Russian Propaganda Radio Sputnik on Kansas City Radio

Welcome to Shero and another free weekly post from Amee Vanderpool that gets you exclusive independent content from a female driven perspective that connects the dots for the masses. If you haven’t already, please complete a paid subscription to keep this good thing going and receive access to all of the subscriber-only content available behind the paywall.

(Russian President Vladimir Putin answers questions at the Gostiny Dvor studio during the annual "Direct Line with Vladimir Putin broadcast live" by Russian TV channels and radio stations in Moscow on June 15, 2017. (Photo MIKHAIL KLIMENTIEV/AFP/SPUTNIK via Getty Images.)

Kremlin-funded Radio Sputnik, formerly known as Radio Moscow, has now expanded its reach to include three local radio stations in Kansas City, Missouri. Radio Sputnik was previously limited to Washington, D.C., where it has aired since 2017, but has now extended to three hours every morning and evening during the highest commuter times on three frequencies controlled by KCXL in Kansas City: 1140 AM, 102.9 FM and 104.7 FM.

While court records denote that the intention of Radio Sputnik’s founding organization Rossiya Segodnya, is to restore a “fair attitude to Russia in every country in the world,” it is ultimately a propaganda machine produced by the U.S. based branch of an organization created in 2013 by Russian President Vladimir Putin to promote Russian interests abroad.

Russia has utilized social media to distract and influence voters in the United States and they are not just stopping there. Russian government has access to Americans in the United States in television with “RT America,” which launched in 2010 and is available on multiple TV providers. The RT network is formerly known as “Russia Today.” The U.S.-based pay television and internet-based news channel is part of the RT network, a global multilingual television news network that is based in Moscow and funded by the Russian government. This expanding presence on U.S. talk radio through Radio Sputnik is just another example of Russian influence made possible with something very simple — money.

The man behind the newest Radio Sputnik deal in Kansas City is Arnold Ferolito, who runs RM Broadcasting LLC from Florida. While Ferolito claims to only sell air time, he also brokered the deal between KCXL and Rossiya Segodnya, a Moscow-based founding organization that controls both Radio Sputnik and RT Network. The broadcast of Radio Sputnik in Washington D.C. was also arranged by Arnold Ferolito, and court records reflecting his negotiations with Rossiya Segodnya indicate Ferolito offered to put Radio Sputnik programming on the air in New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Houston and Boston.

(Russian owned Sputnik News Agency UK Bureau near Bute House in Edinburgh in Dec. 2016.)

There are no further details on why those locations have fallen through other than a generalized statement from a Radio Sputnik spokesperson who confirmed to Kansas City local radio station KCUR that Radio Sputnik would “love to broadcast in all major U.S. markets. But unfortunately, U.S. authorities are working really hard to prevent us from doing so.”

After the 2016 election, U.S. intelligence agencies began to investigate Russia’s role, and at that point the U.S. government pressured Ferolito and Radio Sputnik to register under the Federal Agents Registration Act. The act requires people lobbying for, or acting on behalf of a foreign government, to register with the U.S. Department of Justice as a foreign agent. This investigation into the details of Rossiya Segodnya is what led to unearthing the name Arnold Ferolito and what resulted in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence concluding that Radio Sputnik is part of a “state-run propaganda machine [that serves as a] platform for Kremlin messaging to Russian and international audiences.”

A federal judge ruled in May of 2019 that WZHF-AM, a Washington, D.C. based radio station, must register as an agent of the Russian government, saying Americans "have a right to know if a foreign flag waves behind speech broadcast in the United States." Except for the five seconds every hour during which it identifies itself, WZHF-AM has broadcast Radio Sputnik 24 hours a day, non-stop, since December 2017.

Most radio stations pay for content from a creator, but the deal that Ferolito has arranged between Rossiya Segodnya (Radio Sputnik) and KCXL is reversed and ultimately has the Russian government paying $324,000 to broadcast Radio Sputnik for three years starting in January 2020. The radio station airing these broadcasts is not new to the conspiracy theory propaganda aspect of right-wing media. KCXL was scrutinized in 2018 for giving airtime to Steve West, a businessman who espoused anti-Semitic and Islamophobic views under the name “Jack Justice.” 

The Anti-Defamation League has also labeled the station as a “fundamentalist Christian streaming news and opinion platform” that frequently discusses “extreme conspiracy theories.” Cue the much needed infusion of Russian money into an already struggling media outlet that has built up a substantial listener base of people who might be most susceptible to Russian propaganda. KCXL was ripe for the Russian propaganda picking and they already have the loyal base of listeners all cued up.

(Radio Sputnik Fault Lines co-hosts Stranahan and Nixon in the newsroom of Sputnik, a radio station funded by the Russian government. Photo by Jonathan Newton via Getty Images.)

It’s worth noting that Russia has made ardent attempts to curtail this type of action in their country by enacting strict laws to prohibit foreign ownership of media outlets in Russia. In 2014, Putin extended the Kremlin’s control over some of Russia’s most prominent independent publications in order to limit the dissemination of reporting critical of Putin and his allies. This strategy has also helped to curtail any negative press while glorifying the Russian propaganda Putin has diligently put out into the rest of the world through social media and now American airwaves.

Russia’s powerful state-run media has labored tirelessly to glorify Putin and denigrate groups perceived to be enemies of Russia, while the United States has just invited Radio Sputnik into the heartland. The Kansas City Star warned its readers "beware of Radio Sputnik…Putin uses misinformation to divide." The local paper also emphasized the crushing reality and obvious threat by printing, “Russian citizens are not stupid, and they got wise to the propaganda spewed by state-owned media generations ago. Most of them are well aware they’re being lied to all day, every day. But they’ve had a huge head start on us Americans, and we need to smarten up — fast.”

---

If you like this piece and you want to support independent journalism from a female perspective, you can forward this article to others or send a gift a subscription to someone else today. Your paid subscriptions allow me to keep publishing critical and informative work that is often made available to the public.

Amee Vanderpool writes the “Shero” Newsletter and is an attorney, contributor to Playboy Magazine and analyst for BBC radio. She can be reached at avanderpool@gmail.com or follow her on Twitter @girlsreallyrule.