Russia’s war on the truth
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 10 March 2022
⏱️ 19 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
After blocking media access, the Russian government banned what it calls “fake” news on its war with Ukraine. Journalists are now fleeing the country. Today on Post Reports, what that means for the truth and Russians’ access to it.
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Independent journalists in Russia have been fleeing since Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a ban on “fake news,” which bars reporters from calling the war in Ukraine a “war” or referring to the “invasion.” (The preferred language is “special military operation.”)
As foreign media outlets decide what that means for their coverage and staff, The New York Times this week became the first major American news organization to announce that it will pull its staff out of Russia in response to the new law.
Media reporter Elahe Izadi reports on the consequences — for Russians’ access to good information, and for the rest of the world’s understanding of what’s happening in Russia.
“I think the biggest risk here is it obscures the truth,” Elahe says. “We need to know the truth of the facts of the situation in order to assess an appropriate response. That’s the same for people within Russia.”
This new law is also creating challenges for social media platforms. Nitasha Tiku explains how TikTok has responded, and what other platforms might do. As The Post has reported, TikTok has long tried to stay out of politics, but Russia’s invasion is making that harder.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You know, Russia for a long time has not been the most friendly place to independent journalists. |
| 0:08.2 | And there have been many crackdowns over the years, but what we're seeing just in recent |
| 0:13.2 | weeks following the invasion of Ukraine is perhaps an unprecedented crackdown on independent |
| 0:19.9 | media and free speech in general in Russia. |
| 0:26.0 | That's a lie, Zadi. |
| 0:27.0 | You might have heard her guest hosting the podcast earlier this week, and she covers media |
| 0:31.2 | for the post. |
| 0:32.8 | A laei has been reporting on all the ways the Russian government has started silencing |
| 0:37.4 | independent non-state media. |
| 0:39.9 | They have now made it illegal for these outlets to call the war a war. |
| 0:45.2 | Since the invasion of Ukraine, Russia very quickly moved to put news outlets on notice for |
| 0:52.6 | using terms such as war and invasion to describe what, in fact, is a war and invasion. |
| 0:57.7 | And the reason for this is because this war is also an information war and outlets and |
| 1:03.4 | even individuals who depart from the official state line of calling this a special military |
| 1:08.5 | operation are a danger to Russia's propaganda machine essentially. |
| 1:15.1 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, this is Post Reports. |
| 1:18.5 | I'm Martin Powers. |
| 1:20.4 | It's Thursday, March 10. |
| 1:22.6 | Today I'm talking to a laei about the censorship that's happening in Russia right now. |
| 1:27.8 | Russian independent media is fleeing the country, western journalists are being pulled out |
| 1:32.6 | because of the risk of landing in prison. |
| 1:35.6 | It's affecting the information that people around the world are getting about what's going |
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