHOULD do: each speech by Putin and Lavrov should not only be pre-written (they are), but even their translations into, at least, English, should ALSO be pre-written. Then both the original Russian text and the translated English text can both be very quickly fixed at the same time then immediately released not only to the press corps in Moscow, but POSTED on the Internet. This entire process can take about 2-3 hours MAX after the speaker is done speaking. Yes, I mean exactly that: same day translations are totally doable!]
Typically, both the Presidential Administration and Ministry of Foreign Affairs are several DAYS late with their translations. That is ridiculous and disgraceful. In the past, I even had to ask unpaid volunteers to translate really important documents for the blog simply because somebody in the Kremlin was soundly asleep at the wheel and not caring one bit about what was truly at stake.
When I see how ridiculously slow Russian translations are, I always think that they must believe that, at best, they work for future historians, not for people who vitally, desperately, need these translations today, NOW!
Here is how this impacts me as a blogger: when something happens, say the current crisis in Georgia, I would need access to the info available in Russian to repost on my blog. Why should, say, the Kremlin care about my tiny audience to begin with? For three reasons: a) it ain’t that small at all b) it is a different audience from say, TASS or RIA and c) there are many more bloggers out there who could use this besides me.
If the Kremlin had any desire to get serious about counter-propaganda it could, for example, offer a way for us, bloggers in the West, to easily place a request and then quickly get back info we need, in English! But no, Zakharova gives a weekly briefing to a small audience of accredited journalists (most of them hostile to Russia and, frankly, paid western propagandists) and she considers her job done. The fact that she is a superb spokeswoman gets lost on those who need it most: the PEOPLE of the West (not the western journos in Moscow!).
I actually have a very good opinion of Margarita Simonian. She is trying really hard and she is even sounding another alarm about the fact that Russia needs to develop a truly sovereign Runet, not one depending on a few, Western controlled, Internet traffic backbones. I listened to her on a lot of shows and I am sure that she “gets it”. Having obtained at least one college degree in the US probably made her acutely aware of how comparatively IN-effective the Russian media really is, at least compared to the superb propagandists the AngloZionists have been during the Cold War (since, they mostly look ridiculous, but that is hardly a consolation).
Now let’s list a few truisms:
- Russia is awash with cash
- Russia has some of the best IT experts on the planet
- Russia has a very modern IT infrastructure (including plenty of supercomputers)
- Russia is engaged in an existential war against the Empire, about 80% of which is informational
- Russia is doing a superb job countering western propaganda inside Russia
- Russia’s private sector has rich mega-corporations who very much need “informational support” to sell their products
- Russia has huge numbers of excellent translators
Yet, at the same time
- The RT website caters to the worst western audience possible
- Sputnik is obediently submitting to AngloZionist limits on allowed/prohibited speech
- Russian government websites are slow, badly organized and booooooooooooooooooooring
- The pace of translations of even very important official speeches, documents or interviews is something I would expect from, say, a small Caribbean nation, not a nuclear superpower
So when I hear the nonsense about Russian “troll farms” and “Russian hackers”, I don’t laugh, I want to SOB!
If only it was TRUE!
Just the Russian military by itself could EASILY solve ALL of the problems I listed above.
Furthermore, I come to a conclusion which really bothers me: the Kremlin cares a lot more about the western “officialdom” (western press corps in Moscow) than it cares about REALLY reaching out to the people in the West (or Zone A if you prefer). Yes, they go through the motions, but they don’t really mean it.
Please tell me I am wrong and please explain to me what I see what I see?
Blaming Zakharova and/or Simonian is what some in the “patriotic opposition” often do. I think that they are wrong. Why? Because that implies the Zakharova and Simonian have the means to make things better, but that deliberately don’t. I highly doubt that (for many reasons I don’t want to mention here to stay on topic). And when I hear what Putin and/or Lavrov actually say, they both are also clearly trying their best.
So what is going on and who is to blame (and fire!) here?
My personal guess?
That the Presidential Administration and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are STILL full of those whom I refer to as “Atlantic Integrationists” (as opposed to the “Eurasian Sovereignists”), a reality which some Kremlin mouthpieces have been denying for quite a while now, but whose “fingerprints” I see all over the total mess (and many other “inexplicable” or otherwise contradictory Russian policies).
Of sure, the Atlantic Integrationists are now keeping a low profile or pretending to be patriots, Putin has very effectively weakened them, I would even say defeated them, but only on the internal Russian ideological battlefield. But they have kept their positions and titles and are quietly continuing their sabotage, whether for money from the western alphabet soup or because they want to prove themselves to their western masters.
If my guess is correct, then this is not a counter-propaganda issue, but a national security one!
I am sure that by now there are plenty of readers who would reply that things ain’t so bad, that a lot of good stuff also gets posted by the RT website, and that’s all true. Until you compare with the Russian media inside Russia which stands head and shoulders above its West-oriented counterparts.
One example: there are a few talk shows on Russian TV (“60 mins” for example) which should have interpreters and stenographers on site to immediately (well, almost, with maybe a few hours delay max) fully subtitle these shows and make them available not on YouTube or Smotrim, but on a Russian YouTube equivalent! Or even just the main Vesti evening news!
First, that would show the undeniable fact that there is TRUE ideological diversity on Russian TV (infinitely more than on western TV stations!). Next, it would show the audience int the West some very good reports (for example, Russia has REAL war correspondents, and very good ones at that, unlike the West whose war correspondents usually report from their hotels, sometimes not even from the country they are supposed to be “covering”).
Furthermore, JUST subtitling Russian news/debate shows would make the western media look absolutely ridiculous, especially the propaganda outlets à la RFE/RL or the US CNNNBCFOXCBS gang.
But what can I expect from a government which does not even protect RT journos? They were banned from the French Foreign Ministry (still are, I think?), harassed by both US and UK regulators and the Kremlin only issued some vapid protests.
These flaccid responses only encourage the western powers to further try to disrupt the efforts of RT! Why does Russia symmetrically expel western diplomats and not symmetrically expel western journos? Because of freedom of speech in Russia? Well, the self-same western journos who are not expelled because of the (very real) freedom of speech in Russia NEVER report about that freedom of speech or speak up on behalf of their Russian colleagues when western regimes try to silence them.
Me? I would throw most western journos out Russia with no hesitation whatsoever. None.
Here is the sad truth, folks like Andrei Martyanov, Dmitri Orlov, Bernhard, the Stalker Zone, the Greanville Post, the New Kremlin Stooge and many others are doing the job they do because the folks in Moscow who are paid to do that job don’t. Worse, while none of us can get any financial help from Russia (lest we end up in a US dungeon), we COULD get indirect “informational support” if only the Russian themselves did a halfway decent job. But no, nothing.
Will the folks in Moscow ever get serious about their propaganda efforts? I honestly don’t know. I like to think that Putin is a good man who inherited a terrible system (a hybrid between the late Soviet 80s and “democratic” 90s) which means that there is an entire *generation* of folks produced by that system who are just profoundly amoral and who only pretend to care. And Russia is a immense country, whose huge momentum is very hard to change. It took Putin two decades to transform Russia in so many ways. And there was most definitely much improvement in the Russian media, especially if we compare today media to what Russia had in the 90s! But the flaccid, vapid and otherwise simply boring nature of the Russian counter-propaganda efforts against the multi-BILLION dollar AngloZionist propaganda machine is, in my opinion, simply inexcusable and borders on a gross dereliction of duty (if not treason) by those who are responsible for it.
Those of us in Zone A will continue our struggle against the Empire even in these conditions because we actually believe in what we are doing (those who only pretend and do it for $$$ are now really easy to spot, so I won’t list them here). We will continue to do that no matter how crude, inept, slow and otherwise painfully disappointing our (paid) “counterparts” in Moscow are.
But I, for sure, don’t want to “cover” for them anymore, or pretend like “all is good on the eastern front”. I said what I had to say about them and about my professional opinion of them.
And maybe somebody somewhere in Russia will read this and, finally, act on this?!
Or somebody in Russia can use this rant to make at least some changes?
I am not holding my breath.
Andrei
UPDATE1: try entering this “Re-Visiting Russian Counter-Propaganda Methods“ site:thesaker.is into the google search engine and see for yourself what you get, then try the same with the DuckDuckGo and compare :-)
UPDATE2: here is what I saw on RT a few mins ago (QED):
Andrei My Brother,
If RT and Sputnik actually did a good job at counter propaganda I wouldn’t be here reading your blog. When things heated up in Ukraine back in 2014 and the war began in Donbass I did not depend on RT or Sputnik for any information.
I came here to see what you were saying and I listened to Professor Stephen F. Cohen (God rest his soul) on the John Bachelor program.
PS: My favorite show on RT was “The Wayfarer” with that
Englishman who traveled to towns across Russia.
It would also be great if there were more subtitled videos of people like Nikolai Starikov, a leading public intellectual.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JN_5TmUdGdc
This one is about the visit of Victoria Nuland, Migration amnesty, and force vaccinations, from what I can tell with my very limited Russian. Since it’s in Russian and not subtitled, I don’t know what he’s saying
Another one, who occasionally does post videos with subtitles is vk.com/andrey_fursov
People like these, as well as Sergei Kurginyan are important public intellectuals who carry a lot of important weight in Russia. He does have an English language website.
http://eu.eot.su/category/news-from-russia/
You’re absolutely right about the titillating trash on RT. A serious audience does not want that! Who does RT think their audience is – 20-year-old guys out of Peoria IL? Have a look at Germany’s “Junge Welt” or the US’ “Greanville Post”, “Counterpunch”, etc. Carefully-researched, serious stuff. That’s what a Western audience needs. We beg “RT” and “Sputnik” to reconsider. (Yes, I live in Russia.)
Maybe, the things will change one day, but the communists including those i power will have to die out first. Their “former” ideology and their, political and otherwise, upbringing are like invisible baggage they tow behind but they have no idea how to get rid of it.
RT UK was staffed by 1. Ex-BBC and other MSM people who cared nothing about Russia. Indeed many of them accepted the MSM vision of Russia. 2. Russian management who got their London expat roles through connections. RT UK was incredibly boring. In the summer, RT UK was closed because it was expensive and useless. It was a great pity. If they had employed Russian patriots and propagandists it would have been a must watch channel. By the way, I have “insider” knowledge of RT UK. A good idea ruined by a very poor team.
The RT website is designed to get views. They like to be at the top of online news sites lists. When they go to Moscow for funding they talk about how successful they are but this success is based on meaningless “eyeballs” and not on how much they influence world opinion. The problem is that those in middle management are just media people and not propagandists or patriotic intellectuals.
Finally some much-needed “friendly fire” against RT and Sputnik
I wonder how Margarita Simonyan (editor in chief of RT) would respond to some of these criticisms. Maybe The Saker should try reaching out to her for comment. She seems approachable. I would love to hear her comments, especially on all the naked butts.
The establishment in the West have a narrative & agenda that they pursue. They are not derailed by an informed public. A million people marched in protest in the UK at the prospect of the invasion of Iraq. Did the Government listen ? Western Governments react to concrete threats to their supremacy, not to words from journalists, however rational, persuasive & eloquent they might be.
”Western Governments react to concrete threats to their supremacy, not to words from journalists, however rational, persuasive & eloquent they might be.”
Splendid and a most welcome and perspicacious observation — hats off.
While Russian MSM might certainly be mostly garbage, that’s not the case with the Russian government and the society being built by it. Really, we have the very same problem in other countries similarly coerced by the West with buckloads of domestic media outlets in the service of Western neoliberal reaction, publishing endless lies and slanders about any government (past and present) trying to make the targeted country a better, more decent place to live for the majority of its citizens. And it’s the same ”sloppy” prevalent attitude towards foreign, outright hostile, media outlets which are rarely shown the door or have its local staff put in jail. We have been observing all this in Russia, Venezuela, Brazil, China, Iran. And we should expect to see even more of it as Western imperialism is losing ground around the planet. It has caved in in Afghanistan, Belarus, and Bolivia. Syria and Iraq are ripening. The trajectory is inexorable. The resistance countries are growing in numbers, resolve, and political maturity. On this basis, I think that the problem posed by the garbage MSM is of course not to be ignored, but it’s overstated as long as imperialism keeps suffering defeats and setbacks.
Andrei, I subscribe to the thesis that Russia is still not a completely sovereign country (the excellent book “Национализация рубля- путь к свободу России” by Nikolai Starikov, sheds some light on this theme). Yes, someone in Russia could try to reform the current system of international media relations, and make a laughingstock of the political system in the West, but that someone would be dead within days and their work undone. You’re right about the powers of the “Atlantic Integrationists” within Russia. Even if that someone survives and manages to mock the powers that be in the West, there may be further grave economic, military, or other unknown consequences for Russia, as a punch-back. Therefore, those in the Eurasian Sovereigntists power block may be reluctant to take such steps at this time.
Hi Nick
THanks for your comment.
I think I will have to write more about this in the near future.
Kind regards
Andrei
Outside of the US, I see no substantial difference between DDG and Google for the “Re-Visiting Russian Counter-Propaganda Methods“ site:thesaker.is” query. I use DDG by default FWIW.
And out of academic interest I went to the RT site to check out the ‘bodybuilding doctor’, with and without VPNs based in the US and Yuurp. A total negative – but I do have ad blockers and javascript whackers operating.
Recently, I have been visiting the Global Times website. The contrast between Global Times and RT couldn’t be more stark:
GT has a conservative major newspaper type of layout and its stories are diverse, covering all the world and many topics. The writing is mostly by Chinese, in their own style, in a traditional journalistic style with a slight pro-China slant in some stories. No foul language, no nudity, no LGBTQ stories, and no racy, tabloid type irrelevant banter. The non-political stories are written in the style of Popular Mechanics of 30 years ago. It is very clear that the aimed reader is an educated person from any part of the world.
RT, by contrast, seems to be competing with the worst of British and American tabloids. The stories display an obsession with the “West” and neglects Asia, Latin America, and Africa. The writing is mostly by “liberals” (sorry no conservatives and commies allowed), often has a “forced neutral” stance which sometimes treats Russian sources as ‘suspect’. I have a feeling that even if an American bomb fell on Russia, RT would report it as an “Alleged American bomb”. Cool stuff, nudity, saucy stories etc. abound, and boobs and buns have more or less pushed out any pretense to anything serious or educational. The aimed reader seems to be … hey RT, you got me there!
One under-utilized technique in CP is propagation of the counter-Image. We are after all in the age of Facebook, pinterest, instagram and others.
Sadly, it is true that RT.com – in its Sports section – has been giving space to stupid click-bait photos of women wrestlers in underwear, man boxers being injured, footballers bitchin and any number of other silly stuff that frankly, the average reader of RT.com could care less about. So who are they targeting and why?
My theory is that they are not actually aiming this at readers, who they must know come for the kind of news coverage and opinions not read elsewhere. So they must be targeting something else, which I suspect are the western censors, forever looking for reasons to cancel the site altogether. I believe that the “silly/obnoxious stuff” we see when we open the front page is there as cover so they can say – hey, it’s just some stupid instagrams of thinly clad women that we show!
Not only that but the site also has almost every couple of days coverage of some disaster that happened in Russia, be it a plane crash, or a gas explosion or some other catastrophic event which happened in Russia or even China. Sandwiched between other news events that show good old Poland or Ukraine or the UK in rather unflattering light.
I know my theory may not sound totally plausible, but looking at the mix that RT.com presents I do see rhyme and reason there. There are quite a few good “nuggets” among the pieces selected, from around the world, and overall, cases of overreach, corruption, stupid ‘cancel” events and other not so wholesome depictions of life in Zone A. But these are selected carefully so that the site has “plausible deniability” of “bias”. This way they can always point to the not so positive stories about something that happens in Russia as well as to the idiotic sports stories.
As for the television channel – they have had to play their cards very carefully – didn’t they just get removed in Germany? they know the hyennas are out to get them, so I reckon they had to dampen their programs, present a mix of lower quality hum-drum programs etc, just so they could continue to also feature Keiser report (never mind the pitching for Bitcoin – again I assume that’s what Keiser must do to stay on the air), Crosstalk, Oksana’s interviews (which are often good to watch), On Contact, etc. It is indeed far from a satisfactory mix and I don’t watch much RT these days, but I still think their late night news coverage is a pretty good scroll through the day’s events.
If I am right in my conjecture then it is indeed a sad testament to the kind of world we live in in the west, where programs and shows have to deliberately dumb themselves down just to stay on the air or in print.
When all cable and broadcast media and most alt media in Americastan is about a .0001 on a scale of 0 to 10, RT and Sputnik being a 1 is still four orders of magnitude improvement.
Andrei, you are on to something here..
information is control.
but your criticism is paradoxical. it’s like criticising a child that can’t speak for not speaking to you about its needs. this process takes time, as everything else does. if Russia could speak NOW, it wouldn’t have the problems it has now. the thing you critisize is critical to such an extent, that it’s the most important for Russia’s adversaries to keep in check. it’s the last step. overcoming the informational handicap equals total sovereignty, and even for every nation on earth by doing so globally.
maybe from another angle: if Putin would be heard by everyone in the west, there wouldn’t be no “west” (in its current meaning). there is no other way to take on truth than to silence its voice as good as even possible. giving away its monopoly on the www the west’s house of cards would vanish in its footprint by gravitational speed, if you know what I mean.
doing all of the things you listed above just like that means bypassing all the obstacles on the road to victory, though, which is not possible. before you take on the world for real, you have to be sure to prevail the counterpunch.
nevertheless simonyan, you, some other, start to talk about it. maybe it’s that time now?
This article was published (22.10.2021. 17:27) on Novi standard (Serbian web portal, with the mission
“As an attempt to resist in a time of trivialization of the media and information in general and the rapid decline of journalism, the Novi Standard portal was created in 2009 in Belgrade. Gathering the best domestic and translating prominent world authors of that genre, the portal nurtures analytical journalism, striving to illuminate its readers in times of rapid change, political and other trends in the country and the world. ” Google translation from Serbian), on
https://standard.rs/2021/10/22/mane-ruske-kontrapropagande/
(translator Vladan Mirković/Novi Standard).
Two (of three in total up to moment) comments might be interesting
old fashion Србин
Perhaps the Russians have concluded that people in the West (including the vast majority of idiotic Serbs wasting time on dilemmas between the pro-Western wolf and the pro-Western “opposition”) are simply a lost cause for some enlightening propaganda, and lost cases are not worth the effort. just quarantine them so they don’t pollute the world around them. That is why Russia is probably just trying to keep its corner of the world in a normal state, and that is quite understandable, as much as they hoped for some of their liberation march to Berlin, Paris, London … Just as no one gave the Americans the role of a world policeman, nor do the Russians have to push themselves to be a world conscience. It is the most ungrateful role in an ungrateful world.
Bianca
Is it true? Yes. And the lack of fast translation is something that needs to change.
But there are also methods in that seemingly sluggish style. The imitation of CNN is obvious. RT is more intelligent, it has incomparably better documentaries. They are trying not to rise too high above the unintelligent media space that Zaoad is today, not just Anerika. They are already targeted and forced to register as foreign agents.
I believe they are right – it is better for them to survive here than to engage in an ideological struggle. Because in the end, the average American who follows RT sees that the website is very similar to CNN – and he doesn’t understand why politicians are attacking something so dangerous. It needs to survive in this market, and times are changing, and so will the content over time.
I agree with Sputnik’s decision not to accept terminology that Americans and the government would see as offensive. There is no need to raise tensions. Real ammunition is kept for the right time and when it pays off.
Russia will not appoint itself as a defender of world conscience.
As the Russian saying goes, solve problems with the mind, and danger with experience.
(Google translation)
Generally agree but you missed the weird obsession that Sputnik has with cute golden retrievers.
I think Macdonald on RT is doing his best but generally I don’t get the purpose of RT. Why should Russia subsidise “Americans talking about America in America” as Lee Camp put it.
But I would like your opinion on Strategic Culture Fund for which I write. My guess is that it is funded by some Russian plutocrat who’s sick o0f all the crap on the Western media. The nincompoops in the alphabet agencies think the GRU runs it.
What’s you thinking?
My guess is that it is funded by some Russian plutocrat who’s sick o0f all the crap on the Western media. The nincompoops in the alphabet agencies think the GRU runs it.
I never said, or even suggested, any of that.
As for the nincompoops in the alphabet agencies they also think that the GRU killed Skripal. Who care what they think or pretend to think?
The SCF publishes some very good stuff, I have no problems with them :-)
My real question was “Who in your opinion, is funding SCF?”
How and WHY would I know?
Ask them, not me :-)
I was addicted to 60 minutes and all the Political scientists in Vesti, to wake up one day and realized that the English captions were gone. I thought it was a day technical issue and waited impatiently opening their YouTube Channel every minute. NOTHING. I lost all contact with the only sane source of English news from Russia. I cried, I asked my Russian friends to write to the channels in a futile attempt to get the English captions back. It’s been about a year now. I am in shock! Saker said it clearly, ” Deriliction of duty” from their Couter Propaganda team.
Simonyan belongs to the anti-People elite in spirit. In a state of hysteria , she let it slip. Therefore, the counter propaganda is rotten. Again “bio garbage (биомусор), senseless protoplasm, idiots”, etc. If there is no true Spirit, there is no Victory…
https://t.me/margaritasimonyan/9410
https://regnum.ru/news/society/3404434.html
https://kubnews.ru/obshchestvo/2021/10/21/iz-za-vas-mogut-umeret-moi-deti-margarita-simonyan-zhestko-vyskazalas-ob-antiprivivochnikakh/