BBG Watch Commentary
“With the help of news services like RT and Ruptly, the Kremlin is seeking to reshape the way the world thinks about Russia. And it has been highly successful: Vladimir Putin has won the propaganda war over Ukraine and the West is divided,” says the German news magazine DER SPIEGEL in its English language SPIEGEL International online edition.
Since the U.S. taxpayer-funded Voice of America (VOA) has recently retweeted both RT and Ruptly tweets, not as examples of the Kremlin’s propaganda but as legitimate additions to its news coverage, and posted a map showing Crimea to be part of Russia, this should be an interesting reading for VOA executives.
One of the VOA retweets was from a Ruptly photographer who had posted earlier a doctored photo of Michelle Obama making fun of her campaign to free kidnapped Nigerian girls and making a propaganda point against her husband.
If even VOA executives seem unable to manage news reporting, and some of VOA news writers (who could be poorly paid and poorly trained contractors) are fooled by Russia’s RT and Ruptly, perhaps DER SPIEGEL – SPIEGEL International staff is right that the Kremlin has been highly successful in its propaganda war over Ukraine and that President Putin has won this war.
READ: “The Opinion-Makers: How Russia Is Winning the Propaganda War” By SPIEGEL Staff, DER SPIEGEL – SPIEGEL International, May 30, 2014.
As of Monday, June 2, 1:30 AM EDT, this English language article by DER SPIEGEL – SPIEGEL InternationaL has over 2,500 Facebook “Recommends” and 850 Tweets, many times more than most VOA English language news reports.