Posted on 03/03/2022 9:28:17 PM PST by fluorescence
TV Rain, a youth-focused Russian TV station often critical of the Kremlin, was shut down by state authorities on Thursday, but its staff got in one last full newscast that ended in a symbolic protest.
At the end of the night’s report, the staff gathered around the news desk. The anchors were overhead saying “no war” as everyone walked off together. The broadcast image of the empty studio was replaced by the TV station’s logo and a message asking for donations before the telecast cut to old footage from a performance of Tchaikovsky’s ballet Swan Lake.
The Swan Lake bit was an inspired, highly-evocative gesture, especially for Russians who could recall the coup of August 1991 when, unable to actually report the news, stations simply played footage of the ballet for three days nonstop.
Russian telecommunications regulator Roskomnadzor, announced this week it was banning TV Rain, accusing it of inciting protests and disrupting the public, according to the New York Times.
TV Rain was excised from cable bundles in 2014. The channel had persevered online and on YouTube as an independent voice often critical of the Kremlin.
The Times also reported that Echo of Moscow, the independent-leaning radio station “founded by Soviet dissidents in 1990 and that symbolized Russia’s new freedoms,” was recently shut down by its board. Ironically, given its origins, the station was owned by Gasprom, Russia’s government-owned energy behemoth.
“TV Rain was excised from cable bundles in 2014. The channel had persevered online and on YouTube as an independent voice often critical of the Kremlin.”
why does the first sentence sound familiar?
we aren’t that far at all from this sort of thing. the recent memo creates a process to identify and tabulate such outlets here (rogue information, I guess) for when further options are taken.
Russia just passed a new law making it punishable by 15 years in prison to give “fake” information about the Russian armed forces
Since as a practical matter what the Putin regime decides is “fake” will be considered fake under the law it becomes dangerous for anyone discussing the war to do anything but parrot what the Putin government says about what is happening or has happened regarding the war in Ukraine
“Russia just passed a new law making it punishable by 15 years in prison to give “fake” information about the Russian armed forces”
Read up on WW2. The editors of newspapers were threatened with TREASON if they tried getting cute, like leaking the landing location/timing of D-Day (and back then, they knew they would be punished for it).
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