Russia Insider Smashes Expectations and Gains 30 Million Page Views in Under a Year
Russia Insider is going from strength to strength, proving that people are seeking out alternatives to the shameless bias and prescribed narratives they see and read on the ‘established’ media channels.
In a little over eleven months, Russia Insider has enjoyed over thirty MILLION page views. That is around 88,000 a day!
Page views are one of the metrics a website uses to determine its popularity. When a lot of people like and share your content, your page views increase. Many websites dream of hitting the magic million in a year – Russia Insider manages that every ten days or so, and is still climbing fast.
Although the celebratory champagne glasses may be clinking at the Russia Insider HQ in Moscow, this good news is not so surprising when you look at the quality of Russia Insider’s content.
RI has a mission statement that explains why it won’t simply regurgitate the usual propaganda most western media outlets spew out on a daily basis. Instead RI collates articles from right across the spectrum of news channels, blogs, and alternative and foreign language media so you don’t have to.
Added to this is a growing band of journalists, writers, analysts and commentators contributing to RI who each have significant personal experience of Russia and the former Soviet Union. Some are expats, some are locals, some are frequent visitors, but all are well-acquainted with Russia and her near abroad.
RI seeks to encourage robust and inquisitive discussion on current events. It has become a major influencer in just a year. Its impact on Russia-related discussion is far-reaching. Articles on RI spawn further discussion on forums and social media. You don’t need to look very far for news about Russia on Twitter or Facebook without finding a link to an article on RI and subsequent discussion.
In the UK, we grew up referring to the BBC as ‘Auntie’. For decades its output was accepted by the population without question. “If it said so on the BBC, it must be true” we all thought. But in recent years that has changed. Nowadays, the BBC is often busted pedalling biased, anti-Russian views. Even when its reporters are shelled by Ukrainian troops live on air, the BBC will still gleefully report on ‘pro-Russian rebel shelling during a ceasefire’.
The allegedly well-respected New York Times is a good example of media bias in the US. It routinely seeks to influence opinion against Russia using disingenuous wordplay. The NYT are not alone doing this in the US. Fox News is so biased that many now refer to it as Faux News.
The so-called ‘alternative media’ like RI are a much-needed antidote to the institutionalised bias we see in the western media. If you want enough facts to formulate an informed opinion on Russia, Ukraine, Crimea, the downing of MH17, de-dollarisation or the alleged Russian involvement in Syria, you are unlikely to find it in the western media.
The mainstream media selectively chooses what it reports. Sometimes, what it doesn’t report or ignores entirely is more telling.
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