Thomas Kent, "Information and the Russian Public"

As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine continues, the information domain has manifested itself as one of the preeminent theaters of conflict in this war. But how Russia and Ukraine have approached this theater is a study in contrasts. The Ukrainian government has employed a robust information strategy from the highest level of political leadership to its troops on the front lines in sharing messages and images that support their narrative, and sharing them across the widest number of platforms available. Russia, on the other hand, has progressively shut down the information outlets available to its people, and those outlets it has not directly shut down have often removed their services on their own volition to protest Russia’s aggression. In this #BruteCast episode, we welcomed Mr. Thomas Kent to help us understand the Russian side of this equation, and what those outside Russia can do to push in the information that the government is denying its own citizens.

Thomas Kent is a specialist on disinformation, Russian media and journalistic ethics. Until September 2018 he was president and CEO of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, a congressionally funded corporation providing news in 25 languages to the former Soviet Union, the Balkans, Central Asia, Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. He consults for governments, NGOs and corporations on Russia, disinformation, and ethical journalism. His book on combating Russian disinformation in Europe, Africa and Latin America was published in September 2021.

Previously, Kent was standards editor of The Associated Press, responsible for credibility, balance and fairness in AP’s text, photo and video services worldwide. He served with the AP as reporter in Sydney, Australia; NATO and the European Union reporter in Brussels; reporter and bureau chief in Moscow; chief of AP operations in Tehran during the Iranian revolution; deputy news editor and news editor of AP's World Service Division in New York; international editor of the AP and chief of the AP supervisory desk.

He lectures internationally on journalistic ethics and disinformation, has served twice as a juror for the Pulitzer Prizes in international reporting and is a member of the advisory board of the Ethical Journalism Network.

Intro/outro music is "Evolution" from BenSound.com (https://www.bensound.com)

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