By Ted Lipien The Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ, has released a report on unsolved killings of journalists in Russia which identifies the Russian Federation as one of the deadliest countries in the world for the press. Published September 15, 2009 by Digital Journal The international organization of journalists ranked Russia third worldwide in the number of journalists killed and…
Censorship and self-censorship have become a permanent feature of the media scene in Russia under Mr. Putin’s rule. Many Americans, however, were surprised last week that this kind of censorship with origins in Moscow has now reached corporate boardrooms in their own country and even put limits on news generated by US taxpayer supported Radio Liberty, which broadcasts to Russia.…
Thirty-one years ago this week, on 7 September 1978, Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian émigré journalist who wrote for Radio Free Europe, BBC and Deutsche Welle, was assaulted in broad daylight on London’s Waterloo Bridge. Markov’s murder happened during the Cold War, but in more recent years the murder of Anna Politkovskaya and of numerous other journalists in Russia, as well…
Update: Radio Liberty Russian website finally produced reports on the GQ story on Monday, full three days after the story broke in the mainstream media in the US, NPR no less. VOA Russian website had a very brief news item on the story by Sunday. Only on Tuesday, did the VOA Russian Service post an interview with Scott Anderson. The…
Thirty-one years ago this week, on 7 September 1978, Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian émigré journalist who wrote for Radio Free Europe, BBC and Deutsche Welle, was assaulted in broad daylight on London’s Waterloo Bridge. Markov’s murder happened during the Cold War, but in more recent years the murder of Anna Politkovskaya and of numerous other journalists in Russia, as well…
FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, GovoritAmerika.us, September 6, 2009, San Francisco — Neither the Voice of America nor Radio Liberty, both US government-funded international broadcasters, provided Internet users and radio listeners with a Russian translation of an article about Vladimir Putin which sparked a major controversy over censorship both in Russia and in the US. Conde Nast, the publisher of…
The popular New York blog site Gawker is reporting that “in an act of publishing cowardice, Condé Nast has gone to extraordinary lengths to prevent Russians from reading a “GQ” article criticizing Vladimir Putin.” Condé Nast publishes such widely read magazines as “Vanity Fair,” “The New Yorker,” and “Vogue.” In Russia, it publishes “GQ,” “Glamour,” “Tatler,” and “Vogue.” The Manhattan…
Buzek – Poland has a clear conscience over WW II President of the European Parliament and former Polish prime minister Jerzy Buzek, thought some of Vladimir Putin’s comments at WW II anniversary ceremony in Poland were “offensive”. Read full Polish Radio report…
Helle Dale has written two articles on how the Obama Administration is still unable to get its public diplomacy act together. I don’t think that there was a deliberate attempt to snub Poland over the 70th anniversary observances of the start of World War II, but as the Heritage Foundation scholar points out, Poland has a lot of reasons to…
The New York Times correspondent in Moscow Michael Schwirtz reported that many Poles saw the low-level U.S. representation at the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II observances in Gdansk as a snub from the Obama Administration. Russia sent Prime Minister Putin, whose statement that the Hitler-Stalin Pact “can be condemned” was misleadingly reported by most international media…
The BBC, the Voice of America (VOA) and other international media reported that in in an apparent effort to defuse tensions on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the start of World War II, Russia’s Prime Minister Vladimir Putin “expressly condemned” the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the treaty of non-aggression between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. BBC News headline read:…
From the very dawn of Soviet power and development, due to a series of tragic events, women significantly outnumbered men by about 20 mln. The Revolution of via USSR, the Birthplace of Feminism.
In an article posted in the Foreign Policy Association Blog, Mark Dillen made a reference to my report about the failure of the State Department to respond quickly and adequately to the terrorist attack in Ingushetia. Mark Dillen is a former Senior Foreign Service Officer with the US State Department. He managed political, media and cultural relations for US embassies…
FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, GovoritAmerika.us, Media analysis by Ted Lipien, August 21, 2009, San Francisco –A title of a recent report on the Voice of America Russian Service website caught my attention: “Сговор Сталина с Гитлером – «единственное средство самообороны»?” “Stalin’s Pact with Hitler – «The Only Means of Self-Defense»?” The story posted in Russian was the…
FreeMediaOnline.org, Free Media Online Blog, GovoritAmerika.us, Commentary by Ted Lipien, August 18, 2009, San Francisco — Ever since the United States Information Agency (USIA) was dismantled in a foolish post-Cold War cost-cutting move, the U.S. State Department and American diplomats abroad have not been able to present a coherent message to foreign audiences quickly and effectively. The latest example is…