Putin just shut down RIA Novosti and VoR--and folded them into his OWN "RT" propaganda machine.

[MADem]

(SFC) The Kremlin announced today that Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree dissolving the state run news agency RIA Novosti and state-owned Voice of Russia radio.
What a bully! He's even swiping their BUILDING! So much for "freedom of the press" and all that fun stuff....

http://www.sportsfeatures.com/olympicsnews/story/50767/putin-signs-decree-to-shut-down-ria-novosti-and-the-voice-of-russia

RIA Novosti was the appointed national news agency and photo pool for the Sochi 2014 Olympics coming up in less than 60 days. Their appointment goes back to the fall of 2011.

Both agencies will be “scrapped and absorbed” by a new media conglomerate called Rossiya Segodnya, in English “Russia Today” according to the decree which appears to be tightening state control on the media sector. However it will be separate from RT, the Kremlin-funded English-language television channel originally known as Russia Today.

The new organization will also take over the current RIA Novosti building in downtown Moscow, the decree said.

[MannyGoldstein]

1. It sucks that our own media is so biased to the right

that it gives RT an opening in the US - I don't trust them.

[el_bryanto]

3. I think that, for the most part, people who would seek out RT for news

are also informed enough to know that it's not an unbiased source.

Bryant

[MADem]

8. Not necessarily--there are people who are shocked to learn that the R in RT stands for "Russia." nt

[msanthrope]

2. I'm waiting for the Greenwald column on this. nt

[madrchsod]

9. that`s going to be a long wait

after all his good buddy snowden is living there.

[dipsydoodle]

4. I assume they'll maintain the separation as was the case

between the international stuff on RT News and their own home site in English with world links on Ria Novosti becoming Rossiya Segodnya. This news item was on Ria Novosti yesterday.

RT is a good source for news anyway just using their new line page , which is devoid of links and comment , just to see what's occurring. See today's for example : http://rt.com/news/line/2013-12-10/

[MADem]

6. Bottom line is Putin has his thumb on everything. It's like the old Pravda - Izvestia days.

You won't get any "truth" out of RT if that truth is disparaging to Pootie Poot.

[Rex]

5. Since when did that dictatorship ever have a free press?

RIA and VoR must have snapped some unflattering pictures of Czar Pootie Poot.

[MADem]

7. Perhaps they didn't adequately photoshop his moobs, or something....

[Rex]

10. HAHAHAHA!!!

The Pooter on patrol...as reported by state media!

[HappyMe]

11. Good old Pootie.

He's all about the freedom.

[MADem]

12. That's about the size of it!

He loves freedom, so long as people aren't trash talking HIM!

[HappyMe]

13. Yikes, that's creepy.

It seems to me that he's losing it or getting worse. Or something. Afraid to lose control of things, so he's clamping down.

[MADem]

23. I agree--and so do many journalists inside and outside of Russia.

The fact that he stuck a huge homophobe at the head of this new agency suggests that Sochi is gonna be problematic--I fear for gay athletes.

There is NO way this is "no big deal:"

The most controversial aspect of Russia Today's launch was the appointment of Mr Kiselev as its director-general.

Known back in the 1990s as one of the faces of "independent journalism", Mr Kiselev has recently become notorious for his extreme and sometimes bizarre diatribes in his role as a top anchor on official channel Rossiya 1.

He has likened Kremlin opponents at home and abroad to the Nazis, used a Swedish children's TV show about toilet training to exemplify "Western values", and repeatedly demonised homosexuals.

Arguably his most controversial outburst was when he said that Russia's controversial law banning the promotion of homosexuality among children was not tough enough on gays.

"They should be banned from donating blood and sperm, and if they are killed in a car crash their hearts should be buried in the ground or burnt as unfit for helping to prolong anyone's life," he told viewers.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25309139

"Odious," indeed. This is an horrific development.

[HappyMe]

24. Holy crap!

They are moving backward at an alarming rate - like medieval backward.

I would bet that people can't just pack up and get out easily. I am afraid for lgbt people there. I can't imagine the damage psychologically of having come out, then have to go back into hiding who you are, and fearing for your very life.

[MADem]

25. It must be horrific for them to live in fear like that.

I can imagine what a miasma will hang over Sochi, too, for LGBT athletes.

It was a HORRIBLE, homophobic mistake for the IOC to choose Russia as a place for the Olympics.

I really think the whole "human rights" thing ought to be factored into where athletes compete.

[HappyMe]

27. Yeah, it isn't as if the lgbt athletes

can slip around unnoticed.

If the IOC doesn't consider human rights when selecting a location...I don't know. I can't imagine how sad it would be for somebody who's dream is competing, only to give that Olympic dream up because of the fear what may happen to them. The athletes families too. They support and sacrifice for that person, your heart is bursting with pride and now you're afraid.

[MADem]

29. And FEAR can impact their performance if they do 'gird up' and go to the Games.

The gay athletes are at a disadvantage before they even begin to compete.

[Blue_Tires]

14. Russia has had an increasingly ugly downward trend in press freedoms over the past decade...

[MADem]

17. Yes, they have--and just in time for the Olympics!

There's no truth in Pravda, and no news in Izvestia...and all the bullshit is over at RT!

[FarCenter]

15. RIA Novosti doesn't appear to be shut down or changed in any way yet.

http://en.ria.ru/

[MADem]

16. Did you read the article? Putin co-opted it. His RT propaganda machine is running it. nt

[dipsydoodle]

18. Article states

"However it will be separate from RT, the Kremlin-funded English-language television channel originally known as Russia Today."

To which bit do you refer ?

[MADem]

20. It's still state-owned. With the SAME NAME. So they've BIFURCATED their propaganda.

Are you suggesting that the Russian Language Russia Today, overseen by Putin, is going to be divorced in its entirety from the English Language one?

I have a bridge for sale in Moscow--price, cheap!

[FarCenter]

19. It was under the "Russian Ministry of Communications and Mass Media" before

Since Putin runs the Russian government, it was not independent before the reorganization.

[MADem]

21. It's even less so now. This is "oversight on steroids." Just in time for Sochi! nt

[MADem]

22. Additional material for the "Nothing to See Here, Move Along" Deniers.....

Last edited Wed Dec 11, 2013, 01:00 PM - Edit history (1)

For many Kremlin critics in Russia, that phrase suggests this is a sinister move by President Putin, says the BBC's Daniel Sandford in Moscow.

During Mr Putin's time as Russia's leader, RIA Novosti has tried hard to produce balanced coverage for Russian and international audiences, our correspondent says.

Although state-owned, it has reflected the views of the opposition and covered difficult topics for the Kremlin, our correspondent adds.

Mr Kiselev is known for his ultra-conservative views, including recently saying that gay people should be banned from giving blood, and that their hearts should be burnt rather than used in transplants.

Reporting on its own demise, RIA noted in its news report that "the move is the latest in a series of shifts in Russia's news landscape, which appear to point toward a tightening of state control in the already heavily regulated media sector".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25299116

Putin's RIA Novosti revamp prompts propaganda fears

President Vladimir Putin's plans to create a major international news agency called Rossiya Segodnya, or Russia Today, is being seen as a significant move in Moscow's strategy to influence world opinion. But it has also raised concerns about further curbs on media freedom in Russia itself.

The new agency is to be headed by Dmitry Kiselev, one of Russian TV's most notorious anchors, known for his extreme anti-Western and homophobic views.

Media stalwarts

Mr Putin's decree liquidating state-owned news agency RIA Novosti and the Kremlin's international radio station, Voice of Russia, and replacing them with Russia Today came like a bolt from the blue.

....Pro-Kremlin commentator Sergey Markov wrote on Facebook that the agency's demise may be linked to its coverage of anti-Putin protests in 2012 and the apparent sympathy of some of its journalists for the opposition....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-25309139

Unbelievable--this is a serious assault on press freedom and the guy running it is a Putin acolyte-homophobe. There's just no upside to this shit.

[HappyMe]

26. I'll bet that even in the face of this,

there are still people that think that Pooty is Mr. Awesome.

[MADem]

28. Yep....it's amazing how much can be thrown under the bus because, ya know, Snowden is dreamy.

I'm starting to think Snowden has been a Russian "asset" since he was working in Japan--maybe even in Europe, when he was waxing eloquently about the virtues of European prostitutes on Ars Technica and talking about spies being shot in their gonads.

It's not uncommon for those fuckers to approach people and try to recruit them--I think the only question is "When was he approached, and where?"

I didn't think that he was turned, initially--but Pootie, asshole that he is, homophobe that he is, despot that he is, is a damned sharp spy. He came up in the KGB and he's one of their best and brightest.

I think GG, et. al, are being played as useful tools. They're turning a tidy profit for their clueless perfidy, so I imagine they don't care.

[pampango]

30. RIA Novosti was former President Dmitry Medvedev's effort to liberalize Russian media.

Well, Medvedev ain't the president anymore.

Even though the Kremlin funded RIA Novosti, Bennetts says he didn't feel any pressure to follow the government's line of thinking, making his experience "surreal" sometimes. For example, once when there was a protest against the government, he wrote this first sentence for his report: "Tens of thousands of people march through the centre of Moscow chanting Putin is a thief." Then at the end of the week, he picked up his Kremlin paycheck.

Bennetts says RIA Novosti was former President Dmitry Medvedev's "baby." "Medvedev was attempting to liberalize or, as he called it, modernize Russia, and part of this was a revamp on the RIA Novosti," Bennetts says.

The agency began to hire journalists with experience at major foreign news outlets, such as The New York Times, the BBC and The Guardian. Bennetts says if there was pressure to follow the Kremlin's line on reporting, none of these reporters would have continued to work there. But that was what irritated a lot of people in the Kremlin, namely, Putin supporters.

So now RIA Novosti will be morphed into a new media outlet called Russia Today. The person who will be heading it, Dimitry Kiselyov, is a defender of hardline Putin policies, like Russia's law against so-called "gay propaganda."

http://www.pri.org/stories/2013-12-10/state-run-news-agency-was-not-hardline-enough-vladimir-putin

[MADem]

31. Sad day for Russia. It was the "voice of the opposition" -- such as it was.

And how DARE they hire people with actual journalistic cred! That must not stand!

Now, people looking for a free press in Russia can fuggedaboutit. Anything called "news" coming out of Russia is going to be vetted by the Pootie machine. And with all those foreign bureaux in place, the RIA network can be used as a vehicle to insert Russian spies in offices all over the world. If I were a foreign government with a RIA office in my nation, I'd put my people on anyone who claims to be a "journalist" working out of that office from this day forward.