Crowdfunded news site about Russia blasts corporate media as readers cheer
A media criticism site written by volunteers has gone viral, becoming one of the largest news sources about Russia in the world.
This article is written by freelance journalist Frank Gashumba to be used as a press release or full article. The author is making it available for republishing in part or in total. Journalists writing about Russia Insider are welcome to use parts of it without attribution. For inquiries, please contact the author directly at frankgashumba@gmail.com
Summary
An upstart, crowdfunded, volunteer news site which started a little over 1 year ago as a small blog about Russia, and which now covers other topics, has seen viral growth, receiving 12 million views and 7 million visitors in November of last year, becoming one of the largest global news sources about Russia.
The site, Russia Insider, is created by a global network of experts who think that the mainstream media have been dangerously misleading in their treatment of Russia, and they have found an enthusiastic audience in the US and Europe. The popularity of the site mirrors the Trump / Sanders phenomenon in the US and similar movements in Europe.
The site runs rolling crowdfunding campaigns. Its third campaign is set to start in early May, 2016. See the campaign here.
Riding the wave of discontent with Washington’s hawkish foreign policy among Americans and Europeans, a crowdfunded alternative news site staffed mostly by volunteers which focuses on Russian issues has seen blistering growth.
Started in September 2014 as a blog by an American who was appalled by US policy in Ukraine, and what he believed was the media’s extreme dishonesty in reporting on it, the site, Russia Insider, quickly became the world’s leading platform critical of the interventionist, neocon policies towards Russia pursued by Washington and its EU allies, and one of the largest news sources about Russia in the world.
By March of 2015 the site had received 40 million page views, and by April of 2016, together with its Youtube channel, over 100 million views. In November 2015, at the height of Russia’s intervention in Syria, it received 12 million views and 7 million visitors, according to Google analytics. In addition, RI has a very popular Facebook page, with a daily reach of 4 million. Russia Insider’s audience is evenly split between North America and Western Europe, primarily the UK, France, and Germany.
Riding the Trump / Sanders wave
“We were as surprised as anyone at the huge interest”, explains the founder and editor, Charles Bausman, a 52 year old American businessman who has lived and worked in Russia on and off since graduating from college. “But once the degree of discontent in America and Europe became clear from the Trump / Sanders campaigns and similar movements in Europe, we realized that we just happened to be in the right place at the right time. The site reflects my personal views, but apparently, a lot of people were thinking the same things I was.”
The site’s latest crowdfunding video from May 2016 gives a good idea of what RI is all about.
Crowdfunding, volunteers, and a lively comments section
“In many ways, Russia Insider is as much a grass roots movement as a publication” explains Bausman. “We reflect a popular backlash against a situation which has gotten badly out of balance.” In the first months Bausman funded the site himself, but when his resources couldn’t keep up with ballooning growth, RI turned to crowdfunding, first on Kickstarter, and then on Indiegogo. The site is launching its third crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo in May of 2016. Previous campaigns and donations brought in $130,000, from thousands of donors, with most people giving about $20. “This is real, reader-supported journalism”, explains Bausman, “If not for that crucial support, RI would never have gotten to the size it currently is.” Despite this public support, the site still requires Bausman to subsidize it from personal funds. (support Russia Insider here)
In addition to donations, RI benefits from a large group of volunteers who do everything from writing articles to comment moderation, to video editing, and much else. “This has been very humbling”, explains David Curry, RI’s volunteer coordinator. “Remarkable, talented people just keep showing up and offering to help, explaining that they just like what we are doing and our message. Many of these people are just extraordinary — writers, translators, video editors, professors, retired journalists, retired diplomats. It explains the high quality of the content on the site. It turns out a lot of people around the world love Russia and are very unhappy with what the media says about her, and are just happy to contribute in some way.”
This volunteer enthusiasm extends to the paid positions also. “Honestly, salaries around here are so small, just about everyone is working on this for the idea, because they think they are doing something valuable and important”, says Curry.
Further evidence of Russia Insider’s community support is its lively comments section. To date, the site has received in excess of 280,000 comments, currently about 1000 per day. The comments are very lightly monitored for obscenity, but pretty much anything else goes, resulting in a boisterous daily forum. “Our commenters are a huge part of the success of the site”, explains Bausman. “Many of them are extremely well-informed folks who make important contributions to the articles. We frequently learn important new facts from comments, which we then add to the articles, making them even richer.”
Asked about comment trolls, Bausman laughs: “our commenters are so gung ho that I honestly feel sorry for the occasional troll who strays into the site. Our regulars have a field day with them”.
Media Criticism and humor
Bausman is adamant about where he thinks the problem lies. “The true heart of the problem is the mainstream media”, which Bausman believes are “completely dominated by neoconservative ideologues who badly misrepresent what is going on around the world, but who have an undisguised and bizarre hostility towards Russia. It is not just the public which is being mislead, it is our government officials who actually believe the lies they read in the papers.” When asked whether the word “lies” isn’t too strong, Bausman doubles down:
“I use that word deliberately: there is no other way to explain what they publish — it is outright lying.” When asked who are the worst offenders Bausman doesn’t skip a beat: “Number 1: The Washington Post, Number 2: The New York Times, Number 3: The Economist.”
Russia Insider staffers scan 1000s of headlines from 100s of mainstream and alternative publications daily. In addition to original submissions, they repost articles about Russia they find worthwhile, and heap ridicule on articles in the mainstream media which they think deserve it. “When you analyze 1000s of headlines a day, you get a very different picture of what is going on in the media than what an average reader sees, reading a handful of his favorite mainstream publications.” “When I drilled into it, I was shocked”, says Bausman. “The scale of the deception is massive”.
Much of content on the site consists of almost gleeful ridicule of items taken from the American and European mainstream media. “Humor is a big part of what we do,” explains Bausman. Sometimes what they publish is so bad,“You have to either laugh or cry, — we prefer the laughs”. “We are to the neocon media what Jon Stewart was to the George Bush junior” explains Bausman. “In a way, we adore them, because they give us such priceless material — if they ever change their tune, we will seriously miss them”. This results in headlines such as “Putin Crushes BBC Smartass”, a video which has racked up an astonishing 4 million views on RI’s Youtube channel.
A German connection
An unusual aspect of Russia Insider is that they carry a substantial number of articles which have been translated from the German alternative media. “This is a fascinating story which is completely unreported in the Anglo media” explains Bausman. “The German mainstream media is the most hardcore Russia-hostile of them all, worse than the US or the UK, and this has fostered a broad, grass roots media revolt in Germany, resulting in a large alternative media of extremely high quality.”
Bausman, who is half-German and born in Germany, picked up on this because he reads German fluently, follows the German media, and travels there frequently. “When we realized how good the German alternative scene was, we put out a call for volunteers to help source and translate it, and got a strong response. Our German volunteers are some of the most active on the RI team. Germans are furious about the state of their media. It is a great example of something very important happening in one of the most influential countries in the world — and it is being completely ignored by the neocon media. They would prefer people not know about this.”
Translations from Russian media
Another important source of original material for RI are translations from Russian media. “The fact of the matter is that the Russian media are extremely rich and varied, and this really surprised us when we started to track it systematically — they are often more open, and more truthful, than the neocon-dominated western counterparts, with much broader boundaries for allowed points of view.” “When a state-dominated media in a semi-authoritarian country is more truthful and open than our own, you know something is seriously wrong” explained Bausman.
Influencing the global debate
Russia Insider has had an influence which goes well beyond its impressive audience size. “We appeared just when there wasn’t much oxygen left in the room”, explains Bausman. “Because the mainstream media were completely shutting out any views or narratives which dissented from the neocon, interventionist line regarding Russia, we became the go-to place for them, so we are carefully read and followed by journalists, government officials, academics, and others. Serious people now want to be published on RI because serious people are reading us. It is real influence. We often notice narratives, facts, and arguments appearing in the mainstream media that we were the first to be talking about. We are frequently cited quoted, and republished in both the mainstream and the alternative media.”
Bausman estimates that due to prolific republishing of his articles on websites around the world, his actual audience is at least twice the number of visitors to his site.
Talking about more than just Russia
“We got started talking about Russia, but once we had a sizable audience, we discovered that they were glad to read about other subjects to, so the range of issues we have been covering has been expanding”, explains Bausman. Recently RI has been writing about the US elections, the Trump phenomenon, the Middle East, and the neocon movement in general. “Our bread and butter is still Russia — there is just so much to tell about this place, it is seriously under-reported.”
Comparison to Russian state-funded media like RT.com
“There is no question that the Russian state-funded media aimed at audiences in Europe and America have scored a massive PR victory. Like us, they benefit from an extremely mendacious neocon media who oppose them. When the truth is on your side, it makes it a lot easier”, explains Bausman. “The main difference between us is that since we are a grass-roots popular movement we are not vulnerable to the accusation of being foreign funded propaganda.” “It is one thing when a foreign government’s media arm criticizes you, and another thing altogether when your own citizens do.”
“When we first appeared, since people were familiar with the RT.com phenomenon, a lot of people in the establishment media assumed we must be some kind of Kremlin-funded publicity stunt, but this perception faded pretty quickly because we were very transparent in explaining who we are and how we are funded.” “This just shows you how out of touch the establishment — both political and media — are with what is really going on out there”, explains Bausman. “Alex Jones nailed it when he said about the media: ‘Things have reached the Marie Antoinette stage’”
A Christian perspective
Another story Russia Insider writes regularly about is what is going on with the Russian orthodox church in Russia. Bausman argues that, like the German story, this is a huge issue which is going largely unreported. “The resurgence of Christianity in Russia is one of the most important and fascinating social movements happening in the world today,” argues Bausman. “It is important because it is the exact opposite of the trend in Europe and America, because of the appeal it has to conservative Christians in Europe and America with enormous foreign policy implications, and because it is profoundly changing and influencing one of the most important countries in the world, from the poorest of the poor right to the top leadership.” “It is also simply a great human story because Russian Christianity is so exotic by western standards, so colorful, so rich in recent historic tragedy.” “This is another huge story which is going largely unreported in the neocon media,” says Bausman. “The entire editorial staff of the New York Times would prefer root canal surgery to publishing anything positive about this phenomenon. The very idea makes them break out in hives.”
Bausman’s thinking on this subject is influenced by the fact that he is Russian orthodox, having converted from Episcopalianism 15 years ago, as are other key team members. “Most of our audience are areligious and come here for the politics, so we don’t cover it heavily, but when we do, the articles are very popular, because people find it fascinating regardless of their religious views. It’s a big, important story which I wish we had the resources to cover more thoroughly. It helps that we see what is going on in the churches and monasteries, that we talk to the priests and monks. What is going on here is simply remarkable.”
A global team
Bausman lives in Moscow with his Russian wife and family, and maintains a small office and support staff there, but the serious writers who power the site are dispersed around the world. “We are a truly networked group from around the world. Our writers, servers, programmers, volunteers, and much else are all in different countries, ranging from Japan to California, but concentrated in Western Europe and the US. Most of us work from home.”
Attacks against Russia Insider
According to Bausman, Russia Insider has been regularly attacked ever since the site started gaining popularity in the Spring of 2015. “We’ve been the victim of periodic DOS (Denial of Service) attacks, my emails have been hacked and published, my Facebook account has been tampered with, and I and the site have been accused of all manner of nonsense. Websites funded by disgraced oligarch in exile, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and CIA-supported Ukrainian diaspora sites have tried to argue that we are funded by the Kremlin, or by oligarchs closely related to the Kremlin.” “None of it sticks because it is so obviously false and one can see pretty clearly who is behind it. We obviously have stepped on some powerful toes, and they would love us to go away”, says Bausman.
Most recently, starting in March of 2016, Russia Insider was the subject of a smear campaign which seemed to have been deliberately timed to disrupt their upcoming crowdfunding. “A huge effort was obviously made by people to run a coordinated attack on social media and an obscure American website, accusing me of misappropriating donations and using the site as a scheme to enrich myself,” according to Bausman. “All of the accusations were anonymous, and took advantage of some disgruntled team members who had worked for weeks with whomever was behind the attacks in a carefully prepared strategy to try to discredit us.”
“The accusations were completely untrue, which we quickly proved by publishing a detailed refutation and publishing an audit which disproved it all. The claims were actually funny because the exact opposite is true — I have to subsidize RI to keep it alive, and the accusers knew that. It was incredibly cynical and malicious.” When asked who he thinks was behind the attacks, Bausman says he doesn’t know, but whoever it was, he says they were well-organized and professional, and they desperately wanted to shut RI down. “In retrospect, the attacks only helped us, because most people were able to see through them, and the people making these demonstrably silly accusations lost a lot of credibility.” “It is very hard to shut down the truth, no matter how hard you try,” Bausman added. “The attacks are a sign that we are making some powerful people very uncomfortable.”
An important Russian media prize
Russia Insider has been noticed in Russia too. In part this is because Bausman, who speaks fluent Russian, appears regularly on leading Russian political talk shows.
In April of 2016, Bausman was the recipient of a prestigious new Russian journalism prize, for Media & Literature, awarded by Russia’s international news agency, Rossiya Segodnya (not to be confused with RT.com), formerly known as RIA Novosti. The prize is given in 7 categories by the Alexander Zinoviev club, which exists under the auspices of Rossiya Segodnya. The mission of the club is to memorialize the ideas of the legendary 20th century Russian philosopher, Alexander Zinoviev, who along with Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn, was one of the USSR’s three most famous dissidents and exiles. The club is an important participant in the Russian government’s efforts to articulate a national ideology, an issue that, unlike most other countries, Russia attaches great importance to.
The prize is named after the extremely popular and loved pro-Russian Ukrainian journalist, Oles Buzina, who was brutally and openly murdered by neo-nazis in Kiev in May of 2015 in an effort to silence any dissent through terror. Buzina has become a powerful symbol of Russia’s outrage at what is perceived as Western aggression. Other recipients of the prize in 2016 were Iosif Kobzon, the popular Russian singer who has been outspoken in his support for the Ukrainian separatists, and Pavel Gubarev, an Ukrainian separatist author, journalist, and political leader.
The future
“The whole story of RI is so unexpected, we don’t spend much time thinking about where this is all headed.” says Bausman. “One thing I can tell you for certain is that there is no money in this, in fact, quite the opposite”. “But it is enormously gratifying. That is the best kind of work, I guess, the kind where most of the time it is so fun and interesting that it doesn’t feel like work at all. Our plan is simple — to keep telling interesting stories.”
For inquiries, please contact the author directly at frankgashumba@mail.com
