(POLITICO) In trying to create a likeness of Soviet power, Vladimir Putin is doing one thing demonstrably better than the Kremlin masters of old: propaganda. During the Cold War Soviet outlets like Pravda would disseminate outlandish claims so crass and obviously false that even true comrades turned the page or flipped the channel (and there were a lot fewer channels then). Today the Kremlin-funded RT, with its lineup of conspiracy cranks, slanted reportage and ceaseless assaults on Western institutions, has ended end up as the most-watched network on YouTube. Backed with budget approaching $450 million in 2014, RT now acts as the tip of the Kremlin’s information warfare machine, an agglomeration that seeks to undermine both notions of journalism and faith in the workings of liberal democracy. […]
“RT is completely different,” George Washington University Associate Research Professor Robert Orttung, who helped write a recent research paper into RT’s methodology and reach, told me. “Russia’s current goal is to undermine as much of the Western world order as possible. … RT tries to do anything it can to convince Western audiences that their leaders are taking them in the wrong direction.”
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