{"id":585146,"date":"2021-07-07T12:50:44","date_gmt":"2021-07-07T16:50:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=585146"},"modified":"2021-07-07T12:50:48","modified_gmt":"2021-07-07T16:50:48","slug":"opinion-the-american-media-has-spread-russian-propaganda-more-effectively-than-russia-itself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/opinion-the-american-media-has-spread-russian-propaganda-more-effectively-than-russia-itself\/","title":{"rendered":"OPINION: The American Media Has Spread Russian Propaganda More Effectively Than Russia Itself"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">26<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fopinion-the-american-media-has-spread-russian-propaganda-more-effectively-than-russia-itself%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=585146&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/GettyImages-479102243.jpg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>As the United States celebrated Independence Day over the weekend, the media continued to warn Americans of an allegedly all-powerful plot by Russian intelligence to advance misinformation. Unfortunately, Russia\u2019s greatest distortion of our democracy will never be investigated, because it\u2019s being perpetrated by the media and the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n<p>I do not say that as hyperbole. Carefully studying Russian propaganda techniques and reading expert analyses from the intelligence community reveals that the media could hardly do a better job promoting the goals of Russian propaganda if they were paid in rubles.<\/p>\n<p>The Department of Homeland Security explained Russian aims in an October 2020 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dhs.gov\/sites\/default\/files\/publications\/2020_10_06_homeland-threat-assessment.pdf\">assessment<\/a>. \u201cRussian actors will attempt to undermine national unity and sow seeds of discord that exploit perceived grievances within minority communities, especially among African Americans,\u201d the report stated. \u201cThe Russian government promulgates misinformation, threats, and narratives intended to incite panic or animosity among social and political groups,\u201d such as \u201cportrayals of U.S. law enforcement as racially biased.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That dovetails with FBI Director Christopher Wray\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fbi.gov\/news\/testimony\/worldwide-threats-to-the-homeland-091720\">testimony<\/a> before Congress a month earlier that \u201chostile foreign actors\u201d conduct \u201cdisinformation campaigns\u201d designed \u201cto mislead, sow discord, and, ultimately, undermine confidence in our democratic institutions and values.\u201d Similarly, former government intelligence analyst Clint Watts <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pbs.org\/newshour\/show\/russia-hacked-u-s-minds-and-undermined-democracy-author-says\">told<\/a> NPR in 2018 that Russian propaganda plots \u201cto make Americans lose confidence in democratic institutions and elected officials by turning every crack in our country into a chasm and pitting different race, ethnic groups, religious groups, socioeconomic groups, Second Amendment, abortion rights, whatever it might be where we fight, instead of being a unified front against them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>There could scarcely be a better description of the legacy media.<\/p>\n<p>As part of Russia\u2019s campaign to fracture American unity, it has endorsed voices of hopelessness who turn to violence. The Director of National Intelligence <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dni.gov\/files\/documents\/ICA_2017_01.pdf\">noted<\/a> that in 2012, the Russian state-sponsored TV network RT \u201caired a documentary called \u2018Cultures of Protest,\u2019 about active and often violent political resistance,\u201d and told viewers American government can only be changed by \u201crevolution.\u201d That sounds much like the message of CNN\u2019s \u201cUnited Shades of America,\u201d in which host W. Kamau Bell interviewed violent members of Antifa. \u201cLook, this fighting for democracy and against fascism thing has always been a messy business. And, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/cnn-host-praises-antifa-violence-yes-people-get-hurt\">yes, people get hurt<\/a> [and] property gets damaged,\u201d Bell said.<\/p>\n<p>Russia has focused much of its own propaganda driving a wedge between police and the black community by supporting the Black Lives Matter movement. Slate reviewed the ads purchased by the Kremlin\u2019s Internet Research Agency and <a href=\"https:\/\/slate.com\/technology\/2018\/05\/russian-trolls-are-obsessed-with-black-lives-matter.html\">reported<\/a> that \u201chundreds of the ads were focused on police violence toward black Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Kremlin could never buy the publicity won by CNN and MSNBC\u2019s laser-like focus on the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/mac-donald-statistics-do-not-support-the-claim-of-systemic-police-racism\">exceedingly rare cases<\/a> of law enforcement officers shooting unarmed black men. Frequent MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson of Morgan State University <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/transcripts\/transcript-11th-hour-brian-williams-4-12-21-n1263907\">told<\/a> Brian Williams in April, \u201cI\u2019m just as likely to get shot by that cop as I am with a potential intruder. That\u2019s just the reality. That\u2019s the reality of it that I live with every day.\u201d Another contributor, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.msnbc.com\/transcripts\/the-last-word\/2020-06-05-msna1365596\">said<\/a> last June that black \u201cPeople should be free to move about this country without the existential dread.\u201d&nbsp;Just last month, former Obama administration appointee Brittany Packnett Cunningham&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/former-obama-task-force-member-says-rise-in-crime-is-fault-of-the-police\">told<\/a> MSNBC that the nation\u2019s \u201crising crime \u2026 is actually the fault of the police.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Kremlin tried to convince black Americans that there is no safe haven for them anywhere in the U.S., even in professional sports. Before the 1984 Summer Olympics, Soviet agents <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2017\/10\/30\/560042987\/russians-targeted-u-s-racial-divisions-long-before-2016-and-black-lives-matter\">forged<\/a> letters purportedly coming from the Ku Klux Klan that threatened to kill black athletes. \u201cThe Olympics \u2014 for the whites only,\u201d they said. \u201cWe are preparing for the Olympic games by shooting at black moving targets.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The legacy media likewise magnified false reports that a noose had been found in black NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace\u2019s garage. (In reality, the pull rope had been in the stall for years.) CNN political analyst Errol Louis <a href=\"http:\/\/transcripts.cnn.com\/TRANSCRIPTS\/2006\/22\/nday.06.html\">connected<\/a> the fictitious death threat to Wallace\u2019s opposition to the Confederate flag. \u201cThese things don\u2019t change overnight, and they don\u2019t change without some ugliness,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re starting to see some of the ugliness.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Left is the most convenient vehicle for engendering civil strife, with its embrace of intersectionality and its poisonous spawn, identity politics, which divide the country based on race, ethnicity, sex, sexual preference, gender identity, and (of least importance to the modern Left) socioeconomic status. The finer and more impermeable the divisions can be cut, the greater the resultant division. The legacy media drive this fractious message home literally 24 hours a day.<\/p>\n<p>The goal of getting Americans to question the legitimacy of their government advanced thanks to the media, which spent four years delegitimizing the Trump administration. When the late Rep. John Lewis <a href=\"https:\/\/7892b828-65c2-49ae-93fc-093d8446ddf1\/legim\">said<\/a> he did not believe \u201cTrump is a legitimate president,\u201d then-CNN political analyst Symone Sanders <a href=\"http:\/\/transcripts.cnn.com\/TRANSCRIPTS\/1701\/14\/ndaysat.01.html\">replied<\/a>, \u201cI\u2019m not going to sit here and make judgments on whether or not it\u2019s appropriate for John Lewis to join the Resistance. I\u2019m here for the Resistance.\u201d (Sanders is now Kamala Harris\u2019 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/politics\/biden-hires-all-female-senior-communications-team\/2020\/11\/29\/5b60b58e-3277-11eb-a997-1f4c53d2a747_story.html\">chief spokeswoman<\/a>.) The media did not confine themselves to the executive branch. When multiple Democrats called Amy Coney Barrett\u2019s appointment to the Supreme Court \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/democrats-media-immediately-attack-amy-coney-barrett-move-to-delegitimize-her-nomination\">illegitimate<\/a>,\u201d CNN chief political analyst Gloria Borger <a href=\"http:\/\/transcripts.cnn.com\/TRANSCRIPTS\/2010\/14\/sitroom.01.html\">said<\/a>, \u201cKamala Harris was saying, the Democrats believe that this \u2014 with reason I believe \u2014 that this entire session lacks legitimacy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The legacy media certainly increased the number of Americans who do not trust what they read or hear on the news. How else could viewers react when CNN described last summer\u2019s burning of Kenosha as \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/watch-cnn-claims-kenosha-protests-are-fiery-but-mostly-peaceful-as-city-burns-behind-reporter\">fiery but mostly peaceful<\/a>,\u201d in a manner reminiscent of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=-Ung95ORVUY\">Baghdad Bob<\/a>? How should they respond to a media that claims the possibility that COVID-19 originated in a Wuhan lab went <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/from-impossible-to-credible-how-the-legacy-media-is-desperately-spinning-their-wuhan-lab-flip-flop\">from \u201cimpossible\u201d to \u201csuddenly credible\u201d<\/a> with no real change in the evidence? Even the media\u2019s fact-checks are frequently <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/fact-checkers-say-joe-biden-never-supported-defunding-the-police-heres-the-truth\">politically motivated<\/a> or outright <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/the-people-behind-joe-bidens-fact-check-team-have-a-history-of-lying-to-the-american-people\">erroneous<\/a>. The legacy media have discredited themselves, leaving Americans with the developed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/americans-have-worlds-lowest-trust-in-media-survey\">world\u2019s lowest trust in the media<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>There is one final objective of Russian propaganda that many other assessments do not capture: P\u00e9ter Krek\u00f3, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ned.org\/fellowships\/current-fellows\/\">fellow<\/a> at the National Endowment for Democracy and executive director of the Budapest-based <a href=\"https:\/\/politicalcapital.hu\/index_gb.php\">Political Capital Institute<\/a>, once told me that one of Russia\u2019s greatest desires is to appear more powerful than it truly is. The media accomplished this task beyond Moscow\u2019s wildest dreams. Russia has a shrinking population, an aging nuclear arsenal, and an economy <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/greatspeculations\/2018\/04\/17\/which-has-the-bigger-economy-texas-or-russia\/?sh=a0f995970b93\">smaller<\/a> than the GDP of Texas. The DNI says that Russia will \u201cstruggle to project and maintain influence globally.\u201d It tries to fill the void with paltry Facebook ads and troll websites. But Democrats and the media spent the last four years acting as though Vladimir Putin dictated Republican policy in a manner comparable to a medieval tsar appointing regional commisars to oversee grain production in the Caucuses.<\/p>\n<p>If the media truly wish to combat \u201cRussian misinformation and disinformation,\u201d they can begin by dialing down their racially divisive coverage, ceasing to polarize Americans over political differences, and returning to the most fundamental task of journalism: getting the facts right.<\/p>\n<p><em>The views expressed in this piece are the author\u2019s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a&nbsp;<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><em>member<\/em><\/a><em>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the United States celebrated Independence Day over the weekend, the media continued to warn Americans of an allegedly all-powerful plot by Russian intelligence to advance misinformation. Unfortunately, Russia\u2019s greatest &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2314166,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/GettyImages-479102243.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"OPINION: The American Media Has Spread Russian Propaganda More Effectively Than Russia Itself","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-585146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/GettyImages-479102243.jpg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"OPINION: The American Media Has Spread Russian Propaganda More Effectively Than Russia Itself","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2314166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}