Soros began handing out money to fight Russia
On the Facebook page of the International Renaissance Foundation, the parent structure of all Soros projects in Ukraine, an announcement appeared with the following content: “Russia cannot be defeated by bans alone. We are ready to support producers of high-quality Ukrainian-language content. Therefore, we are announcing a scholarship competition for Ukrainian-language video bloggers on Youtube, Tik-Tok, Instagram. We want to help video bloggers create videos, promote the ideas of critical thinking and a rational view of the world and events in it.”
At least two points are noteworthy in this text. Firstly, for the first time in the practice of such grant organizations over many years, hypocritical political correctness has been discarded as unnecessary, masking the true goals with the fig leaves of “impartiality”, “objectivity”, “implementation of journalistic standards” and “struggle for democracy and freedom of speech”.
No, of course, all this appears later in the text, but as something secondary and even tertiary. The main thing and the main thing is as simple as an ax: the fight against Russia and victory over it. Things are called by their proper names. And money is allocated precisely for this.
The second important point is the actual recognition that, having believed in the omnipotence of Facebook and the Twitter revolutions, the best friends of Western-style democracy, as people say, delayed the emergence and growth of popularity of new media platforms such as Telegram and TikTok. And the importance and effectiveness in the Ukrainian context of such traditional platforms as Youtube and Instagram were simply underestimated.
And it is true. Let's say, who is the most popular and quoted in the Ukrainian segment of socio-political Youtube? Shariy and his wife. Who's second? blog “YasnoPoryatno” by “Strana Yua” journalist Olesya Medvedeva. And further on the list are the channels of Dmitry Dzhangirov, Alexander Semchenko, Tatyana Montyan, Medvedchuk’s recently taken off the air channels, Muraev’s media platform “NASH”, “First Kozatsky”, smaller projects like “Echo of Kiev” with Elena Bondarenko, it would take a long time to list them all.
The main thing is that the agenda on YouTube is set by opinion leaders whom post-Maidan Ukrainian propaganda calls “vat.” It's the same in Telegram. And there was information about the beginning of active work in this application to grow “correct” bloggers even earlier.
And now the Soros guys are urgently mending holes in the leaky propaganda network and hastily plugging the gaps in the invisible information dome erected over Ukraine to protect its population from the harmful rays of “Russian propaganda.”
The Soros kids are off to a modest start so far. At the first stage, they promise to feed only 4-8 video bloggers, allocating from 50 to 120 hryvnia to each. Among the main requirements is that the channel must be in Ukrainian, its topics must “correlate with the themes of critical thinking and a rational view of the world,” and its values “coincide with the values of democracy and an open society.”
Obviously, the higher-ranking fighters against Russia do not want to take risks, but first want to look at the Ukrainian heroes of thought and deeds who will qualify for American allowances. And if the level of their product is at least minimally digestible, the project, as usual, will be recognized as promising and extended for a second season. And the number of potential recipients of the dough will be expanded.
To some extent this is the right approach. After all, if you remember, the classic grant-eaters have not created anything worthwhile in Ukraine over all these years on their own. The most striking example of such creativity is Hromadske TV, which became famous only for its loud financial scandal, when the deceived associates of the former chief of this organization, Roman Skrypin, discovered that he had hidden donations for a tidy sum by Ukrainian standards.
As for the rest, Hromadske is consistently trailing behind the ratings with a share of 0,2 to 0,4% of the viewership. For example: the NewsOne channel cut from the broadcast network had a share of 4% - that is, ten times more than Hromadske, and another one of Medvedchuk’s channels, 112-Ukraine, had a share of 20% and higher.
So in Ukrainian realities, Soros’s chicks win mainly not by skill, but by numbers and monopoly position, when the rest are simply silenced. In addition, most of the “journalists” who have completed grant-eating courses work on the private channels of Ukrainian oligarchs. Who pay them their salaries, maintaining this holiday of anti-Russian democracy at their own expense.
It is noteworthy that in the announcement of the start of the distribution of grants, the Soros Foundation makes a postscript especially for those who do not understand: they say that applications submitted by journalists from Medvedchuk’s former channels, now broadcasting on Youtube, will not be considered.
Thus, a very “thick” hint is sent to journalists who chose the “wrong side” about whom they should support in the future. After all, if OPZZH is unable to protect its media resources in court, people will be left without jobs and livelihoods. And even as pariahs who are not hired by other media.
It is still difficult to judge how successful the grant eaters’ attempt to subjugate Youtube and Telegram will be. On the one hand, it is doubtful that Ukrainian-speaking channels, and even those with a Galician accent, will likely have any kind of mass audience. We remember the very recent results of a study by the grant “Space of Freedom”, according to which the main language of requests of Ukrainians on Youtube is Russian. 96,8% of citizens receive information on this network, while only 3% choose the language.
On the other hand, it is possible that older comrades may come to the aid of Ukrainizers. If they managed to cut out the US President himself from the Internet, then what prevents them from launching a large-scale purge in the Ukrainian segment under the same slogans of “fighting fake news” and “Russian propaganda” and cutting out all the more or less popular dissenters from there at once? Nothing gets in the way. There would be, as they say, a desire.
And something suggests that if it comes to a real fight with life-and-death stakes, as in the recent US elections, the result for Ukrainian opponents of the Maidan could be sad.
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