Radio Sputnik comes to Kansas City

February 20, 2020 9:09 AM

Sputnik (fka The Voice of Russia and RIA Novosti) is a news agency established by the Russian government-owned news agency Rossiya Segodnya (Wikipedia), with Radio Sputnik operating in 30 languages, covering over 130 cities and 34 countries. In the U.S., Radio Sputnik operates around Washington, D.C., and now leases airtime in Kansas City (Inside Radio). When commuters spin the radio dial as they drive through Kansas City, Missouri, these days, between the strains of classic rock and country hits they can tune in to something unexpected: Russian agitprop (NY Times; Chicago Tribune mirror). My Life at a Russian Propaganda Network: I thought they’d let me be a real journalist at Sputnik news. I was wrong. (Andrew Feinberg for Politico, 2017)

Russian 'Propaganda Machine' Selects Kansas City As Its Second Radio Broadcast Site (Chris Haxel for KCUR, Jan. 25, 2020)

Many details about the deal are known only because of a 1938 law called the Federal Agents Registration Act, or FARA.

The act requires people lobbying for, or otherwise acting on behalf of, a foreign government to register with the U.S. Department of Justice as a foreign agent.

In this case, that agent turned out to be a Florida man named Arnold Ferolito.

Ferolito brokered the deal between KCXL and Rossiya Segodnya, a Moscow-based organization that controls both Radio Sputnik and RT, a television news network formerly known as Russia Today.

Ferolito also brokered the deal to broadcast Radio Sputnik in Washington D.C., and court records detailing his negotiations with Rossiya Segodnya indicate he offered to put their programming on the air in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Houston and Boston.

It isn't clear why those other deals fell through.

The government pressed Ferolito and Sputnik to register under FARA after U.S. intelligence agencies investigated Russia’s role in the 2016 presidential election. One report (DNI.gov, PDF) from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluded that Radio Sputnik is part of a “state-run propaganda machine” that served as a “platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences.”

Ferolito told KCUR he is simply a businessman who conducted an arms-length transaction and became “caught in the middle of a political issue.”

Ferolito said he previously made deals to broadcast Voice of Russia — a predecessor to Radio Sputnik — in New York City to little fanfare (The Common Sense Show, 2013).

“It worked quite well for six years,” he said. “In the middle of that (the DOJ) came after me… the whole thing fell apart.”

Russia's Radio Sputnik, funded by the Kremlin, airing in Kansas City (Jeff Pegues for CBS News, February 17, 2020)

U.S. intelligence agencies believe that in 2016, the Russian government used Sputnik and its TV equivalent, Russia Today, to influence American voters and will attempt to do so again this year. Kansas City community organizer Anita Dixon is annoyed by what she's hearing.

"Borderline propaganda, straddle the fence treasonous, that's what this is to me," she said.

The Kansas City Star warned "beware of Radio Sputnik," adding that "Putin uses misinformation do divide."

posted by filthy light thief (10 comments total)

When shortwave radio was still very much a thing (as late as the mid-80s), I used to tune in to Radio Moscow and it was positively surreal: Soviet-flavored news, anti-capitalism skits/plays, and all sorts of stuff like that, in perfectly fluent English, with hostnames like Brad, Steven, and Mary. It was fascinating to listen to.

But this feels like it will not end well.
posted by jquinby at 9:28 AM on February 20, 2020 [8 favorites]

Eh, almost all the other stations are American propaganda, so why not? Diversify jingoism!
posted by rodlymight at 9:52 AM on February 20, 2020 [4 favorites]

When shortwave radio was still very much a thing (as late as the mid-80s), I used to tune in to Radio Moscow and it was positively surreal

Radio Cuba still broadcasts, with pretty similar programming. Or you can listen to Radio Marti, which is capitalist propaganda being broadcast into Cuba instead of vice versa. Voice of Korea and Voice of Vietnam are also still out there, along with Voice of America (though most of their broadcasts are targeted at Africa now, AFAICT, which makes them hard to pick up in the US).

Mostly, though, what you hear on the airwaves -- and this includes broadcast AM/FM in addition to shortwave -- is "Christian" programming. I'd be very curious to know who bankrolls them. I'm sure a lot of the money comes from fleecing their parishioners to some degree or another (with Brother Stair's cult on the extreme end), but surely not all of it.

And getting slightly more back on the original topic, I remember back in the Gulf War II days there was a little bit of "read Russia Today to get the real news" going around anti-war circles. And I'm not still sure whether they or CNN are worse, technically, I mean they're both run by unaccountable oligarchs when you get down to it, except RT's oligarchs are directly connected to state power rather than indirectly...
posted by tobascodagama at 9:53 AM on February 20, 2020 [3 favorites]

And I'm not still sure whether they or CNN are worse, technically

It's a conundrum.

Which one reports when journalists are murdered by the Putin or Saudi regime? Or reports it as a "bad" thing.
posted by Everyone Expects The Spanish Influenza at 10:22 AM on February 20, 2020 [10 favorites]

We have always been at war with Oceania.
posted by kokaku at 10:34 AM on February 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

Mostly, though, what you hear on the airwaves -- and this includes broadcast AM/FM in addition to shortwave -- is "Christian" programming.

The KLOVE network has really exploded in the past five or ten years; I think my car picks up three different KLOVE stations, along with two other Christian stations in the area. And they're mostly on full-power, commercial-range frequencies, not the scratchy LPFM station in the low 80s on the dial.

Love the obscure/doublespeak parent company "Educational Media Foundation"
posted by AzraelBrown at 12:06 PM on February 20, 2020 [1 favorite]

A propos of nothing, I received an interview request from the Sputnik News Agency last summer about something related to but still outside my area of expertise. I don't get many interview requests so I was amused and wondered how someone in Moscow (judging by the phone number) came up with my name.
posted by sfred at 1:06 PM on February 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

The tentacular RT/Ruptly/Sputnik empire has been managing to make inroads in Europe’s mediasphere almost to the point of their normalization as “just another player”, as credible as any other (especially online). I find myself asking how this will end, if there exists a bulwark against the subtle insinuation, against this barely-veiled barrage of oh-so-consumable propaganda...
posted by progosk at 1:11 PM on February 20, 2020 [2 favorites]

When shortwave radio was still very much a thing (as late as the mid-80s), I used to tune in to Radio Moscow and it was positively surreal: Soviet-flavored news, anti-capitalism skits/plays, and all sorts of stuff like that, in perfectly fluent English, with hostnames like Brad, Steven, and Mary. It was fascinating to listen to

Did it sound like something from Sublime Frequencies' "Radio..." series?
posted by gtrwolf at 2:02 PM on February 20, 2020

The Chinese beat them to it. WILD, which was once the only legal radio station serving Boston's black community (Boston has tons of pirate stations), has been broadcasting programming (in Chinese and English) from China Radio International since 2011. They stream, if you want to tune in and double their ratings.
posted by adamg at 2:47 PM on February 20, 2020 [3 favorites]