(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, September 3, 2019) The most significant finding of a new Levada Center poll released today is that most Russians continue to get their news about demonstrations from the official media rather than the Internet but no longer accept the government’s explanations about what is going on and why. That suggests that there […]
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(Paul Goble – Window of Eurasia – Staunton, August 14, 2019) Two weeks ago, the Levada Center issued a report suggesting that the influence of Moscow television on younger Russians is declining at a precipitous rate, thus depriving the Kremlin of one of its most reliable means of influencing Russian public opinion (levada.ru/2019/08/01/21088/). But now a Russian commentator, Valery Panov, […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – August 1, 2019) Russians’ trust in television news as a news source dropped by 25% in the past decade, according to the independent Levada Center pollster’s latest report on the national media landscape. Television remains the biggest news source for Russians despite becoming less trusted over the past decade, past Levada polling has said. Trust […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, May 29, 2019) In the first quarter, Mediascope found, 75 percent of residents of major Russian cities turned to the Internet at least once a day, while only 70.4 percent of this category watched television, the first time Internet has outpaced television in Russia this way and something that will have major […]
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KYIV. March 20 (Interfax) – Ukrainian entertainer and presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to win in a second round of presidential elections no matter which of the other candidates he faces, as is evident from a poll the Social Monitoring public opinion survey service and the Oleksandr Yaremenko Ukrainian Institute of Social Studies conducted on March 11 to 18. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – February 28, 2019) A onetime Russian opposition activist has taken a job at the Kremlin-run RT television channel, stirring heated debate among former colleagues and observers. Once described as the face of Russia’s opposition, Maria Baronova had recently headed the Moscow branch of the Open Russia pro-democracy movement. In 2012, she was detained and charged […]
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[originally posted 12.6.18] Subject: Russia’s Happy Ending Date: Thu, 6 Dec 2018 From: Sarah Lindemann-Komarova <echosiberia@gmail.com> Russia’s Happy Ending By Sarah Lindemann-Komarova [Founder, Siberian Civic Initiatives Support Center 1995 – 2014. Helped to establish this as the hub for the first civil society development support network in the former Soviet Union.] Link for article with pictures and video medium.com/@ECHOSiberia/russias-happy-ending-c77b332a6eec How […]
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Subject: RE: 2019#1 (#4 Moscowexile – On New Year’s Eve, TV channel “Rain” showed a speech made by Akhedzhakova instead of Putin) Date: Thu, 3 Jan 2019 From: Домрин Александр Николаевич <domrin@hse.ru> To: davidjohnson@starpower.net Dear David – Happy New Year to you and JRL readers! “Panorama” is a satire web site. The same web site has just reported that on […]
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“They were, they declared, just tourists. Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov – identified … as … Russian intelligence agents who poisoned four people in … Salisbury – were simply on vacation …. This type of tactic has a history. … [During] the invasion of Crimea … Putin insisted … Russian troops marching across the peninsula were locals who … picked […]
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“Before he was president of Russia, Vladimir Putin was an intelligence officer in Dresden, East Germany. His job there was to recruit ‘illegals,’ USSR spies who would embed in everyday life and report back to the KGB. If you’ve ever watched the FX show The Americans, then you’re familiar with how this all worked: The focal characters of that show […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Sept. 3, 2018) [https://russia.tv/brand/show/brand_id/63170/] Russian state television started a new weekly show devoted to Vladimir Putin, lauding the president’s leadership qualities, physical energy and attentiveness to public needs. The first hour-long episode of “Moscow. Kremlin. Putin” broadcast in prime time on Rossiya-1 TV on Sunday featured breathless commentary on Putin’s meetings and visits in the […]
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“… I immigrated to the United States with my parents in 1981, the year the show begins. … * * * In its quest for uncanny accuracy, ‘The Americans’ was full of lessons about Russia, spies, the Cold War, and life. The most important of these, surely, is that eternity will come crashing down when you least expect it to.”
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – April 18, 2018) A new survey has shown that state-run television maintains its hold on the Russian public’s news consumption habits despite a trend in which young Russians are increasingly getting their news online. Among Russians polled by the independent Levada Center, 85 percent said they watch television for news about Russia and the world. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – March 16, 2018) Vitaly Shkliarov was tired. But with just two days to go until Russia’s presidential election, Ksenia Sobchak’s campaign strategist could see the finish line – and sleep – in sight. Sobchak, however, was only getting started. On Thursday afternoon, the clock was counting down until the former reality television star was due […]
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(Kremlin.ru – March 2, 2018) Vladimir Putin took part in the Fifth Truth and Justice Forum of Regional and Local Media organised by the Russian Popular Front. The President answered questions from regional and local media representatives. Meeting with regional and local media representatives at the Fifth Truth and Justice Media Forum organised by the Russian Popular Front. During the […]
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“Update: Pervyi Kanal has canceled the broadcast of the fourth and final installment of Oliver Stone’s “The Putin Interviews.” The state-run TV network has already aired the miniseries’ first two episodes, and a third broadcast on February 14 will go ahead, given that it’s already aired in Russia’s Far East, said a spokesperson for Pervyi Kanal. …”
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MOSCOW. Jan 15 (Interfax) – Russian Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov urged President Vladimir Putin on Monday to take measures to stop the use of TV programs to spread “counter-propaganda” against the Communist Party’s presidential candidate, Pavel Grudinin. In his letter to Putin, which was shared with Interfax, Zyuganov pointed out that Grudinin has publicized “a substantive, detailed, and constructive […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – December 12, 2017) Russia’s state-run Channel One television channel has announced that it will broadcast the 2018 Winter Game’s despite the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) decision last week to bar Russia’s team from competing. The IOC decision said that individual Russian athletes could participate in the Olympics in February if they proved to a panel […]
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(Voice of America – VOA’s Daniel Schearf contributed to this report – WASHINGTON – November 20, 2017) [Video and article also appeared at voanews.com/a/us-ambassador-to-russia-attacks-on-us-funded-agencies/4125489.html] The U.S. ambassador to Russia has attacked Moscow’s move toward forcing nine United States government-funded news operations to register as “foreign agents” as “a reach beyond” what the U.S. government did in requiring the Kremlin-funded RT television network […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – November 13, 2017) All international media outlets in Russia could be hit with new restrictions as part of an escalating media tit-for-tat between Moscow and the United States. The Kremlin’s RT news network agreed to register as a foreign agent in the U.S. by Monday following U.S. allegations it interfered in the 2016 presidential election. […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Evan Gershkovich – November 10, 2017) An obscure U.S. law, meant to guard against foreign propaganda, has been the driving force behind escalating U.S.-Russia tensions in recent weeks. Designed nearly a century ago, it could now force the Kremlin’s RT news outlet to register as a “foreign agent” – and push the precipitous U.S.-Russia relations […]
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MOSCOW. Nov 1 (Interfax) – The Russian telecommunications watchdog Roskomnadzor is currently not preparing any coercive measures against the U.S. media, including CNN and social networks, Roskomnadzor head Alexander Zharov said. “Speaking about now, we are working within the legal framework and we are not preparing any specific actions on the U.S. media and U.S. social networks,” he told reporters […]
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Subject: New York Times on RT and YouTube Date: Tue, 24 Oct 2017 From: Ellen Mickiewicz <ellen.mickiewicz@duke.edu> New York Times on RT and YouTube Ellen Mickiewicz James R. Shepley Professor of Public Policy and Political Science Duke University In the New York Times of October 24, 2017, a front-page story repeats some of the errors about the U.S. audience for […]
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(Interfax – October 18, 2017) Russia’s Communications Minister Nikolai Nikiforov has said Russia should not take analogous retaliatory measures in response to any action by the American authorities regarding Moscow’s English-language station RT, including any bans, privately-owned Russian news agency Interfax reported on 18 October. “If our colleagues [USA] take any unilateral steps, of course Russia will prepare some reply. […]
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(Article ©2017 RFE/RL, Inc., Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – rferl.org – Tom Balmforth – MOSCOW, October 17, 2017 – also appeared at rferl.org/a/russia-director-vows-to-quit-cinema-after-tv-spy-thriller/28800376.html) Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) agents battle fifth columnists and CIA “sleeper” cells bent on sowing chaos and torpedoing a gas deal with China. Americans seeking a “colored revolution” try to frame Russia for the assassination of an […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – August 16, 2017) Game of Thrones author George R.R. Martin is known for his excessively gorey plot twists, but for his Russian translator, exposing the writer to questions about President Vladimir Putin would have been a step too far. When a journalist from the Fontanka.ru outlet asked Martin during a press conference in St. Petersburg […]
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“… The asymmetry is a problem. … Putin’s government, intent on undermining liberal democracies by casting doubt on the very notion of truth, and sowing division and doubt about basic Western institutions, has become increasingly adept at weaponizing information. U.S. intelligence agencies have called attention to Moscow’s fake news campaign, as have U.S. allies in Europe. … The wild […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, July 25, 2017) In a lead article today, the editors of Nezavisimaya gazeta say that for the first time fewer than half of all Russians say they trust government TV in large part because the economy and its problems are the primary focus of Russians in their everyday lives but the last […]
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“… Protest leaders face fines and jail time for minor infractions, relatives of activists receive warnings from bosses, and students are told not to attend rallies, according to opposition supporters. … The movement has energized Russia’s youth, who make up the bulk of protesters. … But protests are still relatively small. Opposition leaders say people are preoccupied with their own problems, […]
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“… Will McMafia buck or conform to the stereotypes? On the lawn of Munden House, James Norton tells the Guide that he hopes his performance will remind us that Russians are different to what is considered the norm on cinema and TV. He says that one reason he wanted to play Alex, the Anglo-Russian who’s both revolted and seduced by […]
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“Watching four hours of Oliver Stone interviewing President Vladimir Putin of Russia is not a lesson in journalism. Mr. Stone is an inept interviewer, and he does not get Mr. Putin to say anything the world hasn’t heard from him before. Watching the interviews for entertainment is a questionable proposition, too: The four-part series contains many dull exchanges and even […]
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(Bloomberg – bloomberg.com – Jake Rudnitsky, Ilya Arkhipov, Henry Meyer – June 19, 2017) Nikolai Sobolev’s acute sense of what’s on the minds of his young audience has made his expletive-laced video blog one of Russia’s hottest. But after a steady diet of topics like teen angst, the 23-year-old found an unexpected new issue was taking off this spring: opposition […]
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VIDEOS & LINKS: Watch all four parts of Oliver Stone’s “The Putin Interviews” on Vimeo [links and embedded video below] Transcript: skyhorsepublishing.com/titles/13188-9781510733428-putin-interviews Showtime series site: sho.com/the-putin-interviews#/closed Part One https://vimeo.com/222012543 THE PUTIN INTERVIEWS / OLIVER STONE PART ONE from patrice greanville on Vimeo. Part Two https://vimeo.com/221567261 The Putin Interviews | Part 2 | Oliver Stone & Vladimir Putin from vbulahtin on […]
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(Andrew S. Weiss – @andrewsweiss – Twitter – May 1, 2017) [Vice President for Studies, Carnegie Endowment. Russia and Eurasia Program] Kremlin propaganda comes to Showtime. Putin smirks in this trailer when Oliver Stone asks him “Why did Russia hack the election?” Showtime Doc Films @SHO_Docs No topic is off limits. The Putin Interviews, a revealing series of interviews between […]
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“Almost half of Russians believe their life would not change without the Internet, a survey conducted by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center showed on Friday. …”
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Subject: New info re RT Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2017 From: Ellen Mickiewicz <ellen.mickiewicz@gmail.com> Ellen Mickiewicz James R. Shepley Professor of Public Policy Studies in the Sanford Institute for Public Policy and Professor of Political Science at Duke University. Maxim Audinet’s piece about RT in Le Monde diplomatique [JRL#65] provides data that are partly right, partly not. Does the corrective […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, March 15, 2017) Almost half of Russians – 46 percent – say that they often cannot distinguish “false information from truth” in media reports, while a similar percentage – 46 percent say that they can, numbers that are relatively constant across groups of different ages and social classes, according to Aleksey Levinson […]
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“According to a 2016 poll by the independent Levada Center, 80% of Russians view television as their primary source of news. The same Levada poll, however, shows that only 41% trust the news as an objective source of information. The broadcasts sampled here are from Russia’s most-watched channels: First Channel and Russia Channel. …”
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – Kevin Rothrock – February 28, 2017) The Putin administration commissioned an independent expert analysis of Russian network television, according to the news site Znak.com. The study was reportedly prepared in particular for Sergei Kiriyenko, the president’s first deputy chief of staff. Znak.com says a private company was hired to “make sense of the reality depicted […]
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… Current Time television, a product of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and the Voice of America, is a 24/7 Russian-language television network based in Prague … aimed at audiences inside Russia as well as the borderlands of the former Soviet Union. … intended to provide ‘fair and accurate reporting, serving as a reality check on disinformation that is driving conflict […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, February 2, 2017) Significant percentages of Russians watch political talk shows which now make up as much as 90 minutes of prime time every night, but that fact does not mean that they are entirely pleased by the structure and content of these shows or are greatly influenced in ways that help […]
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(Moscow Times – themoscowtimes.com – November 30, 2016) Internet video giant YouTube will not be forced out of Russia under a new bill regulating online streaming services, the Russian government has confirmed. “We can officially say that all talk of YouTube facing legal restrictions is simply not true,” Deputy Communications Minister Alexei Volin told the Rambler News Service on Wednesday. […]
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KYIV. Nov 30 (Interfax) – The National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine has published a list of films and television series which have been banned by the Ukrainian State Film Agency from screening in 2014-2016. The list, which includes 544 audiovisual works, was published on the Council’s website on Wednesday. “In 2014-2016 the State Film Agency denied […]
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(Paul Goble – Window on Eurasia – Staunton, June 20, 2016) Those who lived through the Brezhnev stagnation, commentator Dmitry Gubin says, know that “when the chances for change for the better don’t exist, one must particularly carefully filter information and choose one’s strategy of behavior.” Now, Russia is in another such period, and to help them, he offers five […]
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(Facebook – Boycott Russia Today facebook page – reused with permission) Bullough, Oliver (2013) Inside Russia Today: counterweight to the mainstream media, or Putin’s mouthpiece?: http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/world-affairs/2013/05/inside-russia-today-counterweight-mainstream-media-or-putins-mou Fitzpatrick, Catherine (2010) More Moral Equivalency from Vadim Nikitin: http://3dblogger.typepad.com/minding_russia/2010/04/more-moral-equivalency-from-vadim-nikitin.html Gray, Rosie (2014) How The Truth Is Made At Russia Today: http://www.buzzfeed.com/rosiegray/how-the-truth-is-made-at-russia-today Ioffe, Julia (2010) What Is Russia Today? http://www.cjr.org/feature/what_is_russia_today.php?page=all Kincaid, Cliff (2011) Russian […]
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Two years after the tumultuous events of 2014, Ukraine is falling out of international media – with consequences for Ukraine’s democracy. (opendemocracy.org – Ian Bateson – May 11, 2016) Ian Bateson is a foreign correspondent living in Kiev, Ukraine. He has written for Reuters, the Guardian, the Daily Beast and AL Jazeera. He tweets as @ianbateson. Over the past year, […]
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