Russia reminds us that journalism is too big to fail
The Russia-Ukraine tragedy offers a useful reminder of the vital importance of the news media in any country and for the world. We seem to love to criticize it viciously, but we do so at our peril. Russia’s murderous assault on Ukraine aims to slightly enlarge the world’s largest country, is devastating to Russia’s economy, may well lead to war crimes charges, has turned Russians into pariahs and was decided on by a kleptocratic dictator. Yet, all signs indicate that it has considerable domestic support. There are many possible reasons, including specific grievances related to losing the Cold War and the universal human inclination to be idiotically nationalist when at war. But perhaps the main reason requires no special understanding of Russia’s fraught history. It is a classic tool that enables dictators to dictate: a pliant media. Cut off from foreign news and even social media, most people in Russia are simply not exposed to an open discourse about the mostly absurd justifications, the true cost, and the failures on the ground. Eventually people may turn to short-wave radio, as in Communist times, or to other means. But for the moment, they get their information from media beholden in one way or another to Russian President Vladimir Putin. What they hear is that the West is threatening Russia, the “operation” protects Russian speakers from neo-Nazi attacks, and Ukrainians hate their fascist government.
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