Belarusan blog: Russian vs. English?

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Belarusian Blog Unveils EUs Duplicity

>>From the desk of Evgeny Morozov on Thu, 2006-04-27 21:35

There is a blog to which Margot Wallstrom, the European Commissioner for
Communication Policy, will hardly want to link her own. BR23, a leading
English-language blog on Belarus, reveals that the EUs mismanaged media
policy is bolstering Lukashenko's regime instead of fighting it. The blogs
criticism is directed at Euronews, a TV channel subsidized by Brussels to
broadcast EU-related news in exchange for 5,000,000 Euro in annual
funding. Establishing media presence in Belarus has been one of the EUs
top priorities in Belarus. Thus, last year the EU launched a radio station
to broadcast around the country. According to a recent report [pdf] on the
Belarusian media prepared by the International Federation of Journalists,
the experiment is not very successful, despite the costs of 2,000,000
Euro. Only those living in a few Western regions can tune in for
continuous coverage; the capital and other major cities are out of
permanent reach, and can listen to only one hour of news per day.

Euronews remains the EUs loudest voice in Belarus. At the least, one would
expect it to be fair in covering the turbulence in the country. If you
watch the English-language edition of Euronews, this is the picture you
see. Its reporting will be accurate, professional, and balanced, being on
par with that of BBC or CNN. EU diplomats should take special pride in
watching news from Minsk on this particular EU-funded channel. That people
in Belarus might not be seeing the same pictures and hearing the same
commentaries when watching the same news channel seems to have never
crossed their minds.

How is this possible? Quite simple: people in Belarus do not watch the
English-language edition of Euronews. Instead, they watch its
Russian-language edition. Thanks to BR23, the bias of the Russian-language
edition has been revealed and well-documented. The blog details it
meticulously, providing links to video files, news transcripts, and even
conducting cross-channel comparisons of news coverage of given events.
Reading it will make EU diplomats blush, as it unveils that the commentary
of the Russian edition of Euronews is often one-sided, downplaying the
efforts of the Belarusian opposition and being almost apologetic to
Lukashenkos regime.

One does not need a PhD in media studies to see that. Following the
elections the English-language edition ran a commentary hundreds of
protesters stayed overnight on the main Minsk square in the tents, but the
Russian edition omitted it completely. According to BR23, there was not a
single mention of protesters in the Russian-language edition on that day
at all. Ignoring this news on a day when 20,000 people  the biggest number
in Belarusian history  poured into the streets is unacceptable.

Other examples abound. When police arrested protesters from the square a
few days later, the English version ran the headline Riot police break up
Belarus demo, while the Russian version beamed with cynicism  Belarusian
revolutionaries ran out of fuel. The blog provides ample evidence of other
bias.

You may be excused for thinking that the Russian-language edition of
Euronews is edited in the KGBs headquarters by former editors of Pravda.
This is not the case. Euronews is prepared by a predominantly Russian team
of professionals, who, working for a European news channel, are expected
to deliver commensurate reporting and commentary. In contrast, however,
their coverage hardly differs from that of major Russian channels, who in
their sycophant adherence to the Kremlins orders treat ethical journalism
as an unnecessary burden. Why a channel funded by European taxpayers
follows the same route, undermining the EUs own efforts in the country,
remains unclear.

It is not the first time that Brussels takes with one hand what it gives
with another. The EUs proverbial drive to end global poverty, eviscerated
of any substance by its own agricultural policy, is a case in point. Now,
similar duplicity seems to be creeping into EUs foreign policy. Could the
Euronews bias be more than a lack of editorial supervision, exposing EUs
latent efforts to court the Kremlin?

The People of Belarus are not the only victims of this duplicity. The EUs
recent thinking on Turkmenistan, another post-Soviet dictatorship,
presents Brussels as an energy junkie willing to sell its own house for an
extra cubic meter of gas. With its cheap but limited gas supplies, badly
wanted by the EU, Turkmenistan seems ripe for another decade of
dictatorship, especially when China is rising to claim the gas that was
previously shipped to Europe.

Will the EU endorse this dictatorship too, as long as gas flows in the
right direction? To learn more, wait for the Turkmen version of Euronews.
For now, the Russian one will do.

http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/1032