【原创翻译】空难引发俄公关危机 俄与世界打响媒体战

　　http://www.russia-direct.org/con ... 17-kremlin-vs-world

　　来自《直击俄罗斯》的文章

　　空难引发俄公关危机 俄与世界打响媒体战

　　据《直击俄罗斯》报道，马来西亚的波音777被击落的悲剧引发克里姆林宫的全球性公关危机。马航客机的惨剧加深了莫斯科与华盛顿之间的对立程度，也让乌克兰局势更加令人堪忧。西方媒体在未得到确切证据的前提下，便立即谴责俄罗斯。

　　7月17日的马航客机惨剧激怒了全世界，大大加深了莫斯科与华盛顿之间的对立程度，也使得克里姆林宫在解释自己在乌克兰危机中的角色时处于非常不利的地位。全球媒体对这一事件的反应是立即谴责克里姆林宫，并认为俄罗斯记者完全没有做到负责及时报道该事件。似乎是为了强调这一点，俄罗斯国家电视台立即对西方国家的指控做出回应，提出了许多阴谋论，其言辞更像是政治宣传而非严肃报道。

　　西方媒体将矛头直指俄方

　　《生意人报》关注西方媒体(包括小报)对该事件的反应，并在其脸谱网主页上刊登了这些媒体的头版报道，同时摘抄了一些标题和文字，如《后果严重：客机被击落，295人死亡、其中10个英国人》、《乌克兰反对派受到谴责——美国称普京牵涉其中》(英国《每日邮报》)、《普京的导弹：马航MH17航班被击落》(《太阳报》)、《空中的谋杀：导弹击落客机造成295人死亡》(《卫报》)等。 《生意人报》列举了西方媒体对该事的各种报道。

　　然而，正如《卫报》文章标题所表明的那样，马航波音客机被击落的事件"占据了世界各国媒体的版面，仅有俄罗斯媒体是个例外"。《华盛顿邮报》还指出，越来越多的阴谋论抢占了俄罗斯的社交网站和电视报道。

　　同样的，自由欧洲电台/自由电台将矛头直指俄罗斯国家电视台，称"俄罗斯国家电视台粗制滥造了各种可能的原因，唯独没有指向俄罗斯和乌克兰东部亲俄武装分子的猜测"。

　　《卫报》邀请了"暴力小猫"乐队的玛丽亚·阿列克西娜接受其专栏采访，后者抨击俄罗斯媒体在"掩盖普京是制造马航MH17惨案的同谋"，而《星期日泰晤士报》专门辟出社论版面摘录英国首相戴维·卡梅伦的看法。他认为马航MH17事件是"莫斯科令人发指的行径"，这令他非常震惊，且"永远不会忘记"。 与此同时，《纽约时报》采访了牛津大学研究欧洲问题的教授蒂莫西·加顿·阿什，他也是胡佛研究中心的高级研究员兼作家。《外交政策》杂志则采访了纽约大学研究全球事务的教授马克·加里奥蒂。

　　阿什称造成这一惨剧的原因是普京保护乌克兰东部地区俄罗斯民族的"致命教条"和"奥威尔式的虚伪"。他认为俄罗斯电视台对该事件编造出"大量的虚假故事"。加里奥蒂则认为马航MH17空难事件是"克里姆林宫在乌克兰长达数月的秘密战争中遇到的最大挑战，该事故有可能很快迫使战争迅速结束，然而流血冲突仍难以避免"。

　　俄媒对马航空难看法不同

　　与此同时，一些俄罗斯报纸则试图对马航MH17被击落事件做出另一种解释。马克西姆·科诺年科是亲克里姆林宫报纸《消息报》的专栏作家;他认为这次事件是反俄罗斯的"挑衅行为"，其专栏文章标题是《广为人知的挑衅行径大事记》。

　　惨剧发生后不久，《生意人报》调频广播采访了俄罗斯民用航空委员会负责人奥列格·斯米尔诺夫，后者认为马航MH17航班被击落的责任应由基辅方面承担。他指出，基辅应欧盟的要求，承诺了要保证飞行高度不低于7000米的飞机的安全。斯米尔诺夫表示"在此次事件中，乌克兰的行为很鲁莽"，并强烈谴责基辅允许民航客机进入其危险领空的做法。

　　次日，《生意人报》邀请支持乌克兰方面的人士接受采访，受访者是乌克兰祖国党的领导人谢尔盖·索伯列夫。他不承认乌克兰军队应该对此次事件负责，并说乌军没有能击落这架波音飞机的武器。该领导人指责俄罗斯和普京支持"恐怖分子"，认为飞机"显然"是他们击落的。

　　《新报》的尤利娅•拉提尼娜“毫不怀疑”是分裂分子击落的飞机。根据Twitter上Igor Strelkov的帖子,顿涅茨克人民共和国的军事领导人之一,“骄傲”地声称是自卫队击落了飞机。据此，拉提尼娜得出结论称，亲俄反对派直接参与了这场悲剧。她认为这是在信息战争中总不受惩罚的结果,并预测说，在MH17的惨剧之后，俄罗斯与文明世界之间的分歧将会越来越深。

　　专家的结论

　　国际政治研究所的Evgeny Minchenko专家认为，与俄罗斯相比，美国和西方国家在“媒体宣传”方面具有很大的优势：他们为自己的立场辩护，创造出许多的详细的论证，并将其提升到国际舞台之上。

　　Minchenko写在他的Facebook账户上写道，西方主流媒体的评论大大遮盖住了俄罗斯媒体的评论，使俄媒体不具说服力，在人们心中创造了第一印象，并且无论真假，都很难再改变。即使我们知道真相，也很少有人会对此感兴趣。他称，基于此，俄罗斯在这样的条件下是不可能赢的。

　　同时，《全球邮报》的欧洲编辑、前莫斯科国家公共电视台和自由欧洲电台记者Gregory Feifer指出，西方媒体和俄罗斯媒体关于MH17的报道有差别，双方媒体的报道可谓是天壤之别。在他看来，外国记者做了“一个了不起的工作”，特别是在向大众呈现“恐怖场面”以及描述“亲俄枪手是如何混淆证据的”。

　　他在《直击俄罗斯》警告俄罗斯和乌克兰，MH17事件所带来的“坏”影响。他总结说，谣言似乎反映了克里姆林宫的强硬态度，这可能意味着俄罗斯与西方对峙的情况将会变得更加糟糕，而莫斯科动摇基辅的运动也不会停止。

　　原文：

　　The media battle over MH17: The Kremlin vs. the world

　　The tragedy of the downed Malaysian Boeing 777 is turning into a global PR nightmare for the Kremlin. As the situation in Ukraine transforms into front-page news around the world, Russia Direct presents a roundup of how journalists in both Russia and the West have covered this event.

　　The July 17 Malaysian plane tragedy has outraged the world. It risks upping the ante in the confrontation between Moscow and Washington and puts the Kremlin in a very vulnerable position as it attempts to explain its role in Ukraine.

　　The global media reacted to the incident immediately by blaming the Kremlin for the tragedy and suggesting that Russian journalists had totally failed to cover the story in a timely manner and with due responsibility. As if to underscore that point, Russian state-run TV immediately responded to the accusations from the West with numerous conspiracy theories and propaganda-like rhetoric rather than serious reporting.

　　Russia’s opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta stands out for its coverage of the Boeing crash. Between July 17 and July 20, the newspaper ran almost 30 articles – news stories, commentaries, photo galleries and opinions. At the same time, Kommersant ran about 10-15 articles about the Boeing crash during the same period of time, while Vedomostipublished nearly 50 pieces on the tragedy. They included news, commentaries from officials and politicians, and stories presenting different versions of the tragedy.

　　In comparison, The New York Times published between 10 and 20 regular updates about the crash. The Guardian significantly outpaced its colleagues and ran more than 120 updates between July 17-20, including news, analysis, op-ed columns, blogs, and videos.

　　Making sense of Russia’s PR nightmare

　　Kommersant paid attention to the reaction of Western media (including tabloids) to the crash and published their front pages in its Facebook account while running some headlines and quotes from these newspapers: “There’ll Be Hell to Pay: 295 Dead – Up to Ten British – as Airliner is Downed”; “Ukraine’s rebels blamed – U.S. says that Putin’s involved” (Daily Mail), “Putin’s Missile: Flight MH17 Shot Out of Sky” (The Sun), “The Murder in the Sky: Missile Destroys Jet and Kills 295” (The Guardian) and others. In fact, Kommersantpresented different versions of the tragedy proposed by its foreign counterparts with all their diversity and pluralism.

　　However, as the Guardian article suggests in its headline, the Malaysian Boeing incident “dominates pages from newspapers around the world, but not in Russia.” The British newspaper also points to the increasing number of conspiracy theories overwhelming Russia's social media and TV.

　　Even the highly respected Vedomosti is criticized for running a story on U.S. sanctions against Russia instead of focusing on the MH17 incident – what The Guardian regards as “a strange editorial decision or a conscious plan to play down an attack that much of the world was already linking to Russia.”

　　Likewise, Radio Free Europe / Liberty directs its criticism at Russia’s state-controlled TV, arguing that, “Russian state television scrambled to get out versions of the story that pointed in every possible direction – except toward Russia and the pro-Moscow militants fighting in eastern Ukraine.”

　　The Daily Telegraph presents the incident from a new angle by saying that "Moscow-backed rebels were accused of removing some of the corpses, taking their possessions and destroying evidence." The headline is indicative: “Malaysia Airlines crash victims robbed of their dignity by rebels.”

　　The Guardian invited Pussy Riot’s Maria Alekhina on its op-ed page to lambast Russian media in “covering up Putin’s complicity in the MH17 tragedy” and The Sunday Timesoffered space in its opinion section to UK Prime Minister David Cameron, who sees the MH17 incident as “an outrage made in Moscow” that shocked him and “will never leave” him. Meanwhile, The New York Times gives voice to Timothy Garton Ash, a professor of European studies at Oxford University, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and author.Foreign Policy magazine turned to Mark Galeotti, the professor of global affairs at New York University.

　　Ash describes the Boeing tragedy as being the result of “Putin’s deadly doctrine” to protect Russians in Eastern Ukraine and “hypocrisy on an Orwellian scale.” He sees Russian TV coverage of the event as “a massively mendacious narrative.” Galeotti argues the MH17 disaster “poses the greatest challenge yet for the Kremlin in its months-long covert war in Ukraine, one likely to bring the war to a close soon – if not without more bloodshed.”

　　Framing MH17 from a different angle

　　Meanwhile, some Russian newspapers attempted to offer another interpretation of the MH17 downing. Maksim Kononenko, a columnist for the pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia, sees the incident as a “provocation” against Russia, as indicated from the headline of his column, “The chronicle of a widely publicized provocation.”

　　In a detailed narrative of the event, Kononenko looks back at previous aircraft incidents involving the Soviet Union as well as the U.S. and Ukraine to imply that the West [Ukraine and the U.S.] might be interested in covering the story from a certain angle. He also ridiculessome conspiracy theories (such as the theory that the crash resulted from an attempt to shoot down Putin’s airplane), and describes CNN’s and Ukrainian media‘s coverage as “false” and bordering on propaganda.

　　Shortly after the tragedy, Kommersant FM radio gave voice to the Head of Russia’s Civil Aviation Commission, Oleg Smirnov, who shifted responsibility for the MH17 crash to Kiev: He pointed out that Kiev pledged to guarantee security at the height of no lower than 7,000 meters in response to EU requests. “Ukraine in this case has been reckless,” Smirnov said, strongly criticizing Kiev for allowing flights over its dangerous airspace.

　　The next day Kommersant invited Ukraine’s side for an interview, in the form of Sergei Sobolev, the leader of Ukraine’s Batkivshchyna Party. He shifted responsibility away from the Ukrainian army, which, according to him, doesn’t have the weapons that could reach the Boeing, and, instead, blamed Russia and Putin for supporting “terrorists,” who “obviously” shot down the jet, as he believes.

　　Novaya Gazeta’s Yulia Latynina “has no doubts” that separatists downed the jet. Based on Twitter posts by Igor Strelkov, one of the military leaders of the Donetsk People’s Republic, who “proudly” claimed that “self-defense forces shot down the plane,” Latynina comes to the conclusion that pro-Russian rebels are directly involved in the tragedy. She sees it as “the result of total impunity, felt during the information war” and predicts the “gulf between Russia and the civilized world will become deeper” after the MH17 tragedy.

　　The verdict from experts

　　Evgeny Minchenko of the International Institute of Political Expertise argues the U.S. and the West have a big advantage in conducting “media campaigns” in comparison with Russia: They defend their positions consistently, create detailed argumentation and promote it extensively in the international arena.

　　The Western mainstream media’s comments overshadow the Russian ones, make them less persuasive, create the first impression that sticks to people’s minds and is highly difficult to correct no matter whether is it true or not, Minchenko wrote in his Facebook account.

　　“When (and if) we know the truth (because now, I firmly believe, we don’t really know it – there are only the versions, based on faith, not facts), few will be interested in it,” he clarified, pointing out that, for Russia, it is impossible to win in such conditions.

　　Meanwhile, Gregory Feifer, the Europe editor at Global Post and the former Moscow correspondent for National Public Radio and Radio Free Europe, argues that the difference between coverage of the MH17 downing by the Western and Russian media “illustrates as well as anything else the different, almost opposite nature of the two.” According to him, foreign journalists have done “an amazing job,” especially when presenting “the scenes of horror” and describing “how pro-Moscow gunmen are disturbing the evidence.”

　　“Although some free Russian media remain, and some are very good, the main state-controlled outlets are disseminating their usual lies, blaming the Ukrainian government for the murder of almost 300 people, for which there's been no evidence,” he told Russia Direct, warning against the “bad” implications from the MH17 incident for both Russia and Ukraine. “The disinformation appears to reflect the Kremlin's hardening attitude, which probably means the standoff with the West will grow inexorably worse and that Moscow's campaign to destabilize Kiev won't let up,” he concludes.