RT’s Military Mission: Assessing Russia Today’s role as an “information weapon”

Atlantic Council
January 8, 2018

Vladimir Putin and Margarita Simonyan, the Editor-in-Chief of both RT News and Sputnik.
Mrs. Simonyan, fluent in English, also sits on the Executive Board of Putin's Reelection Committee.

Since September, the Kremlin has been up in arms over the United States’ decision to register Russian state broadcaster RT (formerly “Russia Today”, motto “Question more”) as a “foreign agent”. Top officials have repeatedly argued that the move violates freedom of speech and journalistic freedom, arguing that RT is simply a news agency producing bona fide journalism, like the BBC or CNN. The protests even reached Russia’s Security Council, in a discussion chaired by President Vladimir Putin and attended by the defense and interior ministers, the heads of domestic and foreign intelligence, and others. However, statements by RT’s editor-in-chief in 2012–13, covering earlier years, indicate that the station’s mission and philosophy are not journalistic but military, and it serves as an “information weapon” parallel to the Ministry of Defense in times of conflict — including at present.

An analysis of RT’s former and current output confirms this view. It has repeatedly subordinated journalistic standards to Russian government narratives, selectively reporting facts and comments to validate the Kremlin’s portrayal of events. A similar selectivity appears to apply to interviewees. Taken together, these factors show that RT should not be viewed as a legitimate journalistic outlet, but rather as a propaganda voice for the Russian government. Those who follow RT, and those who are invited to appear on its shows, should bear this in mind......

article continued @ link above

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Thoreau72 said:

Knowledge is good, and the knowledge to be found on RT is so much more refreshing that what is published on MSM.

It is a propaganda outlet in the same way that Radio Free Europe or any of the US broadcast and print outlets.

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Rogue Valley said:

RT’s Military Mission: Assessing Russia Today’s role as an “information weapon”

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Extended and detailed description of the Kremlin-owned RT [and Sputnik] role as a foreign propaganda-appendage of the Russian Ministry of Defense.

RT is the most visible and widely distributed/broadcast Russian state propaganda medium and is available in Russian, English, French, German, Spanish, and Arabic.

Click to expand...

Rogue Valley said:

RT’s Military Mission: Assessing Russia Today’s role as an “information weapon”

---

Extended and detailed description of the Kremlin-owned RT [and Sputnik] role as a foreign propaganda-appendage of the Russian Ministry of Defense.

RT is the most visible and widely distributed/broadcast Russian state propaganda medium and is available in Russian, English, French, German, Spanish, and Arabic.

Click to expand...

gdgyva said:

according to the piece on 60 minutes, this was the main crux of russia's involvement in our 2016 election

between their social media presence and their European and us broadcasts they put out a lot of hit pieces on hillary

if this is the proverbial smoking gun, there isnt much there....a meeting of Flynn with Putin at a dinner in like 2015 was probably the most damning piece of evidence and the video didnt even show them speaking

not saying they didnt put out propaganda...they did...so did CNN, MSNBC, and almost every other news site in the world and called it opinion pieces

theirs were just aimed at hillary, not donald

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Thoreau72 said:

Just curious here--how many people do YOU know that voted for Trump because they were persuaded to do so by Russian efforts and propaganda?

I know about a dozen people who voted for Trump, and not a single one (I socialize with them at the bar) felt he was persuaded to vote that way because of Russian influence.

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Evilroddy said:

We wouldn't want naughty Russians muddying the waters of recently unfettered US domestic propaganda efforts to shape public opinion and bulwark US national resolve to practice forever-war, now would we?

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Thoreau72 said:

Knowledge is good, and the knowledge to be found on RT is so much more refreshing that what is published on MSM.

It is a propaganda outlet in the same way that Radio Free Europe or any of the US broadcast and print outlets.

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chuckiechan said:

Except the goal is to destroy the USA. Minor difference, but an important one.

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From Lt. Col. Davis:

In context, Colonel Leap is implying we ought to change the law to enable Public Affairs officers to influence American public opinion when they deem it necessary to "protect a key friendly center of gravity, to wit US national will."

The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 appears to serve this purpose by allowing for the American public to be a target audience of U.S. government-funded information campaigns.

Davis also quotes Brigadier General Ralph O. Baker — the Pentagon officer responsible for the Department of Defense’s Joint Force Development — who defines Information Operations as activities undertaken to "shape the essential narrative of a conflict or situation and thus affect the attitudes and behaviors of the targeted audience."

Brig. Gen. Baker goes on to equate descriptions of combat operations with the standard marketing strategy of repeating something until it is accepted:

For years, commercial advertisers have based their advertisement strategies on the premise that there is a positive correlation between the number of times a consumer is exposed to product advertisement and that consumer’s inclination to sample the new product. The very same principle applies to how we influence our target audiences when we conduct COIN.

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