The perilous march of social media
Where did we go for information about what was the biggest story in the world for 48 hours last weekend? The coup that wasn’t – aka the mutiny that barely was – against Russian President Vladimir Putin had the capacity to plunge Russia, a nuclear-armed state, into civil war. And one media outlet that wasn’t providing much real time information was the ABC.
It’s been almost ten years since the ABC closed its Moscow Bureau, a victim of Coalition budget cuts. Since then, ABC has flown reporters into the region from their base in London. Would it have made any difference on Saturday June 24th, when Wagner mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin began his ‘march for justice’ to Moscow, for the ABC to have had a Russia-based correspondent specialising in the political, economic and social ecosystem of the country and reporting from local sources? Whatever Prigozhin was doing, Australians wanting to understand the crusade or watch Moscow scramble to fortify the city, or hear whether Russians feared civil war was imminent, needed to turn elsewhere, including social media – as ABC TV spent the first five or so hours of the rebellion offering repeats of last week’s current affairs offerings. It was enough to cause Lucy Turnbull to tweet: ‘Why isn’t @ABC covering events in Russia? What actually is the point of @abcnews?’
Social media, led by Twitter – which can occasionally be a good tool to find firsthand, breaking information – carried minute-by-minute news about the coup-that-wasn’t. However, it was also a cesspool of misinformation and ‘wishful thinking’ analysis, the most shocking of which was the barracking for Prigozhin to make it to Moscow and topple Putin. Twitter gave Prigozhin a makeover from war criminal to man of peace, from a warlord whose Wagner group have killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians to someone who would end the Russian war in Ukraine. Much of that was led by high profile Russian liberals, some in exile, and analysts who saw Prigozhin as the knife who could kill off Russia’s autocratic President. The sentiment, widely absorbed, was at the same time ignoring the possibility that, had their wishful thinking eventuated, nuclear-armed Russia might have descended into civil war. As Russian journalist-in-exile Leonid Ragozin noted: ‘This conflict has nurtured a plethora of shameless propagandists as well as journalists who engage in therapeutic journalism – telling audiences what they want to hear lest they get upset and lose faith in the wisdom of their governments.’
What feels good isn't always good.
Monica Attard, CMT Co-Director
This article is from our fortnightly newsletter of 30 June 2023.
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