Giant
U.S. Public Relations Firm Helps Russia With Really Smart PR
Flush with
foreign reserves from oil and natural gas sales, the Kremlin is
pumping tens-of-millions of dollars into various forms of public
diplomacy. The Russian government has hired the U.S. public
relations firm Ketchum Inc. “to help the government tell its story
of economic growth and opportunity for its citizens,” said Randy
DeCleene, an executive at the firm.
As part of the
PR push, the official government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta
is funding monthly supplements in newspapers in India, Britain,
Bulgaria and the United States, including a paid supplement in the
Washington Post.
Russiaprofile.org, a
news and analysis site funded by government news agency RIA Novosti,
features a range of opinions...including some quite hostile to the
Kremlin. RIA Novosti also hosts an annual Valdai Discussion Club,
where 30 to 40 Russia experts and prominent journalists, mostly from
the United States and Western Europe, are wined and dined in the
company of Russian policymakers and political analysts.
The Hoover
Institute’s Michael McFaul (an adviser to Barack Obama’s campaign)
called the Valdai events, which featured sessions with
then-President Vladimir Putin, “really smart PR.” A previous
disclosure noted Russia also has a new think tank, the Institute of
Democracy and Cooperation.
(Source: Washington Post, March 6,
2008)
