Title: ‘Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible,’ by Peter Pomerantsev - The New York Times
Headings: ‘Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible,’ by Peter Pomerantsev
What to Read
‘Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible,’ by Peter Pomerantsev
A Summer of Reading

Content: Some wondered if this was an aberration, but Putin soon used the same methods to steer everything from the oil industry to unruly oligarchs into the Kremlin’s fold. Putin has now fully established control over the media. A vast majority of Russians still get most of their information from television, and the three major channels are either owned directly by the Kremlin or by state-owned companies. Each week, a Kremlin official directs their coverage. Major newspapers have been cowed. Russia’s only independent television channel — TV Rain — is facing enormous pressure to shut down. That — and the question of how the Kremlin distorts reality — is no longer a question for Russians alone. The crisis in Ukraine has been fought just as much through the telling of its narrative as through its deployment of weaponry. Russia has directed its propaganda campaign to devastating effect, not only at home but through international ventures like the television news channel RT (formerly Russia Today), which continues to expand, most recently opening an affiliate in South America and announcing a ­London-based version to focus exclusively on Britain. It’s an information war, and the reality into which the Russians in Pomerantsev’s book have been indoctrinated is the Kremlin’s latest export.