News on Youtube Aug 27 2017

— What, you are colluding here?

— Absolutely, absolutely.

— Mindia Gavasheli is a veteran of the Russian media.

— Let's keep it super simple,

because if we start bringing up all these crazy details,

people are going to go insane.

— He used to work at RT,

the Russian-funded television station.

Now, he's the boss at Sputnik's D.C. bureau.

This is the first Russian government-funded radio station in the United States.

— So you're hoping to get those congressmen and stuff listening to Sputnik in the morning?

— Oh, I would love them to.

I would love them to.

Why you are making such a face?

— I don't know, man.

I just…

— Before 105.5 was Sputnik.

It was the public radio home for bluegrass and country music in D.C.

So why do the Russians want it?

Maybe it wants to prove Russian state media

isn't a firehose of fake news.

— We really want it to be on FM,

because next time an idiot writes that,

"Oh, these are the guys who propelled Trump into his position,"

people will tune in and hear what we say on the air and will be,

"Uh… that doesn't sound like a pro-Trump radio."

— Sputnik the network has been around for a while.

It's global, with content in more than 30 languages.

On the radio, you won't hear anyone say,

"You're listening to Russian government-funded broadcasting,"

but you will hear the Russian pronunciation of that famous satellite about 15 times a day:

— You're listening to radio Spootnik…

— The shows on Sputnik FM aren't about Russia—

they're about America.

The signature show is called "Faultlines":

Garland Nixon, who calls himself a "Bernie bro,"

squares off daily against Lee Stranahan,

the only avowed Trump supporter on the air.

— I think the Russia narrative is a complete load of crap.

— The guys disagree about a lot of things.

Russia is not one of them.

— We're in another boogeyman phase,

and Russia's the current bogeyman.

And everybody—

look, it's fashionable to be scared of Russia!

— The takeaway from listening to Sputnik is that other news is corrupt,

and that listeners should fear the American media infrastructure.

— Yesterday, we started the week by talking about

the dopey lying mainstream establishment media

that lies to the American people and does propaganda.

— The Americans with shows on Sputnik FM

told us no one tells them what to say or how to say it—

and what they wanna say, most of the time,

comes from the far-left.

— I'm a socialist.

I've been part of the anti-war movement

since I was a teenager during the Vietnam War.

You have Jeff Sessions, who hates immigrants, is a xenophobe himself…

— Why does the Russian government pay Brian Becker to be on the air five hours a week?

— I'm a critic of U.S. foreign policy.

Perhaps that's a voice that the Russian government wants to have the American people also listen to,

but I don't really know.

— It's not like Russia is a great example for American progressives to aspire to.

But Sputnik offers them the chance to hold a mirror up to their own country

in ways mainstream outlets usually don't:

— It has to be one of the most open secrets out there though, quite frankly,

that the Pentagon is really just one giant pig trough

for every military contractor and lobbyist connected to contractors to feed from…

— Eugene Puryear once ran for D.C. City Council as a Green Party candidate.

Now, he hosts "By Any Means Necessary,"

a show that includes a lot of voices from Black Lives Matter and similar movements—

people you generally won't hear anywhere else.

He says, for guys like him, a platform is a platform.

— Do you care if there's a Russian political leader who's like,

"Yeah man, this show's on, where we're making the U.S. look weak."

— America is doing quite a bit of destabilization.

And so, it's not that surprising that,

in a power struggle of major, powerful countries over big interest,

that all parties involved are going to be trying to influence each other one way or another.

— That's true, in sort-of an academic sense, right?

— Sure.

— But you're the person on the air.

So I wonder, what if you're the tool of that destabilization?

Does that bother you at all?

— Well, I would say this:

for people who are concerned that, like, airing more content about police shootings,

or whatever it may be, is gonna rip America apart and that's a huge weakness that Russia is exploiting,

if that's what you think,

then there's one simple solution,

and that's solve the problem.

I think what we're doing is just bringing to light issues of concern in America

that are gonna be divisive whether there's a Sputnik or whether there's not a Sputnik.

— State-owned media is nothing new.

The U.S. has it, and so does its allies.

Mindia won't tell us how much Sputnik FM costs

and we don't know how many people are listening yet,

but we're seeing how Russia is using its state-owned media in our country:

it gave an FM station to an existing American resistance.

— What's funny about this is that, you know,

the original Sputnik, right,

it was this thing that created this great terror in America when it went over,

but it was actually just like a sort-of benign beeping satellite.

— In Russia, it's still a matter of national pride:

"Oh, we were the first in space."

And here in the States, it's like…

"Ah! The Russians are coming!"

— So this is not "the Russians are coming,"

this radio station is not "the Russians are coming"?

— Well, yeah, we already came.