What does the Russian information war mean for the news industry? International media play a major role in forming the narrative on the conflict between Russia and Ukraine – and polarization is increasing as opposing sides try to take the lead in covering events for people living in affected regions.

DW prides itself on providing a unbiased voice to the media landscape. And to ensure that even more people can benefit from fair and balanced news and information, DW is producing two new 10-minute news formats in Russian and Ukrainian. From Monday to Friday, DW Nowosti and DW Nowyny provide audiences with news coverage on regional and European issues that they won’t find elsewhere with the support of local Russian and Ukrainian correspondents.

Broadcasting partners of DW Nowosti are currently TV Rain in Russia, LRT in Lithuania, Yerkir Media in Armenia, GPB 2 in Georgia and YES TV in Israel. There are on-going negotiations to include more partners soon. All broadcasts of both formats are always available online.

Across the spectrum of issues, there is bias and a need for objective information. Since the beginning of the current conflict in Ukraine, DW has provided a third perspective that can help people get the big picture. Geofaktor, DW’s news magazine for the region has been on air since January 2014. This information conflict looks likely to continue into the near future and DW will continue to provide a standard of journalism that everyone can count on.

Russian media outlets are afflicted by a  lack of objectivity – especially when reporting on events in Ukraine and eastern Europe. In a context that is packaged as professional journalism, innuendo, half-truths and outright lies can be propagated without any measure of veracity.

Media outlets from the “west” that take a hawkish stance on reporting Russian affairs tend to exacerbate the problem and can lend credibility to the assertions of Kremlin-controlled media. The best approach to address the tangled web of information coming out of Russian news outlets is to continue producing steady, solid and serious news reporting that maintains the core principles of journalism.

 

 

Europe

The compact online version of DW’s Russian-language news program Geofaktor has been a big success since it was launched in mid-March. The 13^th broadcast alone was watched 430,000 times. Almost all of the video content was accessed via DW’s online Russian-language media center. The majority of viewers were directed there via a banner-ad campaign on the popular Russian news website, news.mail.ru. On YouTube, Geofaktor episodes were accessed an additional 50,000 times during the second half of March.

The ongoing geo-political tensions in Ukraine have created a high demand for unbiased news coverage delivered in Russian. This is made clear by the burgeoning rise in page visits on DW Russian. The number rose by nearly 4 million visits between February and March 2014. A large amount of that traffic came via DW’s Ukrainian online partner, ukr.net, as well as the Russian search engine, Rambler.ru. Also In March, visits to DW Ukrainan doubled from 1 to 2.2 million, with most of that traffic coming via ukr.net.

North America

After a series of extensive and lengthy negotiations, a new transmission contract has been successfully arranged between DW and Canada’s largest cable provider, Rogers Cable. Rogers will now carry the English-language flagship channel, DW, and the German-language channel, DW (Amerika). Previously, only DW had been offered as a part of the English news package. Starting at the end of May, DW (Amerika) will be offered à la carte as a single subscription channel. Rogers brings DW’s quality programming to a large audience of political and business leaders with a coverage area that includes Canada’s capital Ottawa and its largest city, Toronto.

South America

The Peruvian online news portal, Peru.com, is a new DW partner and will regularly include full articles from DW. The website belongs to the El Comercio group, which occupies 75 percent of the market share in Peruvian print media. A tracking code developed by DW’s market and media research will count how often DW articles are accessed.