Media Nuptials for Russian TASS & Reuters

Is the business of new that bad that one of the legendary examples of journalistic credibility is forced to create a relationship with the epitome of dictatorial government propaganda?

Earlier this week, the venerable Reuters announced that TASS, the Russian news agency, has become a partner on its digital content marketplace, Reuters Connect. According to the announcement, this partnership with Reuters Connect brings Reuters media customers access to breaking news and exclusive video; videos on the Kremlin and Russian President, Vladimir Putin, as well as feature videos and general news. The Russian news agency joins 17 similar outlets in Reuters’ network.

Michael Friedenberg, Reuters president, was quoted as saying: “I’m delighted that TASS and Reuters are building upon our valued partnership by having TASS join Reuters Connect. Their addition shows our ongoing commitment to bring incremental value to Reuters Connect customers. Alongside the vast output of Reuters own world-class newsroom, we continue to provide customers content with unrivalled breadth and depth.”

Sergey Mikhailov, TASS CEO, returned the gesture by saying: “This is truly a significant event for us as well as for the entire Russian media market. Never before have any of Russia’s media outlets been presented on the Reuters Connect platform. However, now video reports from our country will be available to thousands of Reuters’ clients around the world. News from Russia today is playing an increasingly significant role in the global information agenda, so it is crucial that it is presented as objectively and reliably as possible. Selecting our agency as a partner highlights the reputation of TASS as a source of exceptionally verified news. We are extremely pleased that our cooperation with Reuters has reached a new stage of development.”

Has the media world turned upside down? Would Reuters have considered enlisting the partnership of Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda?

Is TASS the source of “exceptionally verified news” or content meant to glorify Russia and promote its imperial goals?

Since the October Revolution, news outlets in Russia never reached the level of journalistic credibility and excellence that would allow others to regard their information as true. All Russian so-called news outlets – print and broadcast – have provided dubious information, propaganda and bully-pulpit analyses meant to defeat an opponent and promote its mission. The old adage about the two biggest Soviet Russian newspapers, Pravda (Truth) and Isvestiya (News), comes to mind: There is no news in truth and no truth in news. In the old days, in Ukraine, apartments came equipped with a cable version of radios that were called “brekhuntsi” – liars or fibbers – for obvious reasons. And, after the collapse of the Soviet Russian empire, why didn’t the new, non-Soviet powers that be revise the acronym TASS, which stood for Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union?

TASS is a progeny of an evil system created by the Russian revolutionary bloodsucker V.I. Lenin who was notorious for using news and information to promote the glory of his murderous regime. Newspapers of the day were notoriously gray, mechanically spouting simple, choppy messages such as “All Power to the Soviets!” “Create a New Socialist Man!” and “Bread! Peace! Land!”

What Lenin’s journalists were expert at was turning these gray organs into monopolies. Instead of persuading with words, Lenin simply closed other newspapers and killed their editors and newswriters, leaving only his Bolshevik publications. The resulting monopoly intensified the impact of his Bolshevik message.

Lenin’s quotable quotes about newspapers include:

“A newspaper is not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, it is also a collective organizer.”
“The art of any propagandist and agitator consists in his ability to find the best means of influencing any given audience, by presenting a definite truth, in such a way as to make it most convincing, most easy to digest, most graphic, and most strongly impressive.”

The vestiges of Lenin’s system of centralized propaganda rather than a free press remain in place today and are seen regularly as the Kremlin’s attempts to manipulate the United States, Ukraine, Eastern European, and other countries.

Last month, Poland was hit with a barrage of fake news stories, including a phony interview with a U.S. commander ridiculing allied militaries, days before a major NATO exercise kicks off in the country, Polish officials said. “The military cooperation between the U.S. and Poland is constantly targeted by Russian activities,” they said.

As for targeting today’s health crisis, Russia and China use the global coronavirus pandemic to spread false reports and other online disinformation, according to the latest update published from the European External Action Service's team dedicated to highlighting such digital tactics. The group, called East Stratcom and whose mandate includes debunking fake news originating from Russia, said there had been more than 150 cases of pro-Kremlin disinformation linked to the global health crisis since late January. That includes claims that the European Union was on the verge of collapse because of national governments' fumbled responses to Covid-19.

Across social media, these narratives, often promoted by Russian propaganda outlets like RT and Sputnik, have also highlighted how the Kremlin has been better prepared than its Western counterparts, and how some European governments welcomed aid provided by both Moscow and Beijing, reported Politico.

The Brookings Institute observed: “The coronavirus pandemic is laying bare a growing competition between democratic and authoritarian governments. As the US and Europe struggle to contain the virus at home, Russia and China are seizing the moment to enhance their international influence through information operations. Moscow and Beijing have long aimed to weaken the United States, blunt the appeal of democratic institutions, and sow divisions across the West. Their goals in this crisis are no different.”

Numerous sources have pointed out that Russia has a rather diversified arsenal. Indeed, you’ll find such common items as well-armed soldiers, tanks, aircraft, rockets and nuclear weapons which are called upon to expand its political influence in Washington, Kyiv and the United Nations as well as its empire.

But that’s not all. The news media are also important elements of Russia’s arsenal, with which it pulls countries around the world into its information mire. Russia is known for effectively and convincingly using them to expand its influence around the world, mask the Kremlin’s aggression, deny that it is happening, slander its few but vociferous critics, and spread disinformation that undermines the US and the West.
Acting Senate Intelligence Chair Marco Rubio (R-FL) recently warned his fellow Republicans in an interview with Politico not to fall victim to Russian disinformation as they move to probe the involvement of Obama administration officials, including Joe Biden, in the opening of the Russia investigation.

Russian propaganda, disinformation and fake news are pervasive in the world. They’re mission driven. And the mission isn’t to keep its readers, listeners and viewers informed about global events but rather to build the glory of “Holy Mother Russia.”

In the midst of today’s race riots, news surfaced that Russia has been planning for a long time to divide Americans according to race because, as Lincoln warned, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”

“Russia is doing right now what Russia always does,” Bret Schafer, a media and digital disinformation fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States' Alliance for Securing Democracy, a think tank in Washington, was quoted as saying by Politico. 

Across the ocean, Russia is spreading disinformation about the coronavirus in the Netherlands, Minister Kasja Ollongren of Home Affairs revealed in a letter to parliament. Intelligence service AIVD found “Russian narratives” about the virus being shared in a number of Dutch-language social media groups, she said.

These narratives emphasize “alleged European divisions and lack of mutual solidarity between countries in Western Europe in the field of Covid-19,” Ollongren wrote. She added that outside the social media groups in which these messages were shared, their reach remained limited.

The Kremlin is adept at creating for the unaware, vulnerable and gullible a credible false impression of facts. If there a pandemic? Yes, but … Is there racism in America? Yes, but … Is Ukraine fighting for its independence again? Yes, but …

The refined nature of Russia’s propaganda was highlighted by Viktoriia Romaniuk, deputy director at Mohyla School of Journalism in Kyiv and deputy chief editor of Stopfake.org in an article she wrote in the Nos.1-2, 2019 edition of The Ukrainian Quarterly. While her observations directly pertain to the effects of ongoing Russian propaganda in Ukraine, conclusions can be drawn for other situations.

“Since the beginning of the Russian aggression in Donbas and occupation of Crimea, Ukraine has become the epicenter of Russia’s hybrid war. Signs of Russian propaganda are not only its illogical, emotional presentations (there are no facts, evidence, testimonies of officials, etc.) but most importantly their systemic nature. For five years in a row, the Kremlin media has regularly promoted important messages for the Russian authorities to various target audiences, via fake and manipulative messages, that were meant to promote political and military goals…

“Russian propaganda is actively working with narratives or narrative discourse…

“It should be noted that the narrative itself is not a direct fake or manipulative distortion of information. It is a regular infusing an audience with a particular content and interpretation of events, a phenomenon that leads to the formation of a new societal towards certain political decisions and events. Obviously, the task of Russian propaganda was to discredit Poroshenko’s pro-Western policy and to discredit in the minds of the electorate the democratic achievements of Ukraine over the past five years.

Interestingly, in fact, before the conclusion of the presidential elections, when various polls were forecasting the results of the voting, which showed that Volodymyr Zelenskyy would win, in the Russian media there was a new topic ‘Peace between fraternal peoples.’ Russian mass media also began to write that the war in Ukraine was beneficial solely to President Poroshenko, and Russia only seeks to help in resolving the ‘civil war.’…

“Thus, the propaganda strategies were aimed at changing the pro-Western paradigm that existed in the Ukrainian politics in the period from 2014 to 2019. The main strategies aimed to undermine the confidence of the Ukrainian people in Western initiatives and reforms, as well as to formulate a negative image of the European Union and the United States.”

With Russian wars, repression and dirty tricks around the world, Reuters should not have remunerated TASS with such a noble distinction. Hopefully, this nuptial will soon end in a divorce.