When it Comes to Dividing the American People, News Media is Playing Right into Russia’s Hand (Opinion)

Yesterday the Justice Department made some rather interesting announcements regarding the indictment of Russian nationals in attempts to influence US elections. Unfortunately, most news media completely missed the mark and ran stories that further divide the American people, instead of unite them.

The focus of the statements in the press releases is on how the influence campaigns sought to amplify divisions within the United States on various issues such as immigration, inflation, and domestic and foreign policy. In fact, the language used by the Department of Justice and other officials avoids labeling the content or its targets as conservative or liberal, keeping the focus on the broader goal of undermining U.S. democracy and influencing the 2024 Presidential Election.

However, multiple news media outlets including CNN and even Forbes took the opportunity to dig as deep as they possibly could, then speculate that the unnamed company which was in fact a victim of this through deception by Russian nationals, is Tenet Media, as the description in the indictment matches the description of that company. They then went on to further speculate that this was then funding Tim Pool, Benny Johnson, Dave Rubin, Lauren Southern, Taylor Hansen and Matt Christiansen, all of which are considered conservative commentators. And even if this is accurate (which it probably is based upon our own verification), focusing on the content being funded instead of the overall end goal of this campaign not only misses the mark on why Russia was funding these commentators, but even helps Russia in their overall objective of further sewing division among the American people.

Unfortunately, the fact that Russia is now linked to these “right-wing influencers” as they were referred to by Forbes, will be treated as a black mark to try and condemn these influencers’ views. The result of course is that these influencers will no longer simply be viewed by liberals and some moderates as conservative leaning commentators, but now they can be easily dismissed as “Russian trolls”, or “paid Russian operatives.” This even opens the door to begin accusing other commentators and independent news media outlets of being influenced by the Russian government.

Based upon this turn of events, I have no doubt that before 2024 is over I, or Radio Free Hub City, will be somehow accused of being Russian influenced in some crazy conspiracy theory. After all, we’re already accused of being “yellow journalism” because we don’t editorialize our news articles and stick strictly to the facts. And yet, we’re the ones who are intentionally trying to avoid sensationalized headlines and stick to neutral language in our articles.

For those not aware, I actually wrote a book on digital threats to democracy, and one of the topics I heavily touched on was fake news. Interestingly enough, my own research during the 2016 and 2020 election cycles found that most fake news was not intended to influence politics towards a specific candidate, but in fact simply generate clicks for ad traffic. So I have to ask, is leveraging Russian propaganda to further increase division among Americans by targeting conservative commentators with your story really so different? The main difference is only who’s profiting from the clicks.

I think it’s important to point out that in the past we have been approached by what we believe are foreign companies, willing to pay us significant amounts to run articles for them without disclosing the sponsored nature of the articles. And time and time again, we always decline. This revelation really puts into perspective just how ill-intended those lucrative offers possibly were, and that they may have indeed been part of a similar campaign to influence American news outlets.

Time and time again, I keep saying that news media needs to do better. And I’ll say it again. News media, do better. And to the American people, we have more in common with each other than you think. Go outside, talk with your neighbor, even if they have a political sign in their yard for a candidate you don’t support. Change begins locally, at the bottom. With us.

Opinion article by Ken Buckler, all opinions are his own, and in no way linked to Russia.