Today I see that the English version of Pravda has posted a major portion of one of my articles on their news website.
The article I wrote is called “Break up of the United States of America and Civil Upheavels – Imminent Danger #6 it is part of my imminent danger series. I wrote this sixth article in the series last year.
I do not mind that Pravda has posted this since they did not publish the whole article and they do provide a link to the full article. They also credited me with writing the article so that is fine. It also is bringing many new people to my website. I do have some questions though, maybe someone can help me out here?
The article is published in the “Front page /opinion/columnists/” section. My problem is that I have no idea who posted it there. I simply see no way of finding out who posted it or why they posted it. Can anyone who is signed up just post someone else’s article on Pravda without even adding information on who submitted it to Pravda and some comment on why they are submitting it to the public?
It all seems strange to me. One reason I say that is that I saw an article in the same section of the English version of Pravda a few weeks ago that was mocking America for turning to Communism after Russia had rejected Communism. I was thinking of commenting on that article on my blog but when I researched the article I saw that it came from the opinion section so I just figured it was the opinion of some obscure columnist or commentator and it was not the position of Russians or Pravda. However low and behold, in a few days Fox, Drudge, and other major news sites were quoting the article and posting a link to it as if it was the opinion of the Russian people it soon was all over the Internet (you might recall the article).
So what is going on? Are these opinions picked up by Pravda the view of Pravda or are they just someone signed up to post on Pravda? If that is the case why would any major news site then claim that “Pravda or the Russians said.. such and such… when it was really just someone’s unsolicited opinion like is the case when someone posted my article on English Pravada?
I hope Fox, Drudge, WND and others don’t now pick up my article and say the Russians are saying America will break up quoting my article. (Actually I know a few in Russia think that will be the case but I do not think that is the position of Russia or Pravda.)
Anyone have any inside information on all this? Is Pravda a mouth of the Russian government like some major new sites seem to imply by quoting these articles as if they are the view of the Russians or should much written in this section just be called a free expression of ideas and not be quoted by major news sites as if it is something that Russia is saying?
Pravda is a more less open site where anyone can post just about any article they want. It is in general a product of fringe articles, conspiracy theories, and otherwise marginalized ideas that one is unlikely to find in most major news outlets. Some of the highlighted articles on Pravda will often hit upon the existence of autotrophs, alien creatures, and some of the louder less reasonable voices of creation science as well as political items and news articles of a slightly more respectable bent. Nevertheless, some legitimate news outlets (frequently Fox News) will hit upon some obscure article from Pravda as support for an otherwise unsupportable bit of analysis. In general, any news article or analysis that relies on or cites Pravda.ru should be called into immediate question or discounted entirely.
This Pravda website is not the same as the old Soviet newspaper at all. It’s a sensationalist tabloid-style internet news magazine, that’s all.
http://www.rian.ru/ is Russia’s semi-official news agency.
Thanks for the information guys that explains it all. I guess many of the major Internet news sites sensational articles that are not really news in order to fill space and suck in readers. I see WND daily sensationalizes things in order to do that as well and keeps changing headlines on pretty much the same article. On one end of the news spectrum you have a press that is an arm of government and on the other end you have information that does not come from creditable sources. Now we shall see if anyone in the major media picks up my article on Pravda as if it came from the Russians.
Rian.ru is in Russian so it is Greek to me
The homepage is in Russian but its actually available in several languages, you can select your language at the top of the main page. The version in English can be found at http://en.rian.ru/.