Russian 'opposition' media shows how desperate it is to find some example of 'Russian propaganda'

Recently a Russian anti-government source, Meduza (Jellyfish), which is based in Latvia, published an accusatory article with the provocative headline: “The Vocabulary of the Propagandist: How Pro-Kremlin Mass Media 'Translate' English articles”. Being a translator myself, I was quite curious about the topic and expected to see at least the “exposé of the century”, no less.

Well, don’t have high expectations, and you will never be disappointed.

It seems Meduza journalists are quite sure that their readers are complete idiots and will swallow every word they write without checking. How else can you explain this ridiculous “coincidence”: in the very first paragraph of the article about the incorrect translation of pro-Kremlin mass media, Meduza feeds their audience an absolute bald-faced lie about the translation that can be easily checked. (Of course without the link to the original source.)

Translation: “In the beginning of the March the newspaper “Izvestia” used the quote of Obama from his interview in 'The Atlantic' in the headline: “Obama: “Putin is polite, honest and punctual”. In the original text there was no such phrase”.

Yeah, there was no such phrase…actually, there were two such phrases:

Should we consult linguists on this issue to make sure these phrases have the same meaning?

Let’s move further…

The next attack targeted RIA Novosti. Meduza quoted their piece concerning Obama’s interview with CBS:

RIA Novosti: "During the interview with CBS, Obama was quite nervous, the Western media noted. The US president finally lost his cool when he was asked about the "challenge to US leadership" from Russia’s part and gave a 'strange' answer".

Then Meduza gave a direct translation of Obama’s words into Russian (see linked CBS video starting from 0:30).

If you look at the RIA Novosti article (a short compilation of quotes from western MSM), you will see that the news agency gave the direct links to the quotes from CBS , Business Insider , The New York Times and The Daily Mail where the mainstream media also noted Obama being “feisty”, “perturbed”, “irritated” and losing his cool. RIA Novostilosing his cool.

In the end, Meduza drew the conclusion: “There was nothing aggressive or strange in his answer”.

But wait…are we still discussing incorrect translation? How come we jumped to the interpretation of his emotional state made by American and British publications?

Overall in the article the author gave 5 examples of so called wrong translation from Kremlin-friendly resources. Only two of them can be considered 100% fair examples (from Expert Online and Ren-TV). It’s crystal clear that the writer is biased, since he tried to pick out every even obviously insignificant detail which could be used to tarnish Russian media.

Their next example was a report in the newspaper Izvestia with the headline: “The USA got scared of the Russian channels' success”

The Izvestia article also contained the observation that, "over time, however, it has become clear that outlets such as CCTV, LifeNews and RT are able to exert real influence".

Meduza’s comment:

Izvestia quotes the article written by Christopher Walker, the VP of National Endowment for Democracy, published in January in ‘Journal of Democracy’. <…> Although, there is a mention of LifeNews in the text of the article, this news media holding is not mentioned in the quote that Izvestia published. Also, there is no information that Walker directly accuses Russian TV channels of lying (1 Channel, NTV, Russia-24 and LifeNews). <…> Later on LifeNews, quoting Izvestia published an article with the headline, “The US admitted LifeNews as a major threat to the American mass media propaganda”. izvestia

Seriously, you'd have to be an idiot if after reading Walker’s report you don't get that he is actually accusing Russian media of propaganda, distorting reality and lies. He heavily criticizes it and Izvestia quoted some of his most critical words, e.g.:

Although it may be comforting to think that people in the democracies have a natural resistance to foreign propaganda, this is not always the case. One need only look at how warped and false arguments about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine snaked their way into the debate in the United States and Europe.

And yes, usually publications don't quote the entire source verbatim from beginning to its end, as Meduza surely knows.

As far as mentioning LifeNews, this is especially irrelevant. LifeNews is well known in Russia as “Lie News” due to its dishonest and careless reporting. It is a yellow press tabloid that prefers sensationalism to the facts and is hardly representative of mainstream Russian media.

more serious mistake was by DWN , who produced an incorrect translation — not by RIA Novosti , who simply quoted it. Sorry, Meduza , but this example is pretty weak too. And what about their example from RIA Novosti, which reposted the wrong translation made by Deutsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten? (Not given here.) It is definitely unprofessional not to check original sources, but theDWNRIA NovostiMeduza

All these examples were provided to Meduza by Alexey Kovalev, founder of a project with the unusual name “Noodle-remover”, who used to work for RIA Novosti until he was fired by them (a fact that he admits himself in his articles criticizing Russian media).

Taking into account his doubtful professionalism, maybe it was the right thing to do?