Our striving for balance found a new level yesterday when BizNews editor Mike Appel visited the Russian Embassy in Pretoria to record a side of the Ukraine War we’ve struggled to understand or get someone to articulate.
We’ll have to wait until Friday to see the fruits of his efforts. But given the ruckus in the Italian media right now, I’m hoping Mike pulled off the impossible – and is able to share something sensible, ie other than Goebbels-type propaganda.
In its communications on the Ukraine War, the Kremlin has followed a remote and thoroughly outdated approach both internally and externally. It’s becoming an increasingly tough sell after news that this month Russian deaths from the ‘Special Military Operation’ are set to surpass 40,000.
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Even so, Moscow doubled down on this approach yesterday by imposing sanctions on 29 journalists including the FT’s foreign affairs commentator Gideon Rachman and the editors of London’s Big Three newspapers – the Times, Telegraph and Guardian. Reason: “deliberately disseminating false and one-sided information about Russia and events in Ukraine…”
More for you to read today:
- The Fed Pricked the Everything Bubble. It is hard for investors to escape. But not every investment is equally exposed to the Fed.
- Sure, Internet Explorer Had Its Faults. But Fans Are Mourning Its Death Anyway. Microsoft is pulling the plug on its venerable browser on Wednesday; ‘I’m still trying to process it.’
- Chinese Tech Stocks Will Struggle to Buck Global Blues. The worst of the regulatory assault may finally be over. But a sustainable bull run faces several new, and nearly as dangerous, obstacles.
- Serena Williams Expects to Return at Wimbledon. Nearly a year since her last competitive match, the 23-time major winner plans to play at the All England Club.
Have a peaceful holiday tomorrow. This newsletter will be back on Friday.
From the FT: Italy’s media is being roiled by rows over Russian propaganda
While talk shows give pro-Putin voices a platform, the Italian parliament is investigating Kremlin-backed disinformation.
By Silvia Sciorilli Borrelli of The Financial Times
A clip of Alessandro Sallusti abruptly leaving a primetime Italian talk show has spread like wildfire on social media. One of the country’s best known journalists, Sallusti spent 11 years as editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Il Giornale, owned by the family of former prime minister (and media mogul) Silvio Berlusconi.
Last week when he exited a televised conversation about the war in Ukraine, he became the unlikely hero of pro-EU Nato supporters in Italy. Moments earlier, Maria Zakharova, the Russia foreign ministry’s spokeswoman, joined the show via a patchy Skype connection. She began the discussion by complaining about the poor signal and the west’s willingness to cut off Russia’s “global connections”. Ironically, the interview was being aired from Moscow’s Red Square.
Zhakarova repeatedly blamed the west for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and derided Massimo Giletti, the programme’s anchor. “I am under the impression you landed on planet earth last week, you are speaking [like] a child,” she said to him.
When it was Sallusti’s turn to speak, he exclaimed: “Massimo, I thought you had gone all the way to Moscow because you had managed to land an interview with Putin, or a Russian minister . . . instead I find myself subjugated to the worst form of Russian propaganda”. He added, before ripping his earpiece off: “I refuse to serve as a fig leaf between the other two arseholes you have standing there next to you.”
One of the other interviewees standing next to the anchor was journalist Vladimir Soloviev, a friend of president Putin.
The moment captured the fraught and polarised nature of Italy’s public debate over Ukraine.
Paradoxically, Sallusti — who now heads the conservative daily Libero — has for years been a symbol of a media landscape shaped by Berlusconi. And for decades, Berlusconi was Putin’s close friend.
Up until this year, Italy’s foreign policy and trade relations with Russia mirrored Berlusconi’s fascination with Putin. Now, however, prime minister Mario Draghi is overseeing the most dramatic foreign policy shift in 30 years, and the country is trying rapidly to abandon its dependence on Russian gas.
Yet several media outlets have continued to air Russian propaganda, offering a platform to Russian and Italian analysts who deny attacks on civilians, blame Nato for the conflict and accuse the Ukrainian government of provoking Putin.
While these perspectives are reflective of a segment of Italian public opinion, if polls are anything to go by, Sallusti says he “can’t put up” with them any more.
“I would debate for days with any Russian who wants to discuss the facts, but to sit there listening to denials, accusations, the greatness of Mother Russia and the ineptitude of the west is a different story,” he adds.
Nathalie Tocci, director of the International Affairs Institute, believes there is a mix of misinformation and attention-seeking behind the pro-Russian stance adopted by some in the Italian media.
“How many are just useful idiots and how many are actually on the Kremlin’s payroll, I don’t know,” she says. A parliamentary investigation into the spread of Russian-backed disinformation in the Italian media has just begun.
Sallusti suggests that anti-EU sentiment in Italy plays a role in fanning support for Russia. He says of Eurosceptic Italians: “if Putin is an enemy of the EU, then Putin is their friend.”
It is television talk shows, of the sort that thrived in Berlusconi’s 1990s heyday, that have done most to give a platform to such views, though today they attract dwindling audiences and are haemorrhaging advertising revenues.
As I write this article with the TV on in the background, I can hear an influential leftwing journalist argue on such a show. “The Russians were provoked in Donbas!” he cries.
It strikes me that while Italy’s Berlusconified media isn’t wholly to blame for this pro-Putin drift, the “infotainment” pioneered by commercial broadcasters has certainly played its part.
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