Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
08MOSCOW2413
2008-08-14 15:32:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Moscow
Cable title:  

TFGG01: IS THE KREMLIN REALLY LOSING THE

Tags:  PBTS PINR PINS PNAT PREL GG RS 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXYZ0018
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHMO #2413/01 2271532
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 141532Z AUG 08
FM AMEMBASSY MOSCOW
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 9497
INFO RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHXD/MOSCOW POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 002413 

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/14/2018
TAGS: PBTS PINR PINS PNAT PREL GG RS
SUBJECT: TFGG01: IS THE KREMLIN REALLY LOSING THE
INFORMATION WAR? ONLY IN THE WEST

REF: A) MOSCOW 2343 B) MOSCOW 2366 C) MOSCOW 2383

Classified By: A/DCM Alice G. Wells for reason 1.4(d)

C O N F I D E N T I A L MOSCOW 002413

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/14/2018
TAGS: PBTS PINR PINS PNAT PREL GG RS
SUBJECT: TFGG01: IS THE KREMLIN REALLY LOSING THE
INFORMATION WAR? ONLY IN THE WEST

REF: A) MOSCOW 2343 B) MOSCOW 2366 C) MOSCOW 2383

Classified By: A/DCM Alice G. Wells for reason 1.4(d)


1. (C) Summary: Russian media seems as concerned about
Western press coverage of the events in South Ossetia as it
is by the conflict itself. Pro-Kremlin pundits and Russian
officials alike have lashed out at CNN and other media
sources, criticizing their bias, but other Russian voices
have noted that the Kremlin has invested little energy in
conveying the Russian point of view to a Western audience, in
contrast to the media savvy Saakashvili. Privately,
ordinarily pro-Western contacts have complained to us about
the anti-Russian bias and observed that Western media has
"failed" to understand Russia or try to see the conflict from
Moscow's point of view. Russian journalists have enjoyed
broad access to the military in South Ossetia, and appear to
share the GOR conviction that Russia should not be held
responsible for the war. We see little chance in the short
term that Russian newsmakers or Western media will see
eye-to-eye on how to cover the events. End summary.


2. (SBU) Early in the conflict, state-controlled broadcast
media devoted significant parts of the broadcasts criticizing
the Western media for ignoring the plight of the South
Ossetians and taking Georgia's side. In an evening news
broadcast, state-run Rossiya network labeled some August 11
CNN footage of Saakashvili in Gori and example of "American
TV's warfare against Russia. Channel One noted in an August
10 news programs that "(Saakashvili's) statements and footage
of what is described as Russia's bombing of Gori is what
Western coverage is limited to. The goal is that no one in
the West should have any doubts about who attacked whom in
this conflict."


3. (SBU) Russian officials have taken potshots at the
Western media as well. In an August 12 press release,
President Medvedev criticized the Western mass media for
ignoring Georgia's "barbaric aggression against the South
Ossetian civilians and peacekeepers." Deputy Foreign

Minister Karasin said in an August 10 press conference, "We
would like Western television to broadcast not only pictures
of Russian tanks... but also show the suffering of the
Ossetian people, dead elderly people and children, villages
razed to the ground and Tskhinvali lying almost in ruins.
This would be objective reporting. the rest are politically
motivated versions." An August 13 statement by MFA
spokesperson Alexander Nesterenko specifically called Western
press reports of Russian troop movements in Georgia
"baseless."

English versus Russian
--------------


4. (SBU) Part of the disconnect may be due to language.
While Saakashvili has made himself available to Western
reporters and given continual live interviews and speeches in
English, the Russian government has held all press
conferences in Russian, almost all press conferences in
Russian, except for Foreign Minister Lavrov's one session
with the BBC, in English, on August 9. Only on August 13,
when Western television channels showed Russian tanks headed
to Tbilisi, did Prime Minister Putin's spokesperson Dmitry
Peskov call into CNN to deny that Russian troops intended to
push deeper into Russia. Ministry of Defense press
conferences are all in Russian as well.


5. (SBU) Independent, business oriented daily newspaper
Vedemosti editorialized August 13: "Russian authorities may
deem it unnecessary to explain their policies to foreign
audiences. However, when Russia was bidding to host the
Olympics...President Putin spoke in English and French...
This time, Georgian leaders look like the good guys to the
rest of the work. By watching international TV, one can
hardly stop short of feeling sorry for Saakashvili, who
speaks English and answers tough questions. An aggressive
image costs Russia an outflow of foreign capital, falling
stocks and an economic slowdown. A professional spokesman
would be much cheaper."


6. (C) Aleksandr Golts, Deputy Editor of the Weekly Journal,
said he believed Russia was "losing the propaganda war."
Noting that only one of FM Lavrov's press conferences had
been directed at the Western media, he contended that it was
not entirely surprising that the West was reacting as
strongly as it was.


7. (C) Public Chamber member and Russia/Georgia expert
Nikolai Svanidze, lamented the fact that media coverage of
the conflict in Russia - and in the U.S. and Europe - had not
been objective. He argued that Western media had failed to

educate their audiences about the history of the conflict,
and had been relying almost exclusively on Georgian sources.
He suggested that a concerted effort by the Public Chamber to
make available to Western media information from Russian
sources, announced August 13, would go nowhere. As a member
of the Public Chamber himself, he said he had conferred
broadly with fellow members and, despite the Chamber
leadership's assessment of Western coverage bias, had come to
the conclusion that there was no chance to change perceptions
via electronic media in the West.


8. (C) As for Russia, while Svanidze doubted that there had
been much consideration given to how to package and
distribute information on the conflict prior to its start,
Russian leaders, especially Putin, had only themselves to
blame now for the missed opportunity to get across their
assessment of events through western media. The restrictions
placed on media over the past several years were indicative
of the attitude of Russian leaders toward the press. Putin
simply did not think in terms of using effective media
management to ensure that Russia's image abroad was taken
into consideration.

Why Bother Trying?
You Cannot Even Find This On a Map
--------------


9. (C) Several long-time media contacts acknowledged
Russia's worsening international image, but put the blame on
the Western media's inherent bias. Aleksey Anishyuk, Foreign
Editor for mass-circulation tabloid Moskovskiy Komsolmolets
told us that "nothing will make the Western press take a
pro-Russian slant" because "Western media has to speak with
one language to audiences that are primarily disposed against
Russia." He suggested that Russian TV may have exaggerated
the anti-Russian spin in the West in order to prepare the
Russian public for a prolonged tension over Georgia and other
ex-Soviet republics. He observed that the Western public's
ignorance about the conflict ("Did Americans mistake this for
the state of Georgia?" he asked sarcastically) fed into the
Western media's tendency to oversimplify.


10. (C) Dmitry Babich, Editor-in-Chief of Russia Profile
magazine echoed Anishyuk, noting that Russia stood no chance
of winning the media war because the Western media benefits
from reinforcing public stereotypes rather than challenging
them. He told us that Western journalists would never risk
"boring their audiences" with a lengthy analysis of the
complicated historical relationships between the Georgians
and the South Ossetians. Babich noted that Western media
rarely attended the frequent press briefings at he MFA or
MOD, and he was even asked at one briefing, as a fluent
English speaker, to pose as a foreign journalist when the
moderator invited questions from the international media.



11. (C) Mikhail Ponomarev, News Director of TV Center (and
former news director at state-run Vesti on Rossiya channel),
also believed that Western coverage reflected the lack of
interest and knowledge of the region. Meanwhile, the Russian
media community is "genuinely confused and irritated" by the
way the Western media presents the conflict, which in turn
makes it difficult to present a balanced narrative of events.


Speaking to the Home Audiences
--------------


12. (C) Babich noted that while Russia may be losing the
international media war, it had won the fight domestically.
Traditionally anti-Kremlin Russian media and human rights
advocates had voiced little criticism of Russian actions in
Georgia. Ponomarev noted that this may be the first time that
the Russian media, particularly television, encountered so
few reporting restrictions or editorial pressures. He called
the Russian military in the conflict zone "uncommonly
friendly" to journalists. He also noted that a TV Center
crew in Tskhinvali the day Georgia opened fire witness the
heavy shelling as well as Georgian military atrocities
against civilians. Most Russian journalists in the city that
day suffered different degrees of blast injuries from the
intense shelling. Ponomarev said that "nothing could convince
him" that Russia should be held responsible for starting this
conflict.

Comment
--------------


13. (C) Russians may complain about the anti-Russian bias in
the Western media, but there seems to be little more than a
perfunctory effort on the part of the Kremlin to bridge that
E

divide. When ordinarily pro-Western contacts like Golts,
Ponomarev and Babich are unanimous in writing off the Western
media and audiences as uninformed, biased and anti-Russia, it
seems unlikely that the Kremlin will do more to win
international opinion. They may not be getting the amount of
international air time that Saakashvili is, but the domestic
audiences seem more important -- and much more receptive.
















RUBIN