PrintDecember 16, 2013
The Return of Soviet Media
The speed and domestic impunity with which the dictator Vladimir Putin is sovietizing the Russian media is truly breathtaking. Last week it seemed as if Russians woke up in a whole new country, but one which they recognized only too well: the USSR. With every day that passes, ordinary Russians are more and more cut off from basic facts about the world, just as they were in Soviet times. And more and more an international laughingstock.
First there was the reporting by Russian television on the crisis in Ukraine. All of the major broadcast TV networks are state-controlled in Russia, and the lies they told about the massive protests were amazingly bold. The Kremlin strongly opposes Ukraine joining the European Union, preferring to keep Ukraine firmly under its thumb, and has been putting extreme pressure on the Ukrainian government to spurn Europe. But hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians prefer association with the much more potent economy of Europe and access to the far larger European...(Read Full Article)
