Students of public diplomacy and propaganda are quick to point out the difference between the two, but sometimes it's not so easy. One man's strategic government effort to communicate with foreign publics can be another man's tendentious information blitz to smear the reputation of another country.
Nowadays, the clumsy and blunt-edged attacks that characterized the state-owned media of the Soviet Union are a thing of the past, and even a less than open media environment — such as that in Russia, China, Iran or Cuba — is unable to totally prevent the movement of information and ideas across national borders via satellite and Internet.
But a caveat is in order. As Russia's media environment at home becomes less free and more dangerous for practicing journalists, the Russian government resorts to more propaganda-like approaches to its overseas public diplomacy.
For instance, consider "Russia Today," a Russian government-funded daily TV news program that airs in most major media markets around the United States. Besides light feature material on Russian society and culture, travelogues, etc., “Russia Today” offers news items and analysis. If Western media have reported some negative development — say, the murder of a journalist and human rights lawyer in downtown Moscow — “Russia Today” will cover it too, but then go on to provide some broader “context” that seeks to limit the damage or shift the blame.
Fair enough. But as media in Russia become more monochromatic, so too does Russian public diplomacy. If Putin appears at Davos blaming the world economic crisis on American mismanagement, then for Russian public diplomacy America becomes the scape goat for all of Russia's current economic ills. As Peter Lavelle, one of the American “faces” of Russia Today, concluded a recent RT blog, “I can't see how anyone can really disagree with Putin's diagnosis and prognosis.”
Lavelle offers the Kremlin view on what Obama now needs to do in order to “recast Russia-US relations,” proceeding to list demands that could have been reprinted from an old copy of Pravda: The U.S. should stop “meddling,” should stop “seeking security at the expense of other[s],” stop “seeking to claim the moral high ground” since “all across the board civil society and political rights have eroded in America over the past eight years. The US has no moral right to lecture any country on human rights.” The “short list” goes on, (including “the U.S. should stop claiming Russia uses energy as a political weapon”), but never pauses to consider what Russia ought to do. (Presumably, whatever Putin says.)
Even yesterday's Superbowl football contest provided the occasion for a political dig. Against the backdrop of partying Steeler fans, Russia Today's correspondent noted that Bank of America reportedly spent $10 million staging its own Superbowl party. At the White House, as the U.S. President hosted his own gathering to watch the game, was “Barack Obama just ignoring that Bank of America had spent so much money or was he unaware?” the reporter gravely asked. “It's hard to say and it seems that Americans aren't getting the answers to these questions until all of the money seems to be gone.”
Or so it seems.
As the Kremlin's channel, Russia Today has every right to practice its old-new style of public diplomacy as it pleases. But it will appear more like old-fashioned propaganda than new fashioned public diplomacy if it adopts a strident anti-U.S. tone. Particularly if the Kremlin at the same time continues to pressure Russian domestic media, such as Novaya Gazeta and radio station “Ekho Moskvy,” whenever they fail to toe the Kremlin line.
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DON'T FEED KREMLIN'S PUBLIC DIPLOMACY WITH U.S. PUBLIC HYPOCRISY
Essentially, Mark Dillen (The Kremlin's Channel, PDB, 2 February) is right: public diplomacy may have different faces and still be on target — depending on its goals. Indeed, it can be charged negatively ("The US has no moral right to lecture any country on human rights" , Russia Today, "the Kremlin's channel") or positively ("Well done is better than well said" , Benjamin Franklin). However, public diplomacy is doomed to fail if its messenger manifestly employs and demonstrably displays double standards, not to say an outright hypocrisy.
Consider the case of Prague-based Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), highly visible tool of American public diplomacy overseas, whose broadcasting standards, as the law prescribes, "shall be consistent with the broad foreign policy objectives of the United States" and "promote respect for human rights".
One could argue that on air RFE/RL's broadcasts more (an optimistic assessment) or less (a pessimistic one) live up to the standards set by U.S. Congress. However, on the ground, as the oldest and quite pro-American Czech national newspaper LN wrote in its editorial "Equality with Precondition. Practice of Free Europe Contradicts Its Ideals":
"Prague headquarters of RFE/RL, which pretends to be a messenger of freedom, democracy, and the rule of law, behaves as an employer in such a way as if the principles it heralds, are relevant "just' for the hole planet but not for what is going on inside that estimable organization itself".
Inside RFE/RL, which outside has an American flag, "everybody knows that any protest will end in termination" (CZ Magazine). To the voices of print media add prime-time broadcasts on two largest national TV-channels. Add also a publication of the Letter to Vaclav Havel, very popular first president of the post-communist Czech Republic, an internationally celebrated playwright, who, in his turn, in front of the running cameras, promised to monitor the situation personally. Such is the picture of what happened to the public reputation of RFE/RL in the Czech Republic when two foreign employees took that American tool of "soft power" to courts for violating their labor, civil and human rights (national discrimination).
Anna Karapetian, an Armenian journalist, mother of three minors, one of the plaintiffs suing RFE/RL, in her Open Letter to freedom of press and human rights organizations compared legal status created by RFE/RL for its foreign employees, to that of Guantanamo: no protection in their countries of origin, not in the place of their presence, nor in the United States. Recently, her letter appeared on a number of American Internet sites including NYT and USA Today servers. In the meantime, the court cases against RFE/RL are to be considered by the Czech Supreme and Constitutional Courts. Appeal to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg where for RFE/RL's policies and actions is formally accused the Czech Republic as the host country to RFE/RL, is pending. Incidentally, CR where RFE/RL contributed to anti-American sentiments, is our important NATO ally still active in Afghanistan and Kosovo, holding presently the Presidency of the Council of European Union.
Not to be overlooked when assessing the damages to the U.S. image inflicted by RFE/RL public diplomacy performed at U.S. public expense: on Internet sites in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the states of Central Asia, i.e. RFE/RL target countries, is published and republished an extensive article by the Prague journalist Leonid Panov "Doomsday of Radio Liberty. From Double Standards to Double Morals?"
No doubt, Obama's administration (Hillary Clinton became ex officio a full member of the U.S. Broadcasting Board of Governors overseeing RFE/RL, and a member of RFE/RL's Board of Directors) can and should ASAP stop farther involvement of RFE/RL in scandalous to American public reputation lawsuits abroad. Clearly, it takes some time but to cure "Guantanamo" in Prague is definitely less complicated than Guantanamo in Cuba.
Mark Dillen correctly points out that Kremlin, while criticizing the United States for its (real or assumed) double standards, pressures Russian domestic media, in particular popular radio station "Ekho Moskvy", whenever it fails "to toe the Kremlin line". By the same token, RFE/RL should not, even potentially, feed "the Kremlin's channel's" public diplomacy turned propaganda with its own brand of public diplomacy turned hypocrisy.
To rephrase Mark Dillen: do pressure RFE/RL management inherited from the old administration to toe the present Washington line.
Lev Roitman
Fm. RFE/RL Senior Commentator
(Retired in 2004, after thirty years with RFE/RL in New York, Munich, and Prague)
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