Prime time news programming on Russian State Television has lost its way
This evening’s Vesti broadcast on Rossiya 1 was all too typical of the narrowing horizons of prime time news programs. It opened with lengthy reporting on the devastation wrought in the city of Gorlovka, Donetsk oblast, by more than 20 incoming Ukrainian rocket artillery projectiles that struck residential apartments in the middle of last night, including from the U.S. made HIMARS system. One person was killed and a dozen more were hospitalized with various injuries.
The next news segment, substantially longer, was reporting from the front lines showing the incessant artillery and drone strikes that Russian forces are delivering near Gorlovka and elsewhere in the oblast at hardened Ukrainian defensive positions, at their infantry, artillery pieces and armored vehicles.
After that the news program moved on to reporting the disruptions to intercity traffic in central Russia due to heavy snowstorms and drifts that have shut down major highways. Truck drivers waiting out the storm were interviewed, as were the emergency workers who are supervising the snow removal and providing hot food to those in need.
From there the Vesti program shifted to commentary about today’s events at the Russian national exhibition (Forum) in Moscow’s VDNKh grounds. And of course there had to follow news about President Putin’s latest activities.
A cult of personality first appeared on Russian state television five years ago with the launch of the embarrassingly servile Sunday evening show entitled Moscow, Kremlin, Putin hosted by the youthful Pavel Zarubin, a protégé of Vladimir Solovyov and of state television news boss Dmitry Kiselyov. The cult has become ever more insistent now that the Russian electoral season is underway and every Vesti show has to give us a good dose of speeches and ribbon cutting ceremonies.
What is missing entirely from Vesti these days is international news. So it goes day after day in formulaic fashion. This, despite the fact that there is no shortage of hair-raising news from Gaza, from Iran and Pakistan, from the Houthi-U.S. confrontation in the Red Sea, among other global hot spots that Russians might just want to know about.
I do not mean to suggest that Vesti news has no merit. The military reporting from the field may be commended for giving the microphone to real Russian soldiers who are not propagandists but are speaking openly about their daily experience. Thus, we hear from the horse’s mouth that those manning the artillery who are firing with high accuracy at Ukrainian targets 37 km away, well behind the enemy lines, are obliged to move their artillery pieces within minutes of firing because there will be artillery counter strikes from the other side. This is a piece of information that puts in perspective the generalizations we in the West are told about how the Ukrainians are starved for ammunition and are firing 8 or 10 times fewer artillery projectiles daily than the Ukrainians. It also tells us that Ukrainian reconnaissance via their own drones or otherwise is not that bad.
In criticizing Vesti I do not mean to suggest that Russian state television generally offers no information about the outside world. That you find in abundance on the talk shows Sixty Minutes and Evening with Vladimir Solovyov. Besides providing live reporting from Russia’s bureau chiefs in Berlin, New York and elsewhere, these shows draw heavily on Western news broadcasts about the major international developments of the day as well as about political events in the West: they feature video clips from CNN, Euronews and other international channels to provide material for analysis by their expert panelists. And those panelists often include area specialists on the Middle East, on China and Southeast Asia or in other topical regions who are given the microphone long enough to set out their broad concepts of what underlies the news at a serious intellectual level.
Both the aforementioned programs have deeply patriotic presenters, but they also strive for balance. True, Solovyov’s film clips and narratives from his almost weekly visits to the front extol the bravery and intelligence of the soldiers and officers with whom he meets. He sings the praises of the Russian military industrial complex, both state factories and the many private enterprises that have become suppliers of critical equipment. And yet he also gives air time to experts who explain at length why and how the Ukrainians may successfully continue the war for years in a defensive posture, so that it would be a grave mistake to be overconfident. This is precisely what I heard on Solovyov’s show this past Thursday. I rather doubt that Colonel Douglas Macgregor or Scott Ritter have lent an ear to these remarks. They should!
My intention is to demonstrate that Russia is a complex society which cannot be described in a useful manner by the simplistic words of infatuation or words of utter condemnation and vilification that predominate in U.S. and European reporting.
©Gilbert Doctorow, 2024