OP-ED: Some thoughts on Russia Today’s Tomorrow

Some thoughts on Russia Today‘s Tomorrow

by Ethan S. Burger

Exclusive to La Russophobe

Ethan Burger

The Russian people have not experienced any significant benefit from the symbolic pressing of the “reset” button in U.S.-Russian relations. Just ask any Russian citizen what they think about the necessity of urging the work force to stay home or establishing 120 “anti-smog centers” in Moscow as a result of the fires near the capital. This situation in Moscow is being well reported by the foreign press and Russia Today, can the same be said of the state-owned media?

I have often wondered what the Russian leadership thinks it gains from placing special supplements of Russia Today in major newspapers like The Washington Post and the New York Times.   Most U.S. newspapers are struggling, as Hendrik Hertzberg wrote in The New Yorker, this did not prevent The Washington Post from undertaking a comprehensive investigation analysis of the wasteful homeland security complex (both governmental and private-sector, largely government-funded) that has emerged post 9/11. It is doubtful that any Russian media outlet that reaches a large segment of the population would ever have the courage to undertake a comparable effort about the fires currently spreading through the country.

EDITORIAL: Dymovsky in the Dock

EDITORIAL

Dymovsky in the Dock

A month ago we reported on the announcement of criminal charges against Russian Police Major Alexei Dymovsky as a result of his YouTube appeal to Vladimir Putin to help him stop corruption in the ranks.

Now, Dymovsky has been arrested.  He faces up to ten years in prison and a period of pretrial incarceration, next to criminals he may have personally jailed, for an indefinite period without bail while he awaits trial.  He’s already been fired for speaking out against the abuse of his profession.

EDITORIAL: Russia Today, wallowing in the Gutter

EDITORIAL

 Russia Today, wallowing in the Gutter

The Navy proves UFOs are real!  They’ve landed, and we’ll tell you where they are! They’re everywhere!!

Scientists invent a camera that sees your soul!

Hairdresser turns robber into sex slave!

You may think we are recounting recent headlines from The National Enquirer, but we’re not.  These are the “new stories” offered to “readers” by the Kremlin’s online propaganda machine “Russia Today.”

EDITORIAL: Russia Today’s Gerald Celente, seething with Anti-Americanism

EDITORIAL

Russia Today, seething with Anti-Americanism

 

Dave Essel reports:  I don’t know what drove me to visit Russia Today’s website but I was struck by the level of transparency that must be the rule on the site, which runs under the banner shown above. I thought LR existed to find and expose Russian lies, hypocrisy, and mental and moral confusion but here is their main propaganda site openly confessing to these traits! We’d better start looking for another job…. [BTW, the site looked so stupid and boring that I could not bear to go any further and simply contented myself with taking the screenshot above]

Remember that wacky Russian “professor” Igor Panarin, who claimed that the United States would implode and break apart just like the USSR, within the next year or so? 

To us he may seem wacky (or less diplomatically, insane), but in Russia, he represents mainstream “thought.” In fact, he is a representatative of the Russian state itself.  And Russia Today, the Kremlin’s state-sponsored propaganda network, is actively propounding this view by any means possible, including repeatedly publishing the crazed rantings of one Gerald Celente, who it refers to as an “American economist.” 

EDITORIAL: Russia Today is Really Tragic

EDITORIAL

Russia Today is Really Tragic

By now most Russia watchers are aware that the Putin Kremlin is squandering millions of dollars badly needed by its sick population (Russians don’t rank in the top 120 countries of the world for adult lifespan) on a shameless English-language propaganda TV network known as “Russia Today.”

It goes without saying that there is no more reliable information to be found in RT’s broadcasts than there was on the pages of Pravda or Izvestia  in Soviet Times. But the fully neo-Soviet character of the network’s material is nonetheless surprising and revolting.

Take, for instance, a recent report on religious freedom in Russia.