The World Is Watching Russia Invade Ukraine. But Russian Media Is Telling a Different Story
The Russian government doesn’t create much of an illusion of press freedom. Many of the most prominent media organizations, from television channels to the Russian news agency TASS, are owned by the federal government, and journalists critical of the political establishment face not only censorship, but also risk to their lives and livelihoods.
That reality has become only more obvious since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. A survey of headlines in Russian news outlets this week reveals not so much what is happening inside the attacking nation, but rather what President Vladimir Putin’s government would like its citizens to believe.
On Thursday, Roskomnadzor—the federal organization responsible for controlling and censoring the media—issued a statement informing the Russian media “they are obliged to only use information and data they have received from official Russian sources.” The statement also warned that unnamed media outlets have spread “unverified and unreliable information.”
While some opposition publications such as Novaya Gazeta attempt to counter the narrative, mainstream Russian news outlets have largely fallen into line—even if the results are unlikely to fool discerning Russian readers who have been exposed to roughly 15 years of pro-government propaganda. The resulting stories are as striking for what they omit as what they actually publish; by and large, Russian media minimizes the scale of the attack on Ukraine—describing it in the phrase used by federal officials, as a “military operation” rather than a “war” or “invasion,” the terms much of western media has used—while uncritically reprinting statements from Putin and other government officials.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-world-is-watching-russia-invade-ukraine-but-russian-media-is-telling-a-different-story/ar-AAUjycd
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The people know! And they detest him!
