Alexey Khlebnikov of Russia Direct reports that the Russian Institute for Strategic Studies (RISI) has released its first "World Media Hostility Index"



The index is a kind of twisted reflection of the press freedom indexes put out annually by Freedom House or the French Reporters without Borders, where Russia always ranks low.

In RISI's index, Germany holds first place in "hostile" media to Russia, and the US, Austria, France, Great Britain and Poland follow.





RISI, founded by President Boris Yeltsin in 1992, is now directed by Leonid Reshetnik, a veteran intelligence official (see our translation of a recent interview with him) who has associated with Russian nationalists and conservative causes in the past.



Khlebnikov's explains the index as follows:





This analytical report is the result of detailed analysis of the media policies of different countries in 2014, when crucial shifts in the rhetoric employed by Western media about Russia occurred. The author of the mass media hostility index is a senior fellow at RISS, Dr. Igor Nikolaichuk. He suggests that, over the course of 2014, Western media started to "spread anti-Russian propaganda more actively than ever," which he calls the beginning of “the global information war” against Russia.



The RISS positions its index as the first-ever comprehensive analysis of the world’s media content pertaining to Russia. The analysis is based on complex statistical data (provided by Russian news agency Rossiya Segodnya) that is examined via a new applied discipline known as “political mediametrics.” A unit for analysis is a significant media publication that gives a reader certain assessments of Russia or its leadership. Ordinary news was excluded from the analysis.





All of that sounds fairly obscure, but the results are even more puzzling -- Germany, a country where there is considerable support for Putin, with extensive business and civic ties with Russia is first on the list.



This seems particularly odd when, for example, German ARD television made a softball interview with Putin when he left the G20 meeting early, isolated by the West over his war on Ukraine, and when Der Spiegel is described as toning down its anti-Putin rhetoric.



We're trying to think what RISI has in mind, and possibly one example might be the Der Spiegel story, sourced in a parliamentarian who was leaking a report from German intelligence, that placed the blame for the downing of MH17 on Russian-backed rebels.



It's also puzzling to see Austria rank number third, when we are familiar with Dugin's associationswith Jorg Haider and other far right politicians. Reshetnikov has also appeared on the same platform with Dugin.



Austria defied the US and EU and continued to support South Stream, Putin's gas pipeline project.



But maybe precisely because Putin views Austria as such a supporter that the slightest criticism in Austrian media will sting all the more. Perhaps the Russians were mad when Conchita Wurst, the transgendered Austrian singer, won the Eurovision song contest last year.



In a presentation of the report to the press on February 18, RISI commented that in 2013, "strong anti-Russian tendencies were absent" in UAR, Canada, Japan and Ukraine" but had increased this year, RIA Novosti reported.

RISI explains away the growth in hostility as due to Russia "defending its interests in Ukraine which were seriously damaged after the anti-Constitutional coup in Kiev in early 2014."



Brazil had a burst of friendless toward Russia from 2013 to 2014, but then grew more hostile again -- possibly this could reflect negative press coverage about bad behavior during the games by Russia's soccer fans and Russia's loss at the World Cup which took place in Brazil last year.



Gazeta.ru covered the report, which has not yet been posted on RISI's website, saying that the study was "the benchmark for propaganda methodology for 'specialists in the field of information psychological resistance.'"



Syria is the only country that had positive press about Russia.



A notice on RISI's website explains that researchers reviewed 70,000 items to come to their conclusions

Not just tone, but quantity helped created the ratings; the researchers said the newspaper with the greatest number of articles on Ukraine was the Wall Street Journal (1,530 articles), then the Washington Post (677) and then the international edition of the New York Times (550).



Igor Nikolaychuk, the co-author of the report said that the articles were analyzed by specialists at Rossiya Segodnya, the state media company. A burst of negativity came after the annexation of Crimea, he said, noting that the report proved there was a "world information war" against Russia.



The report was at times couched in tendentious language, says Gazeta.ru, for example, when the report called out Poland's "evil information dwarves."

The report also quoted Konstantin Kosachev, head of the Federation Council's committee on foreign affairs, regarding such lists:





Ratings are a part of international image, and therefore you can't wave them away even if you believe they are tendentious, and o not take into account your "special feature" and are guided by incomprehensible criteria. All of that, of course exists to some extent but all those who make decisions and draw conclusions in practical affairs -- politicians, investors and analysts -- take into account such "placement on the ranks. Obviously ratings in and of themselves are becoming a powerful instrument of influence and pressure.





And that's why the Russian government wants to get into the ratings and rankings game, which has been dominated by Western institutions for years.



-- Catherine A. Fitzpatrick

