This week the government-owned Russian news agency RIA Novosti was accused of disinformation by one of Russia’s leading newspapers, Kommersant.
“Russian media deceived by mistranslation”
The background for the accusations was a story about President Obama’s visit to Greece, released on Sunday by RIA under the headline “Media: Obama will demand that Greece closes its ports to Russian ships”.
On the same day, Kommersant published an article entitled “Russian media deceived by mistranslation”, where it clarified that the demand to close Greek ports to Russian vessels has never been on President Obama’s agenda; it is instead a recommendation voiced by an American think-tanker interviewed by the Greek analytical outlet Militaire.gr, to which RIA refers in its material. The accusations led to a debate in open letters from RIA’s editors to Kommersant’s editors and vice versa (Letter from RIA, Letter from Kommersant).
Division in the media landscape
The controversy points to fundamental issues in the Russian media landscape. Outlets like Kommersant depend on receiving accurate reporting from news agencies that has been critically checked.
Secondly, the practice of not checking an opinion voiced by someone in another media, but rather of turning it into a fact and putting it in a headline constitutes a massive potential for disinformation and is regularly used by pro-Kremlin outlets.
Finally, the incident highlights the disinformation opportunities translation offers, as recently highlighted in the Disinformation Digest.