To close out this "Russian media" section of my letter, to be honest, Mr. Pomerantsev, the above paragraphs that you write about the Russian media appear to me to have the motive of campaigning to gain financing for various foreign media outlets to "develop" Russian media. If so, you should have just written your article about such a financing campaign, rather than writing propaganda about Russia. For example, you could have written an article about the work of the European Endowment for Democracy (EED) that you support and helped to found. You could have written about the EED's document "Bringing Plurality and Balance to the Russian Language Media Space: Feasibility Study on Russian Language Media Initiatives in the Eastern Partnership and Beyond".
While spending a lot of time at the EED's website trying to understand its work, I came across several things that concerned me and I want to address two of them here. First, according to EED's website, it has given grant monies to 192 grantees -- however, only 108 of the grantees are listed/disclosed at the EED's website -- see https://www.democracyendowment.eu/we-support/ .
This means that 84 of the grantees (44% of the 192 total) are NOT listed. At the same time, EED states that "As some EED grantees face personal security concerns in their countries, not all initiatives are included." In my estimation, although EED is less than 4 years old, it is starting off on a very "dangerous" footing for the "genuine" and "deep and sustainable" democracy that it wants to foster (see Council of European Union Declaration on Establishment of EED dated December 20, 2011). If democracy means anything, it includes TRANSPARENCY as one of its fundamental components -- just do a google search "democracy and transparency" and you will find a lot of reading on this subject.
It is difficult for me to believe that 44% of the total number of grants must be KEPT SECRET because of "personal security concerns". And, EVEN IF there are "personal security concerns", it seems to me that in this day and age no matter what a person says or does (or does not say or do) he/she is at personal risk from various fanatical individuals and groups who act extremely aggressively, unethically, and at times illegally in supporting their positions. Secrecy is rarely a "friend" of democracy. Therefore, IF I could give ANY advice to such a young EED, I would tell EED to "keep its nose exceptionally clean" by avoiding not only wrong itself but also the appearance of wrong since oftentimes the difference between the two is quite narrow.
And, I would make it clear to all potential grantees in filling out their online grant applications at https://www.democracyendowment.eu/support/ that grants to them will be a matter of official PUBLIC record and access, since making such grants fully PUBLIC is the best want to ensure the TRANSPARENCY that democracy stands for and is so desperately needed in today's world.
Second, according to EED's website, 54 of the 108 disclosed grants (i.e., 50%) have been made to grantees in countries of the former Soviet Union: Armenia (10 grants); Azerbaijan (4 grants), Belarus (2 grants), Georgia (4 grants), Moldova (10 grants), and Ukraine (24 grants). Given that 84 of the grantees are NOT disclosed at the website, there is a strong likelihood that this 50% is much higher. Because the tensions are high now between Ukraine and Russia, I would like to use Ukraine as an example that can then be readily applied to other countries of the former Soviet Union. 24 of the 108 disclosed grants (i.e., 22%) have been made to grantees in Ukraine, with 8 of these 24 grants related to various types of media projects. One of the media grantees is Kyiv Post (kyivpost.com) who received emergency support funds from EED. The fundamental problem with EED making this grant is that the overwhelming majority of Kyiv Post articles about the civil war in Ukraine (as well as its portrayal of Russia) are strongly biased towards the Ukrainian central government version of what is happening in Ukraine to the detriment of an objective picture of the situation as seen by BOTH sides, i.e., including the Donbass people in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions of Ukraine where the civil war fighting is going on. IF indeed EED wants to foster "genuine" and "deep and sustainable" democracy, it must start by finding democratic media projects in Ukraine to support that have as their goal more objectivity, more "facts" and opinions from BOTH sides, less unsubstantiated conclusions, and much less propaganda -- it appears that even NATO supports this proposition -- see http://www.nato.int/docu/speech/1998/s980702c.htm.
If democracy stands for anything, it stands for a media whose primary objectives are to inform, to be open, to be independent, and to be accountable, providing people with a wide range of opinions, analysis, and debate of important issues and reflecting the diversity of citizens. In this respect, as regards its reporting on the civil war in Ukraine and its portrayal of Russia, very unfortunately Kyiv Post (whose proclaimed motto is "independence, community, and trust") fails on all counts.
I readily recognize that Russia uses government and media propaganda in its current disputes with the USA, European Union, and Ukraine, but as reflected above, your specific portrayal of Russia's propaganda is inaccurate and significantly exaggerated. In addition, based upon Victor Konovalenko's and my regular and long-term review of US, European, Russian, and Ukrainian government and media sources, Russia's propaganda is far less than the USA's, Ukraine's, or the European Union's.
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