Soft Power is not so Soft After All…
Wednesday, October 6th, 2010“We can’t allow ourselves to be out-communicated by our enemies,” Walter Isaacson said. “You’ve got Russia Today, Iran’s Press TV, Venezuela’s TeleSUR, and of course, China is launching an international broadcasting 24-hour news channel with correspondents around the world.”
“This has nothing to do with journalism. It’s about soft power and pushing the American policy agenda,” said RT political commentator and Crosstalk host Peter Lavelle. “It looks like the chairman is a little worried that the world isn’t believing him or his organization anymore. They are catching up.”
- Russia Today…
Instead of focusing on providing the audience with facts and maybe a new perspective on things, Isaacson is waging media wars, notes Lavelle.
“He treats anyone who is a competitor as an enemy. 20 years after the end of the Cold War, one has to wonder whose mentality has changed and whose hasn’t,” he added.
As for the timing of the statement, Peter Lavelle suggested that, among other things, it is related to the economic situation in the US.
“We have a depressed economy in the United States and there will probably be a double dip. So there are priorities. He is worried about losing budgets. He is saying ‘Look at our competitors – they are pouring money into soft power, into alternative journalism.’ And into the truth, I would say,” said Lavelle, adding that this scares Walter Isaacson.
Russian News From Russia!
- It’s official: RT is the enemy (rt.com)
- Been There, Done That: Walter Isaacson Won’t Edit ‘Newsweek’ (observer.com)
- Information Wants to Be Paid For [Voices] (voices.allthingsd.com)
- BBG Chairman: customer-oriented, platform-neutral (mountainrunner.us)
- How Not to Save Newspapers (valleywag.gawker.com)
- Russia Today and Robert Fisk on the American Dollar! (windowstorussia.com)
- BBC radio in English, Persian, Somali, Urdu now on US cell phones (mountainrunner.us)
- UAL, Continental close mega-merger (theglobeandmail.com)
- The Secret Newsweek Files (thedailybeast.com)
- From Russia: Western and Eastern Media - The Opposites of the Stories! (windowstorussia.com)
