Reuters welcomes russia, known for its disinformation campaigns, to its digital content marketplace
Reuters announced that TASS, the russian news agency, has become a partner on its award-winning digital content marketplace, Reuters Connect.
Michael Friedenberg, Reuters President, said: “I’m delighted that TASS and Reuters are building upon our valued partnership by having TASS join Reuters Connect. Their addition shows our ongoing commitment to bring incremental value to Reuters Connect customers. Alongside the vast output of Reuters own world-class newsroom, we continue to provide customers content with unrivalled breadth and depth.”
Yet, TASS is known to conduct numerous disinformation campaigns in the past. The author of the book “Warriors of Disinformation” Alvin A. Snyder writes “the Soviets had a distinct advantage in spreading disinformation abroad. Tass was both a domestic and foreign operation and had offices in 126 countries. The CIA estimate was that as many as 70 percent of Tass’s correspondents were KGB agents”.
That estimate, of course, was valid for the Cold War period. The question of whether anything has changed remains though.