The Truth About Media Censorship In Russia

At this point, most of you, having been conditioned by your own MSM for 70 years, and most intensely these past 7 year, are expecting me to tell you how it is all one sided and Putin all the time. I am sorry but you will be quit disappointed.

There is some truth to that assumption, on the government owned channels, where it is definitely very pro-government, not unlike the BBC, Deutschawella or PBS, not to mention dozens of other channels across the world, such as Al Jazeer, which would never dare criticize the conditions of labourers in Qatar or Qatar’s policy of supporting Islamic Jihadists through the Muslim Brotherhood, around the world and giving them safe haven. So, if you are looking at the Russian media market strictly from that point of view, you will be somewhat justified in your views.

Of course, if one actually understands Russian and watches the various debate programs, there are always opposing voices, usually from politicians or talking heads from other countries, many of them viraly Russophobic. Where on any single US "debate" or "discussion" on Russia would you ever hear a pro-Russian voice from no less a Russian? Forboddin.

However, when you notice that the government channels are far from the only game in town, it becomes quite clear that Russia has more media freedom and views than many of the nations in the West that constantly criticize Russia. Yes, for many of those reading this, this is a crisis concept, as everything blasting around you is telling the opposite. Stop for a moment and wander aloud, “Why is it, that such a “free” Western press is always saying the exact same thing, no matter what country it is in….as if on queue….hmmmm”.

Now, on to our story. I will break this down into two parts, first the Russian media and then the foreign media.

The native media:

Russia has more channels than any other country in the world, though the vast majority are local channels. This should be no surprise, as Russia is the biggest country and conditions and to some degree cultures vary from one end to the other. Russia itself is bigger than all of Latin America. On the national level, there are several independent channels, broadcasting their own news shows. True, most follow more or less the same line, that is, the majority opinion in part because they themselves share that opinion, because it sells commercials (and that is the point of most big news, to sell commercials), and in part because it grants easier access to the people in power, to again, get the story that attracts the viewers that sells commercials.

This is no different from why Sky News is uncannily similar to the BBC and why NBC, MSNBC, CNN and CBS are basically clones of each other, giving powderpuff interviews to government officials. Fox is only a little off the beaten track and even then, not too far, as any voice on Fox that questioned the American government’s actions to loudly has been quickly removed.

Sochi Olympics was a prime example: an American comedian, Jimmy Kimmel created the “wolf of Sochi” story, by having his crew film a trained wolf walking down a stage that looked like a corridor and planting it on the internet as a wolf walking down the halls of the athletes dorms in Sochi Russia. Western “intellectual” and “investigative” journalism was at its finest, all picking up the video and running with it right off of the cliff. That of course was Mr. Kimmel’s point that the Western media are blind and hypocritical and clones of each other.

Even on the government owned channels the political talk shows, that are aired daily, are anything but one sided. The hugely popular show on Russia 1, headed by Vladimir Solovev, an on and off Kremlin critic (get that, a Kremlin critic runs one of the most popular discussion TV and daily radio shows on a Kremlin owned channel…wow now that’s “censorship”) often covers Ukraine. Unlike the American “fair and balanced” Fox that has a procession of ever more extreme and unhinged personalities screaming for the murder of Russians, Solovev’s show, structured in opposing panels of 3-4 speakers on each side, often has Ukrainian government officials and members of Poroshenko’s own party, as well as members of the Novorossian government. This in truth, is about as close as the two sides ever get to speaking with each other.
 
And yes, the Ukrainians are often screaming degradations on their hosts and on Russia. On one such tirade, the opposing speaker pointed out that at least in Russia, when they leave the building and freely move around Moscow, they will not be beaten by Ukraine's Right Sector or other government goons or have their property confiscated as does the opposition in Ukraine. On another episode, when a young, military aged party member of formerly Poroshenko’s power party, was denigrating Russia, the counter speaker pointed out that if he hated Russia so much, why is it he now lives in Russia and hides out from the Ukrainian draft. Why he was not fighting. The young “intellectual” shut up.

However, there are also Russian channels that differ from the media. Never mind that many parties and the Church have their own channels, that put their slant on the news or their own stories out, there is also an out and out anti-Russian channel Dozd. This channel is viciously anti-Russian and such a channel would never be tolerated in America or Britain. Maybe the Germans, but I doubt even them. And surely no channel that constantly criticized the government and society and made both out to be subhuman, would be tolerated in such European beacons as Poland, Latvia, Estonia or God forbid, Ukraine (where no opposition media is allowed, and the last president owned his own personal propaganda channel).

Dozd has lost quite a bit of its viewership and commercial sponsors over the last 1.5 years, in part because of the wave of patriotism that has swept Russia and with it the pride in Russia that no longer views itself as the country bumpkin to the enlightened by the West but as a separate civilization with separate values that have little in common with the modern West. But Dozd’s troubles began much earlier when they openly questioned the defense of Leningrad (St.Petersburg) against the Nazis and the heroic sacrifice made by the population and army to keep the northern capital out of Hitler’s hands. They named it a stupid decision and that the city was better off being surrendered to the Germans and if Russia had lost everyone would be drinking German beer now. This had a rather negative reaction from society, to put it mildly.

Radio:

Now on to the radio media. In parallel to Dozd is the extremely popular, amongst the Russian Liberal class, Echo Moscow. It spews a similar anti-government, anti-Russian, anti-Russian cultural message, 24 hrs a day every day. Imagine a radio station heard across America that constantly broadcast that all Americans were hillbilly rednecks, ignorant and racist and should copy themselves on France if they wanted to think of themselves as even remotely human. Now you get the gist of the programming. Add in constant conspiracy theories and irrational screams of oppression and you get the daily dose of insanity.

More rational but still anti-government radio stations, also broadcast 24/7 across Russia such as Business News FM and Vedomosti. Again, these are not your American Fox brand of mildly slapping the government wrist.

As for other points of view, again, every major party (in all there are over 700 registered parties, most minor), and we have 4 major and dozens of minor parties and the Church as well as the minority Catholic Church (4% of the population) have their own stations. There are also hundreds of local stations, and no we do not have a monopolist like Clear Channel Radio that owns 80%+ of all the radio stations.

Published Media

At any newsstand, and there are hundreds, one can literally buy one of two dozen papers and several dozen magazines, many of which are owned and published by Western companies. Yes, we have National Geographics, Vogue, Maxium, Popular Mechanics and so on and so on.

All political parties and movements also have their own daily news papers, to include the viciously anti-government and anti-Russian papers such as Moscow Times, which is actually a Danish/Finish project. The Moscow Times is a platform for any and all anti-Russian neocon scribblings. Many of their articles are reprints from various US think tanks, Reuters and other platforms and their editorials are screeching grounds for some of the most vicious anti-Russian liberals.

Again, there are less extreme but just as anti-government papers and magazines to choose from.

Foreign Media:

No, Russia is not shut off from foreign media. As I mentioned earlier, the print media is rife with foreign owned magazines and journals. As a matter of fact, go to your local bookstore and chances are, anything you have on your selves, you can find the exact same issue in Russian on our shelves.

As for televisions, since most of the country is now on digital and satellite, there is a wide range to choose from. We have CNN, BBC, Sky News, Euronews (A Brussels based BBC Clone which is banned in Ukraine for daring to show both sides of the conflict), Al Jazeer, Deutschawella, Bloomberg, Press TV (Iranian) and on the east coast various South Korean, Chinese and Japanese news channels. We have more access to the news then most Europeans or Americans, none of it banned, all of it broad casting. On top of this we have an open internet, except for controls on child pornography.

So with all that, Russians make a much more informed choice what to believe and not to believe then the much more controlled information bubbles that are the media space in most of the West. Russians are well educated and exposed to everything around us.  We are some of the most traveled populations in the world and a large chunk of the population speaks multiple languages (most schools now require 2 foreign languages, the first begins in Kindergarten). Russia has the world’s highest percent of the population with advanced degrees, 7% more as a percentage of the population then the next competitor, Japan.

I would challenge the reader to actually contemplate what I have written and consider just for a moment who actually lives in a free media space and who in a controlled information bubble.