We know that Russia Today aka “RT” is a ridiculous front for Kremlin propaganda. We know about Putin’s massive crackdown across the Russian media landscape. What’s left?
Calvert Journal has published a comprehensive “media compass” in the style of New York Magazine’s approval matrix, ranking the left-over outlets from lowbrow to highbrow and state-controlled to independent.
Turns out that the occasionally highbrow Afisha culture and entertainment magazine with a monthly reach of 3.7 million ranks just a little more independent than state-controlled. Konstantin Rykov’s conservative political newspaper Vzglyad is openly tied to the Kremlin, duh. Populist tv network LifeNews is utter shit. It’s also owned by “the Russian Murdochs” Aram and Ashot Gabrelyanov and metaphorically performs oral sex acts on Kremlin’s genitalia for intel quickies. At the very top of state-controlled Russian media is Russia-1 with a monthly reach of 49.3 million. It’s Fox News if the president is a Republican and an openly homophobic, xenophobic despot, forever.
Russia-1 is the second most watched channel in the country, keeping its older, more conservative audience happy with slushy dramas, films and increasingly xenophobic and vitriolic news broadcasts from the channel’s figurehead, Dmitry Kiselyov — part of a notable anti-liberal trend starting after the 2011 and 2012 protests. Russia-1 is the flagship channel on the government-owned Rossiya network, which also includes a culture channel and 24-hour news.
So if you have immigrant parents who are reading corrupt stupid shit online in Russian because they don’t know any better, tell them to go to the culture and politics site Colta, BBC Radio Russian Service and Rain TV aka TV Dozhd, one of Russia’s last rebellious media outlets which the Kremlin has marked for death. Read more at the Calvert Journal.
