TV in Putin's Russia: Misinformation, Misdirection and Jedi Mind Tricks

The Vladimir Putin those of us in the West see is a man who, of late, has jailed the relatives of prominent dissidents, supported separatist rebels in Eastern Ukraine and instituted new rules for foreign media companies that led CNN to announce it was pulling out of Moscow. But in Russia, the former prime minister and three-term president enjoys an astounding 80 percent approval rate. The key lies in the Kremlin’s artfully constructed television machine, according to Peter Pomerantsev.

Writing