Editor’s NoteFake foreign experts from “all industries” are frequent guests on the Russian TV shows. Such Kremlin-aligned speakers often become the “original sources” of disinformation, the foreigners repeat the Russian propaganda narratives to convince the domestic audience of the plausibility of disinformation and to promote the desirable opinions among the foreign audience.
However, such experts on Russian TV are often just random foreign persons who are far from the claimed areas of expertise. Here is the latest example of an American “political analyst” who lives off selling soaps and CDs with himself singing his own songs.
Last week, Russia’s state-controlled NTV invited an American expert to comment on how the US had reacted to President Putin’s annual address. The American pundit explained that the US had been shocked by the powerful Russian nuclear weapon that had been displayed attacking the State of Florida in a video animation.
Research conducted by journalists from the Russian independent outlet The Insider shows that this commentator’s main claim to fame is that he sells soaps and CDs with himself singing his own compositions on his private website. He calls himself a writer, but The Insider was not able to find any book authored by him, identifying only a few articles published on lesser-known websites.
Gazprom-owned TV
NTV used the singing soap salesman’s comments to build a story about “strong Western reactions” to President Putin’s speech, saying that “the US has been totally convinced that in the military sphere they are ahead of the entire planet, but now it turns out that the situation has changed.”
NTV is owned by the well-known state-owned Russian gas exporter Gazprom and is known for loyally, sometimes even aggressively pushing the Kremlin’s political line. As we have previously described, pro-Kremlin international media such as Sputnik and RT, but also Kremlin-controlled media inside Russia, have a long track record of identifying commentators from Western countries who are not particularly well known in their own country, and presenting them as international authorities in a given field, provided that what they say confirms the pro-Kremlin narrative.
Read more:
- From objective reporting to myths and propaganda: The story of RIA Novosti
- How pranksters are used as a pro-Kremlin propaganda tool
- Pro-Kremlin propaganda’s years of European horror
- Anti-Semitism tolerated by pro-Kremlin propaganda
- A guide to Russian propaganda. Part 4: Russian propaganda operates by law of war
- Email chains and other Russia’s propaganda tools in central and eastern Europe
- Russian propaganda meddling in US election: RT charges Clinton campaign with McCarthyism
- Democracies should prepare for the long fight against Russian disinformation warfare: study
- Moscow intensifies its efforts to use Russian emigres to promote Kremlin policies
- Top Russian state TV propagandists pick up this year’s Russian “Emmy Awards”
- The Kremlin’s chaos strategy in Ukraine and its helpers
- Internet bots are key players in propelling disinformation: study of 9 countries
- Deception, Disinformation, and Doubt: Hybrid Warfare in Eastern Ukraine
