On the night of August 1, there was the fourth drone raid on Moscow in the last 8 days. At the same time, Russian television prefers not to talk about drone attacks . Neither Channel One, nor Rossiya 1, nor NTV began talking about Sunday’s drone strike on Moscow City. Instead, a significant part of the issues was devoted to the parade of the Navy, in which Vladimir Putin took part.
Insider sources said that employees of the VGTRK holding, which includes the channels Rossiya 1, Rossiya 24 and Moscow 24, as well as RBC and some regional TV channels, had to urgently take off the air the news about the July 24 attack. So, in the releases at 11 am, there was no longer any information about the strike on Moscow, although an hour earlier, the presenters covered this news in some detail.
Propaganda researcher journalist Ilya Shepelin spoke on the air of Real Time why federal television does not notice drones over Moscow and how the Russians react to this.
– This is really noticeable: on federal channels they simply don’t talk about drones that fly around Moscow.
– And not only about them. That is, federal television is the only space where a good mood, where uncomfortable news, as a rule, does not leak. Because if at the beginning of the war there was such a feeling that they were trying to somehow more or less completely work out the agenda, but if some event is taken that did not work out well for the Kremlin, you need to somehow recapture it, you need to redirect it somehow. And now, if there is an opportunity – and it is, after all, all TV channels are controlled from one office – to remain silent about something, to pretend that something did not happen, then it will not happen, the audience will not know about it.
So, for more than a year, none of the Russian TV viewers knew about any confrontation between Yevgeny Prigozhin and the Ministry of Defense. A couple of weeks ago, none of the viewers of Russian TV channels found out that these Azov military leaders, who were also exchanged last year for Putin’s godfather Medvedchuk and sent to Turkey, it turns out, were sent back to Ukraine. This, too, was not explained to the audience of Russian TV channels, although they have been telling for a year that these people will definitely be tried, the court will be like Nuremberg, and this court will have to deal with the damned neo-Nazis.
In the end, drones in the center of Moscow are an uncomfortable topic, and therefore it’s not worth talking about it either. If you can talk about something, then about topics that are somehow well “plowed” so as not to introduce the viewer into some kind of embarrassment, so they talk about the war. I have now specifically read the big evening edition of Channel One, which aired yesterday. You can talk about the war if you talk about Donetsk: strikes are being made on Donetsk, damned neo-Nazis. Of course, by the way, if strikes are delivered, then they are specifically from Himars, like rockets don’t fly just like that, these are all targeted strikes on houses that are delivered from the most satanic American weapons.
And then everything is as usual: the heroism of the fighters on the front line, which is not moving from the Russian side, Vladimir Putin held a regular working meeting and is aware of everything, and so on. All news releases in general look like a blueprint day after day. It starts with some news – either a strike on Donetsk, or the heroism of the Russian military (that is, you can choose there), and then everything is the same. And of course, no drone attack or anything else can shake the broadcasting network, it can be considered laid out months in advance, if everything continues like this.
Therefore, it is not surprising that the ratings of Russian propaganda are also declining. Recently there was a study on Republic. There, an employee calculated according to Mediascope – this is an agency registered by Roskomnadzor that calculates ratings and TV ratings, only Mediascope is officially trusted in our country. All figures have drastically dipped over the past year, partly because all propaganda is based on a carbon copy, despite the fact that there are some bright representatives like Vladimir Solovyov. But the usual news network already looks exactly the same and has set the teeth on edge even for the most furious viewers who watch TV every day with beer on the couch.
Probably, some interest could be awakened by the news that occurs and is not included in the pre-made training manuals, like drones in Moscow, but they no longer leak. The blow itself was on Friday – nothing has been said about it so far. But yesterday, in the news release on Channel One, there was news that Shebekino was being restored, that is, they didn’t talk about strikes on Shebekino very often, but that restoration work was underway (by the way, why are they going?), – already like another question. Here reporters of the First channel report on this success.
– Ilya, you said a very interesting detail that they talk about attacks on Donetsk, but they don’t talk about attacks on Russian cities, if they happen. How do you explain it yourself? Actually, this narrative continues that the Donbass is being bombed, but at the same time, in no case can you say that the war, in fact, is already close, is it reaching Moscow?
– Yes, this means that the “special military operation” is somehow not going according to plan, or the plan is absolutely idiotic, the viewer will find out for himself. That is, if you talk about the problems in the Donbass, well, that’s how they were for the previous 8-9 years. What’s wrong with that? What a wonder: again some street in the city of Donetsk or Lugansk is suffering under the attacks of Ukrainians. And if we talk about the fact that the front line is swaying in the other direction – towards the rear of Russia, then this is already unpleasant news, it is not good and it is not worth raising it once again. There’s a dichotomy here, really.
The same applies to the news – strikes on the Crimean bridge and so on, because, on the one hand, the population must be mobilized in some way: ge-gay, the country is huge, get up, they are already advancing, the invaders have literally reached the heart of the country- adversaries. And on the other hand, Russia under Putin has lived all its life in total demobilization from the point of view that people should have been maximally disinterested in politics, they should not ask questions, they should not remember what was in the news earlier than today. Because otherwise the memory will be greater than that of a fish, and then an unpleasant picture of the world will develop.
Accordingly, if you forget about everything quickly, then everything is easier. Therefore, on the one hand, news like the Crimean bridge cannot be ignored or about attempts on Russian propagandists, it is impossible to keep silent about them. But this news lives literally one or two days – and disappears just as quickly.
And they don’t remember anymore?
– Yes, simply because it will instill nervousness in people. And how to live then, how to build an economy and all that stuff?
Source : Current Time
