Sputnik (news agency)
Sputnik (Russian pronunciation: [ˈsputnʲɪk]; formerly Voice of Russia and RIA Novosti, naming derived from Russian спутник, "satellite") is a Russian state-owned[1] news agency and radio broadcast service. It was established by the Russian government-owned news agency Rossiya Segodnya on 10 November 2014.[2][3] With headquarters in Moscow, Sputnik maintains regional editorial offices in Washington, D.C., Cairo, Beijing, Paris, Berlin, Madrid, Montevideo and Rio de Janeiro.[4] Sputnik describes itself as being focused on global politics and economics and aims for an international audience.[5]
Type
Worldwide
29 October 1929 (Radio Moscow)
22 December 1993 (Voice of Russia)
10 November 2014 (Sputnik)
23 languages[a]
Sputnik is frequently described by academics and journalists as a Russian propaganda outlet.[15] In 2016, Neil MacFarquhar of The New York Times wrote: "The fundamental purpose of dezinformatsiya, or Russian disinformation, experts said, is to undermine the official version of events—even the very idea that there is a true version of events—and foster a kind of policy paralysis." The Russian government rejects the validity of such assertions.[16] In early 2019, Facebook removed hundreds of pages on its social media platform passing as independent news sites but were actually under the control of Sputnik employees.[17]
Sputnik operates news websites, featuring reporting and commentary, in 31 languages including English, Spanish, Polish and Serbian.[18] The websites house over 800 hours of radio broadcasting material each day, and its newswire service runs a 24/7 service.[19][20]
Sputnik was banned in the European Union in February 2022 (along with RT) following the Russian invasion of Ukraine.[21] Technology companies and social media services responded to the invasion by removing Sputnik from their platforms, while many versions such as the French, the German and the Greek ones have closed their operation.
History[edit]
RIA Novosti was Russia's international news agency until 9 December 2013 when it became known as Rossiya Segodnya.[22][23] Dmitry Kiselev, an anchorman of the Russia-1 channel was appointed to be the first president of the reorganized agency.[24] He soon announced that Margarita Simonyan was to be editor-in-chief. Simonyan told The New York Times in 2017 that she choose Sputnik as the new name "because I thought that's the only Russian word that has a positive connotation, and the whole world knows it."[25]
Sputnik was launched on 10 November 2014 by Rossiya Segodnya, which is itself funded through RT, owned and operated by the Russian government, and was created via an Executive Order of the President of Russia on 9 December 2013.[2][3] As well as the RIA Novosti news agency, Sputnik's origins can be traced to 1929 when Radio Moscow was launched as the official international broadcasting station of Soviet Union airing across the country, Eastern Europe and Cuba until it was replaced by Voice of Russia in 1993 along with the foreign language services of RIA Novosti.[26] RT UK was launched a fortnight earlier. According to its editor-in-chief Dmitry Kiselyov, Sputnik was intended to reach a worldwide audience "tired of aggressive propaganda promoting a unipolar world and who want a different perspective".[18][26] The station claims it "tells the untold".[16] However, President Vladimir Putin, while visiting the Moscow base of the RT television network in 2013, said the objective behind both the then forthcoming Sputnik agency and RT was to "break the monopoly of the Anglo-Saxon global information streams."[25]
In April 2017, Sputnik signed a personnel exchange deal with the Global Times, a Chinese Communist Party tabloid.[27]
Coverage of the United States[edit]
Trump and Clinton[edit]
During the 2016 presidential election campaign, according to former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul writing in The Washington Post, Sputnik made clear publicly its preference for the then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump over the Democrat's nominee Hillary Clinton.[39][40]
According to a fake news story circulated by Sputnik,[41] President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton created ISIS; the website praised Trump, before he was elected in 2016, for making such an assertion.[40][42] The website published an article entitled "Secret File Confirms Trump Claim: Obama, Hillary 'Founded ISIS' to Oust Assad", while tweets from Sputnik used the hashtag #CrookedHillary.[39][40][43] Trump revived another discredited conspiracy theory promoted by Sputnik that Google was suppressing bad news about Clinton.[42][44]
In October 2016, Sputnik improperly cited an article written by Kurt Eichenwald for Newsweek misattributing comments to Hillary Clinton confidante Sidney Blumenthal (who quoted Eichenwald in a non-verified email released by WikiLeaks). Sputnik took down the article.[43][45] Aspects of his story as it related to Trump were disputed at the time,[45][46] Sputnik then put up an article reputedly denying its control by the Kremlin and attacking Newsweek and Eichenwald. He wrote that the Trump campaign emailed reporters a link to the Sputnik article and asked them to follow up on the story.[47] The author of the Sputnik article, Bill Moran, successfully sued Newsweek over his assertion that Eichenwald had used bribery and threats.[48]
Forbes reported that Sputnik International reported fake news and fabricated statements by White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest during the 2016 presidential election.[49] Sputnik falsely reported on 7 December 2016 that Earnest stated sanctions for Russia were on the table related to Syria, falsely quoting Earnest as saying: "There are a number of things that are to be considered, including some of the financial sanctions that the United States can administer in coordination with our allies. I would definitely not rule that out."[49] Forbes analyzed Earnest's White House press briefing from that week, and found the word "sanctions" was never used by the Press Secretary.[49] Russia was discussed in eight instances during the press conference, but never about sanctions.[49] The press conference focused solely on Russian air raids in Syria towards rebels fighting President of Syria Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo.[49]
Lee Stranahan was hired by Sputnik News after his departure from Breitbart News and, according to The Washington Post, he is Sputnik's most visible Trump supporter".[50][51][52][53] In early 2020, at the time of the Impeachment of President Trump, Stranahan stated "the entire impeachment is a lie."[36] The Washington Post stated that "many Sputnik hosts profess skepticism that Russia meddled in the 2016 presidential election," in contradiction to the assessment of the US intelligence community.[50]
Andrew Feinberg's account[edit]
On 26 May 2017, Andrew Feinberg, who had been Sputnik's White House Correspondent since the Trump administration came into office the previous January, announced on Twitter that he would no longer be reporting for the agency.[54][55] He said those in charge were more interested in employing "propagandists" rather than "real journalists".[56] In one tweet he explained the agency's policy in article's attribution: "The truth is they don't want their reporters to have their own reputations, b/c a lie is easier when it doesn't come with a byline."[56] He told Erik Wemple of The Washington Post: "It's the fact that if you don't have bylines on stories and there's no one accountable for words, then you can really print whatever you want.[54][55] Sputnik, in a statement to The Washington Post, accused Feinberg of making "false accusations" and expressed the "hope that the fruits of his rich imagination would not create more conspiracy theories around Sputnik."[57]
Feinberg, in discussing his period at Sputnik, said that Sputnik's editors[55] asked him to write stories and ask questions at the White House press conference about the conspiracy theory between the murder of Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich in Washington and the leaking of DNC documents to WikiLeaks. Feinberg wrote of his discomfort as "there was absolutely no factual basis for doing so."[55][56][58] The District of Columbia police believed that Rich had been murdered while being robbed. Feinberg believed that the editors wanted to shift blame for the leaking of the DNC documents from Russian hackers to Rich.[55][54][59] Sputnik News has published articles promoting conspiracy theories about the murder of Seth Rich.[59]
In an interview with Brian Stelter for CNN, Feinberg said that Sputnik management had insisted on approving or dictating questions he would ask at White House press briefings, and wanted him to ask questions to imply that the April 2017 Sarin gas attack in Syria was a hoax: "I was asked to put questions to the White House that framed the issue in such a way that made it seem that the attack didn't happen, that it was staged,"[60] In particular, he was asked to raise at the White House the assertions made by Ted Postol querying Syrian responsibility for the attack. On that occasion, he was not called.[54] Feinberg wrote in a Politico August 2017 article, he had concluded after the request that Sputnik's "mission wasn't really to report the news as much as it was to push a narrative that would either sow doubts about situations that weren't flattering to Russia or its allies, or hurt the reputation of the United States and its allies."[55]
Other United States responses[edit]
In April 2018, journalist John Stanton, who had been Sputnik's Pentagon Correspondent for roughly two years, published a report highly critical of Sputnik News, Sputnik Radio, and RIA Novosti, declaring that both the organizations were part of a larger Russian Information Warfare Operation. His public findings were part of an insider research effort while at Sputnik on behalf of the US government.[61]
In May 2018, the Public Broadcasting Service's NewsHour website published an article by Elizabeth Flock who reported that Sputnik News and Radio reports "seemed intended to polarize" and "to distract and confuse" after listening to them over a week. On a visit to the station, she discovered "a stranger picture than I anticipated, one in which I began to understand how persuasive disinformation could be."[62] According to Flock, Stanton told her "They mix real with unreal, use dubious sources". It was difficult for him to point to the real problem as it "was like pushing a wet noodle." In other words, establishing what can be labelled disinformation is extremely difficult, she concluded.[62]
Foreign Policy magazine has described Sputnik as a slick and internet-savvy outlet of Kremlin propaganda, which "remixes President Vladimir Putin's brand of revanchist nationalism for an international audience... beating a predictable drum of anti-Western rhetoric."[11]
In January 2022, the U. S. State Department's Global Engagement Center (GEC) published a report titled "Kremlin-Funded Media: RT and Sputnik's Role in Russia's Disinformation and Propaganda Ecosystem." Its case studies included one on "false narratives" published by Sputnik and RT justifying Russian military buildup on the Ukrainian border.[63]
Middle East coverage[edit]
In the Middle East, Russia used Sputnik and RT Arabic to promote its foreign policy goals through "informational warfare".[96] Russia tried to increase its power and presence in the Middle East as well as reduce United States influence in the region, fight terrorism, and establish allies in Syria with Bashar al-Assad.[96]
In April 2017, Sputnik and RT reported little to no information on the Khan Shaykhun chemical attack in Syria.[96] During the attacks, Sputnik and RT did not report on the incident; there was no coverage provided on the survivors or their testimonies, and the history of violence in the area such as massacres, bombings, and chemical attacks that have occurred in the Syrian regime were not recorded.[96] After the massacre, Sputnik and RT widely questioned the cause and the history of the massacre through daily reports; false and missing information was frequently cited as the identities of the claimed "experts" were not shared, and alternative versions of the event were falsely reported as they claimed that the attacks were done by the White Helmets, a Syrian civil volunteer organization.[96] Journalist Finian Cunningham wrote that the White Helmets were "propaganda conduits for al-Qaeda terror groups" which contributed to the controversy and negative news that the White Helmets faced.[97] Published reports by Sputnik at the time were considered biased and did not consist of reliable sources or experts.[97] These statements were shared by Sputnik and RT throughout social media platforms as well as other news outlets that supported the Syrian regime.[98]
International bans and restrictions[edit]
In March 2016, access to Sputnik's online content was blocked by Turkish authorities, as well as denying the Turkish bureau chief Tural Kerimov access to the country. The development was thought to have been in response to comments by the Russian leadership critical of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the Turkish government's record on human rights and freedom of speech.[99] The website was unblocked later that same year.[100] In 2018, the agency shut down its website in the Kurdish language without mentioning any particular reason for the decision. Former employees of Sputnik said that the news agency decided to shut it down at Turkey's request, as part of both anti-Kurdish political movement and pro-Russian politics of Erdoğan.[101]
In October 2017, Twitter banned both RT and Sputnik from advertising on their social networking service following the conclusions of the U.S. national intelligence report the previous January that both Sputnik and RT had been used as vehicles for Russia's interference in the 2016 US presidential election.[102] It prompted a stern response from spokeswoman Maria Zakharova of the Russian Foreign Ministry. It said the ban was a "gross violation" by the United States of the guarantees of free speech. "Retaliatory measures, naturally, will follow".[103] In November, Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt announced that Google will be "deranking" stories from RT and Sputnik in response to "weaponised" content and allegations about election meddling by President Putin's government, provoking claims of censorship from both outlets.[104]
To reduce the spread of disinformation, Facebook and Google implemented fact-checking tools throughout their platforms.[105] In January 2019, Facebook removed 289 pages and 75 accounts that the company said were used by Sputnik for misinformation on Facebook.[106] The removed pages posed as independent news sites in eastern Europe and elsewhere but were actually run by employees at Sputnik. It was another in a series of actions taken by Facebook against Russian disinformation.[17][107] Along with Chinese and other Russian state media outlets, Twitter attached a "state-affiliated media" label to Sputnik's account.[108]
In July 2019, British Foreign and Commonwealth Office banned both RT and Sputnik from attending the Global Conference for Media Freedom in London for "their active role in spreading disinformation". The Russian Embassy called the decision "direct politically motivated discrimination".[109] European Union External Action East StratCom Task Force and separate fact-checkers have discerned reoccurrences of Sputnik and RT publishing false information.[110]
In January 2020, the Estonian offices of Sputnik were closed after police warned its journalists about potential criminal charges. The action taken by the Estonian government was a result of European Union sanctions imposed on Dmitry Kiselyov. Banks in Estonia suspended Sputnik related accounts in October 2019.[111]
Following the Russian invasion of Ukraine in late February 2022, the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, announced the banning of Sputnik, along with RT and their subsidiaries, from the European Union.[21] Social media services including Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube blocked Sputnik and RT content for their European Union users,[112] while Reddit blocked outgoing links to Sputnik's and RT's websites in all regions.[113] On 2 March, an EU regulation was published, which put the ban in force.[114] Microsoft and Apple Inc. responded by removing the Sputnik and RT apps from the Microsoft Store and the App Store, respectively.[115][116] On 11 March, YouTube blocked Sputnik and RT worldwide.[117]
On 13 September 2023, the bureau chief of Sputnik Moldova, Vitaly Denisov, was deported and banned entry into the country for 10 years.[118][119] Moldova's General Inspectorate for Migration stated that Denisov's presence in Moldova "endangers the informational security of our country." Daniel Voda, the Moldovan press secretary, stated that Sputnik was "constantly dealing with informational attacks, lies, propaganda and disinformation." Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the deportation "ugly" and promised "retaliatory measures."[120] Moldova believes Denisov is a Russian Colonel and GRU officer.[121]
In 2023, the Sputnik radio had broadcasts in seven languages, including:[123]
