Especially you can not speak this very truth in English. My God, why, then the truth will be read in the USA and Europe!
The Medusa edition got into an awkward position, which in English conducted a comparison of the costs of propaganda of the United States and the Russian Federation. The comparison did not work in favor of Russia: Washington spends much more than millions on bringing the "truth" to the world’s population (quotation marks are not in vain). This comparison was not in Russia's favor not only in the monetary sense, because we all know how the media financed by Washington is preparing a lie from the truth. That is why the publication of "Medusa" caused a scandal. Not in Russia, in the West.
In your visual infographics (you'll see it below) «Medusa» made a comparison of the American and Russian "propaganda" (quotes in the original). Following the publication of the infographic, there was almost an international scandal.
Medusa received an angry statement from Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty (Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, RFE / RL), which she quoted on her English-language website. The answer from the Russian TV channel "RT" also had a place to be.
RFE / RL claims that the comparison in the title itself (“Comparison of Russian and American Government Propaganda”) is false, because the editorial boards of “international media networks financed by the United States are independent of any government and transparent with regard to the amounts and sources of their funding.”
“RT” calls itself an independent non-profit organization whose goal is to convey an alternative picture News. The Russian channel believes that the reaction of RFE / RL to the facts "speaks for itself."
Calls to fight Russian “disinformation campaigns” have turned into a natural fever in the United States, according to the Medusa website. This week, the United States Department of Justice has ordered that the company running the US version of "RT" be registered as a "foreign agent." This means that the entire content of the broadcasts will then be called Moscow propaganda (as propaganda from Moscow).
Earlier it was reported that the FBI questioned two former employees of the Russian news agency Sputnik as part of an ongoing investigation into an “undeclared propaganda campaign” by the Russian government, which allegedly violates the US law on registration of foreign agents.
Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of RT and Russia Today, warned that Moscow is likely to retaliate against American journalists working in Russia. She also fears that registering reporters as “foreign agents” could be the next chapter in US-Russian “parity” diplomacy. Simonyan did not indicate which "American journalists" would fall into an unpleasant situation. Medusa presumably calls Radio Liberty and Voice of America employees because these media are funded and controlled by BBG, the US state agency, whose stated mission is to “inform, attract and unite people around the world to support freedom and democracy” .
BBG, we recall, is the Broadcasting Board of Governors. Money of this particular institution fell in comparison with “Medusa”. Let's take a look at the picture.
On top-down infographics: the budgets of 2017 of the year in millions of dollars from the Broadcasting Board of Governors with the allocation of the budgets of Voice of America and RFE / RL, then the Russian "RT" and "Sputnik News". The difference in the amounts you see for yourself.
Below is a comparison of the number of languages in which broadcasting.
This is followed by the number of subscribers to the channels on Facebook. Voice of America beats all records.
The Western media did not like the graphic slice of reality. On Medusa, which in Russia is considered liberal and by no means pro-Kremlin media (rather, on the contrary, and the company itself, "Medusa Project SIA", registered not in Russia, but in Latvia), collapsed ... criticism of foreign liberals who advocate the truth. It is the liberals: who else is found in Freedom / Free Europe?
Irina Alksnis in the article for RIA News" summed up a kind of scandal: listed all those who resented the comparison of "Medusa".
Behind the critics of Western colleagues, who grew into a network squabble on Twitter, were former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, Kiev Post editor Yuen MacDonald, managing editor of the Ukrainian media holding Gromadsk Matthew Kapfer, journalist Max Seddon (“Financial Times”), former BBG Council member Matt Armstrong, The Telegraph's Moscow correspondent Alec Lun, and others. Kevin bravely endured the blows, ch. editor of the English "Medusa".
The publication, notes Alksnis, presented a whole list of claims: from the incorrect use of budget sizes to the comparison of honest, transparent and embodying democracy and freedom of speech of the media, funded by the US government, with the Kremlin’s propaganda tools that are false and driven by an aggressive agenda.
The participants of the persecution of “Medusa”, in essence, self-expose themselves.
The fact is that the engagement of both “Freedom” and “Voice of America” has long become indecent: both media serve any foreign policy adventures of the United States. And both media were not just caught "not just by bias and distortion, but by fraud and outright lies." And these people, Alksnis is indignant, “absolutely sincerely defend their purity and independence”!
As examples of such “clean” messages, we provide support for the Syrian-Russian operation to liberate the city of Aleppo and the Iraqi-American operation to liberate Mosul: “Before the boy Omran, whose picture the Western media (including those discussed) used the most cynical way to denounce the Russian military, nobody apologized. But the atrocities of the coalition in Mosul (where, among other things, igilovtsy were massacred en masse with their families) turned out to be quite traditional for those uncomfortable for the West, “swept under the rug”. This is what Alksnis sees the main problem, which for some reason does not reach the consciousness of the Western media.
“The world has understood that the media is always biased and engaged, and there is no such thing as“ independent media ”at all. Any publications highlight some topics and ignore others. The same “Sputnik” and “RT” do not claim that they are the bearers of the ultimate truth. They openly declare their mission as erosion of the informational monopoly of the western mainstream and the provision of a different - alternative - view of events to a foreign audience. And no more".
And in the new situation, the old approach of Western mainstream journalism, which exposes itself in the form of “knights of light, sellers of distilled truth, freedom and democracy,” does not work: the “shining white clothes” of these sellers “have long ceased to be clean in the eyes of the public”.
Do not wash off any clothes or souls to those who are not only outraged by disagreeable comparisons, but are also promoting the ideas of a new information war in Russia.
Western funds have stepped up their recruitment activities for media and network media, Dmitry Egorchenkov, director of the Institute for Strategic Studies and Forecasts, said at a press conference in Moscow.
“If earlier our colleagues were guided solely by the central widely promoted bloggers, now they are actively working with regional bloggers. Even before the elections last year, the activity on buying regional blogs by representatives of various Western structures was noted. All this helps to form the necessary reaction in society ", - quotes Egorchenkova "Politnavigator".
Today, the stakes are being made on separatism in the Russian Federation: “A new old topic is support for separatist sentiments. In this electoral cycle, they again began to tell stories on the independence of the Urals, unresolved issues in the North Caucasus, the Far East, in Tatarstan. There is a classic substitution of concepts. For example, when oppositionists call terrorists, and patriots - frank fascists, like in Ukraine. ”
With such a distorted approach, paid for by American taxpayers' money, Western “advanced” media will lose their popularity. An increasing number of users of the World Wide Web will pay attention to an alternative picture of the world - the same one that “RT” will give them in the same English.
By the way, another comparison of "RT" and BBG says exactly that. Look at the infographics. RIA News". The State Department is spending more money on BBG than the Kremlin on RT, but the exhaust on the Internet is less. And the more revelations of the American lie will float on the world air, the less they will be believed by different “Freedoms” by real liberals. Those who believe that freedom for money is not bought.
Observed and commented on Oleg Chuvakin
- especially for topwar.ru
- especially for topwar.ru