Chapter V: The Reagent — Russia Insider
“The attempts to distort the truth and to hide the facts behind blanket accusations have been undertaken at all stages of the Ukrainian crisis.”
After the MH17 catastrophe, social media and so-called “non-traditional” media lit up in amplification of the new and fast growing west-east crisis. Publishers, editors, and ultimately readers were increasingly polarized in their views on the situation about US-Russia relations. As I’ve suggested, it would become abundantly clear pro-Russian voices would eventually be in a defensive battle against a massively funded and seemingly indomitable western mainstream foe. The “Putin Fanboys” or apologists, as we were so often called, would be forced into an increasingly bombastic and inflammatory media cataclysm.
Owing to the growing negative attitude toward Russia, any positive message sent across western mainstream media was at first discouraged, and then eventually disallowed altogether. For freelancers and independent journalists like myself, a virtual ban on positive Russia stories was in effect. Once I began writing Op-Ed for RT, the situation only grew worse. In November 2014, my story “25 Years after the Berlin Walclass="underline" Who really won the Cold War” struck a nerve for addressing the reality of Eastern Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union. The next day Euromaidan Press attacked me and the RT network for my comparisons in between slain US President John F. Kennedy and Russia President Vladimir Putin. An interview I gave as a PR expert was taken completely out of context in what would become the trend for all pro-Kiev stories. At that moment, I could not know that the broadcast would be my last appearance as Editor in Chief of Everything PR News.
On the PR and digital marketing side of things, we would end up losing half our clients over my prominent social media presence showing Russia’s side of MH17 and the Donbass situation. On more than one occasion I was told; “Phil, the higher ups do not like the fact you are so pro-Russian.” Before long, this political variable would force us to sell Everything PR News. Late 2014 and early 2015 was a low point for our small business, and for me as publisher and independent writer.
The events that followed forged me and others into media guerrillas. The term “Kremlin Troll” would come to represent a badge of honor for anyone with a clear vision of the battlefield. It was not the Russians who destroyed détente and prevented cooperation and commerce through compromise, it was the American hegemony that waged a media war seeking domination.
For me another crucial point came when the founder of the rapidly growing independent website Russia Insider asked me to become the publisher of the dissenting media outlet. American businessman Charles Bausman’s editors had previously contacted me to contribute some of my articles to their website to counter NATO propaganda rhetoric. After meeting with Bausman personally, I agreed to join what was the most amazing volunteer organization I’d ever been involved with, an organization that until now has been misunderstood.
It was Bausman, whose father was the AP bureau chief in Moscow during the height of the Cold War, who at that time represented the tip of the sword of pro-Russia media. While Russia Today (RT) and the emerging Sputnik were still considered propaganda outlets set in place by Vladimir Putin, it was genuinely independent voices like Bausman, The Saker, analyst celebrities like Paul Craig Robert and Noam Chomsky, and even American patriots like Veterans Today editors Jim Dean and Gordon Duff, that tilted the balance then.
Russia Insider was the catalyst or a hub for transforming peace activism and fears for America-Russia tensions into a useful community and a meaningful voice of moderation. Articles scraped from all over the world carrying ideas and thought-provoking opinions were disseminated by a volunteer army that numbered in the dozens. There were so many RI activist volunteers, in fact, that neither Bausman nor I could figure out how best to utilize their talents and good will.
For the reader interested in discovering the mythical world of “Kremlin Tolls”, Russia Insider was Pro-Russia central for many months after the MH17 provocation shocked the Russian Orthodox world awake. By February of 2015, my network included anyone that mattered in the spectrum of moderate Russia voices. As for Charles Bausman, while we did not always agree on strategies, there is no getting past how vital his role was in countering disastrous American policies and propaganda. It was Bausman who managed to support, via crowdfunding, a tiny independent resource capable of some degree of research.
By the time I met Charles Bausman, our company had lost fully half its PR business, and we had been forced to sell our most powerful media property Everything PR News to a New York PR guru. Russia Insider’s reach and influence allowed Bausman to pay a few journalists, editors, and technical people to expand the site’s reach. While this monetized aspect was not ultimately feasible for the long term, I and a few other team members could work more hours and harder to uncover news and to influence messaging.
While my stint at Russia Insider as publisher was short lived, articles conveying an alternative American view helped counterbalance overall Russophobic messages from the west to some degree.
“Blame it all on Putin all you want; the shrapnel tells no lies.”
I recall one of my first pieces discussing the war in the Donbass was the story about a little boy blown literally to pieces by Poroshenko’s artillery leveled onto Donetsk. Images of little Vanya still haunt me, and Graham Phillips brought the tale of Vanya Voronov to the forefront via his reporting and humanitarian efforts for the boy who lost two legs, one arm, and his vision to shrapnel. It’s important to note here that hardly any western media carried Vanya’s story even when Vladimir Putin saw to his hospital needs and made him a Russian citizen. Vanya’s story, as captured on TV by Russia One’s Irada Zeinalova, is a segment I cannot watch without weeping pitifully. Had the BBC and CBS covered this story in similar fashion Barack Obama would have had to call a halt to the Ukraine civil war immediately.
Returning to Russia Insider and Charles Bausman, I recall another aspect of his character that I learned about when he visited me here in Germany — his devout Orthodox Christianity, which I know powered much of his effort. Bausman has contributed a piece of his story for this book. My observations and participation in the Russian Insider endeavor will appear throughout the remainder of the book, but it will be Charles Bausman’s notes that will best inform the reader about the development, import and future of independent media’s role.
People are mad as hell — the story of Russia Insider