The Insider, a Russian online investigative site, published leaked e-mails and reports from the Kremlin yesterday December 29 from the hackers’ group Shaltai Boltai or “Anonymous International.”
As we reported earlier, they highlight materials that illustrated how the Russian Presidential Administration sought to frame opposition leader Alexey Navalny, awaiting the verdict in a trial.
But also among the documents are items that vividly illustrate how the Kremlin concocts stories for the media, and state journalists or pro-government reporters dutifully publish articles under their own names using these materials — often verbatim.
The relationship is so close between the Kremlin and media that little time elapses between preparation of propaganda and its dissemination by outlets like NTV, and there isn’t even any discussion about how the material should be presented. The Kremlin can also count on certain journalists simply to take what they send and publish it or to consult only the experts the Kremlin designates.
For example, on March 17, Prokopenko sent Izvestiya journalist Anastasiya Kashevarova a list of people who could comment on inclusion of Yelena Mizulina in the list of US sanctions regarding the annexation of Crimea. Mizulina is a conservative deputy from the party Just Russia associated with “family values” and anti-gay legislation. This list included only two names: Anatoly Kucherena, the lawyer of fugitive NSA contractor Edward Snowden. and Raisa Lukutseva, head of the Russian Red Cross.
On November 23, 2013, Prokopenko, evidently using a pseudonym, wrote to Moskovsky Komsomolets (MK) about placement of an article on parliamentarian Oleg Shein with the note, “Good evening. We’re sending the text for MK. We plan to legalize one excerpt from it first in the blogosphere. Thanks.”
By “legalize,” they mean make it look as if the sentiment first came from a blogger, and then was picked up by media.
The article then appeared in MK three days later.
Prokopenko also wrote to Komsomolskaya Pravda, saying “Good evening. We’re sending the first text. Thanks.”
That piece appeared four days later.
One of the people exposed by Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation is Igor Rudensky, chairman of the State Duma Committee on Economic Policy, who is a member of the Sosny (Pines) Cooperative, in which a number of prominent deputies and officials bought parcels of land at prices higher than their salaries, which weren’t in their income declarations. Among the leaked materials is a post Rudensky published on the site of Ekho Moskvy on November 30, 2013.
But the correspondence shows that the post was drafted by Prokopenko, and Rudensky only made a few insignificant corrections. The Insider writes that the email with the final text was sent directly not by Rudensky but by Prokopenko to Alexey Venediktov, editor-in-chief of Ekho Moskvy.
“Venediktov could not have but known from whom he received the text, although there are no indications of the Presidential Administration’s involvement in this material,” saysThe Insider.
Russian journalists call articles written to order for money or political gain dzhinsa (“blue jeans”) or senokos (“haying”).
— Catherine A. Fitzpatrick
