Russian Propaganda Hits Local DC Airwaves

As wealth has poured into the nation’s capital and the city has largely redeveloped over the last two decades, one of the last reminders that Washington, D.C., possessed any local culture at all was the existence of Bluegrass Country 105.5. The FM station was sponsored by American University and played nothing but, yes, bluegrass music, which is a big part of the regional culture as you head south and west into Virginia.

However, FM radio stations are valuable commodities, and last year American University announced its plans to sell the station. The station was sold, and a few days ago, the beloved Bluegrass Country went off the air*. Under normal circumstances, the loss of such a unique and terrific radio station would be merely sad.

But given the station that has replaced it, the loss of Bluegrass Country is an absolute outrage. If you live in the D.C. area you can now turn the dial to 105.5 and listen to Sputnik Radio, which broadcasts Kremlin propaganda 24 hours a day.

Of course, the first thing propagandists usually do is insist they are not propagandists. "We're glad to finally be able to directly address our listeners in Washington. During the last few months Sputnik Radio has become the target of constant attacks in the U.S. corporate media," Mindia Gavasheli, editor-in-chief of Sputnik's D.C. bureau, told Newsmax. "Often the people who wrote or spoke about us didn't even bother to listen to our broadcasts first.”

With all due respect to Gavasheli, I spent the last few days driving around listening to Sputnik, and the experience is like being immersed in some menacing alternate history timeline: It's like The Man in the High Castle, but for Cold War kids and with real-world implications. It’s not an exaggeration to say that any patriotic American with a half-functioning brain would be alarmed by what’s being said.