Ruptly

Ruptly GmbH is a video news agency specializing in video-on-demand, based in Berlin, Germany. It is a subsidiary of ANO Novosti and a sister agency of the RT news network.[1][2] It runs the media channel Redfish and is the major shareholder in Maffick. It describes itself as "an independent, commercially-funded organisation" that makes its own independent editorial and operational decisions.[3] It provides video content to various news providers.

Ruptly
CountryGermany
Broadcast areaWorldwide
SloganNews That Expands Views
HeadquartersLennéstraße 1
Berlin, Germany
Programming
Language(s)Russian
English
Spanish
Arabic
Picture format1080i (HDTV)
Ownership
Owner(ANO) TV-Novosti
Sister channelsRT International
RT Arabic
RT Actualidad
RT America
RT UK
RT Documentary
RT Deutsch
History
Launched4 April 2013 (2013-04-04)
Links
Websiteruptly.tv

History

Ruptly joined the German Commercial Register as a Berlin-based GmbH in July 2012,[4] before officially launching operations on April 4, 2013.[5] It operates as a German commercial entity with ANO TV Novosti as its principal shareholder. ANO TV Novosti is primarily funded by the Russian government, and also the owner of the RT news network.[6]

In February 2014, Ruptly was one of the first agencies to use drones to capture news footage when it used them in its coverage of the civil unrest in Ukraine.[7]

In 2017, Ruptly introduced 360-degree video content, and provided the first panoramic view of Earth from the International Space Station.[7]

When it launched, Ruptly provided video news content, live video-streaming and operational support to broadcasters of varying size around the world. It serves over 1,400 clients globally, including large media groups, broadcast networks, video bloggers and online publishers; clients include Al Jazeera, CBS, NHK, and online publishers such as LADbible.[8] It now also caters to smaller organizations with lower budgets such as Ruptly PASS.[9] In 2018, it announced a merger with RT Digital.[10]

Notable videos

In October 2017, a Ruptly-produced viral video about an American restaurant creating a special burger to celebrate Vladimir Putin's birthday turned out to be fabricated.[11] Ruptly removed the video from its YouTube channel and stated that its employees and not the restaurant were involved in the creation of the video, "which, unfortunately, compromised the reliability of the video. We are grateful to our audience for drawing attention to the discrepancy in our story".[12][13]

On 27 November 2018, Polygraph.info alleged that Ruptly published a misleadingly edited video of an altercation between Ukrainian and Russian ships during the Kerch Strait incident in which a Ukrainian tugboat was rammed by a Russian Coast Guard vessel. Polygraph later updated the story to advise that Ruptly had contacted it to say Ruptly "acquired and published without editing" a short version of the ramming video which it had received on 25 November 2018 and that it published the full version, "as soon as" it was able to obtain it. Polygraph confirmed that Ruptly did publish the full version of the video on 26 November but that the full version was published by other Russian media on 25 November. In its update, Polygraph stated that it had "no means to independently confirm that Ruptly.tv did not edit the first, shorter version, of the video".[14]

In April 2019, Ruptly provided exclusive video coverage of Julian Assange being forcibly removed from the Embassy of Ecuador, London. Ruptly obtained the footage by videoing the embassy using a crew of five working in shifts 24 hours per day for the week leading up to Assange’s arrest. Ruptly’s twitter video of the arrest achieved 1.7 million views within a day.[2][15]

During 2018 and 2019, Ruptly provided live coverage from France of the yellow vest protests. Its coverage of the protests was streamed on multiple social media platforms simultaneously and achieved over 10 million views across the YouTube and Facebook pages of Ruptly and its clients.[16][17][18][19][20]

In August 2020, The New York Times reported that a Ruptly video of Black Lives Matters protesters apparently burning a bible in Portland, Oregon, edited in a misleading way, "went viral" after it being shared with an inaccurate caption on social media by a far-right personality and then conservative politicians. The Times said the clip "appear[ed] to be one of the first viral Russian disinformation hits of the 2020 presidential campaign”.[21][22][23][24] An NBC report in the wake of this incident found that Ruptly edited user-generated protest videos to highlight violence over peaceful protest.[24] Despite the criticism, Ruptly became the most-watched news agency on YouTube in 2020 topping Yonhap, Associated Press, Reuters, Xinhua, and AFP. The content is curated for the global community.[25]

Organization

Ruptly consists of an international team headquartered in Berlin, with additional offices located in Moscow and Beijing. The agency also engages a global network of freelance video journalists, or stringers, to capture on-demand content at the scene of events.[26] These are located throughout the world in locations including Cairo, Damascus, Gaza, London, Madrid, and Washington.[27] Ruptly also accepts user-generated content (UGC) via social media and its Ruptly Stringer app.[26]

During the economic crisis in December 2008, the Russian government included ANO "TV-Novosti" on its list of core organizations of strategic importance of Russia.[28][29][30] Ruptly has stated it was founded by ANO "TV-Novosti" "to act as an independent, commercially-funded organisation under German law", that its editorial and operational decisions are "completely independent" and the claim it is run by the Russian government is "factually false".[3]

Ruptly's organization also includes the Berlin-based subsidiary Redfish.[31][32] According to the Alliance For Securing Democracy and UK journalist Paul Mason, Redfish is aimed at the political left and African-Americans.[33][34]

Also based in Berlin - and sharing an address, according to the Alliance for Securing Democracy, with both Ruptly and Redfish[35] - is German-registered Maffick media, founded by former RT journalist Anissa Naouai, of which Ruptly is a majority shareholder.[36] In February 2019, Maffick's Facebook page began to indicate its connection with RT and Ruptly.[37] Maffick stated it is not connected to Ruptly and in July 2020 filed a lawsuit against Facebook after the website labelled its pages as "Russia state-controlled media", which Maffick claim is a "false notice".[38][39][39]

Products and services

A Ruptly satellite reporting set up at the protests in Donetsk

Ruptly operates as a B2B news agency with three core areas: video news content, live video streaming, and operational support.

It has four dedicated platforms serving audiences in their native languages: Arabic, English, Russian, and Spanish.[40][41]

The Ruptly agency broadcasts live via a platform that supports simultaneous streaming of up to five events, and allows TV stations and online media to receive and broadcast in real time.[42] It also has a video-on-demand service.[43] The service also sells footage to others on its website.

In 2018, Ruptly launched an in-house verification unit, which is used to check the accuracy of content acquired from independent contributors.[10]

In late 2020, it had 114,000 followers on Twitter and 1.48 million subscribers on YouTube where its videos reached up to 3 million views.[24]

Assessment

Ruptly is one of several Russian media organizations that has been accused by the US government and others of attempting to influence elections through social media.[44] These sources say that Ruptly targets a younger left-leaning demographic through its video promotion on social media.[24] NBC describes it as platforming

sophisticated English-language video and text content for years that experts say is edited and curated in a way designed to exacerbate American political tensions. A lot of it is aimed at younger viewers and the political left, designed to peel them off from the Democratic party, experts say. Some is tailored to gin up outrage on the right.[24]

Other sources, such as The New York Times and Paul Mason, have accused Ruptly of pandering to far-right extremists.[45][34] Ruptly denies both of these claims, and its Verification Unit[10] aims to make the process behind its news production operations transparent. The Ruptly Verification Unit has revealed inaccuracies in multiple news stories, including a report containing inaccurate comments attributed to a senior Iranian military official.[46]

According to a 2014 opinion article by four staff editors of the German news company Spiegel Online, "With the help of news services like RT and Ruptly, the Kremlin is seeking to reshape the way the world thinks about Russia. And it has been highly successful: Vladimir Putin has won the propaganda war over Ukraine and the West is divided." The writers stated that only the BBC had more clips viewed on YouTube.[47]

In 2015, StopFake published an article in which it said British blogger Graham Phillips, who had worked for Ruptly, produced Pro-Kremlin propaganda and may have links to Russian intelligence.[48]

In 2019, Ruptly was criticised by browser extension NewsGuard for publishing videos featuring "false or misleading statements from Russian government officials". Ruptly responded that "As a video news agency providing content to journalists, our role is to present raw footage that our clients ensure their journalists edit and use responsibly." Ruptly said the claim it was run by the Russian government was "factually false", and that videos on its platform contain criticism of the Kremlin including an anti-Putin demonstration and a protest outside the Russian embassy in Berlin.[3]

Awards and nominations

Organization Year Category/award Project/service Result Ref.
Webby Awards 2020 Best Data Visualisation Dyatlov Group's Journal Honoree [49]
AIB Awards 2020 News Agency of the Year Shortlisted

[50]

White Square Awards 2020 Interactive Brand Content Dyatlov Group's Journal Gold [51]
Shorty Awards 2020 Best Multiplatform Campaign Dyatlov Group's Journal Won [52]
Shorty Awards 2020 Best Use of Storytelling Dyatlov Group's Journal Won [53]
Shorty Awards 2019 Best Live News Coverage Yellow Vests live streams Won [54]
Digiday Awards Europe 2019 Best Use of Live Ruptly Live Won [55]
Digiday Awards Europe 2019 Video Team of the Year Finalist [56]
The Drum Online Media Awards 2019 Breaking News Story of the Year   Kemerovo Nominated [57]
The Drum Online Media Awards 2018 Commercial Team of the Year - Won [58]
The Drum Online Media Awards 2018 Technical Innovation of the Year Ruptly Live Nominated [59]
Diplomatic Council Global Media Forum 2018 DC Global Media Innovator Ruptly Live Nominated [60]
The Drum Online Media Awards 2017 Best B2B News Site - Won [61]

See also

References

  1. "About | Ruptly". www.ruptly.tv. Retrieved 2020-10-21.
  2. "RT's video agency Ruptly beats UK media to Julian Assange footage". Press Gazette. 2019-04-11. Retrieved 2020-10-21. The footage captured by Ruptly showed Assange for the first time in about a year, now sporting a long white beard. He could be heard shouting "the UK has no sovereignty" and "the UK must resist this attempt by the Trump administration…" as he was dragged out by five police officers and put into a van.
  3. "Ruptly.tv – NewsGuard". Retrieved 2020-10-23.
  4. "[Handelsregister] ★ HRB 140522". unternehmen24.info. Retrieved 2019-11-29.
  5. "RT launches 'RUPTLY' – full-service global video news agency," The Association for International Broadcasting ( Posted on April 4, 2013). Retrieved 20 February 2014.
  6. "Production Company Registers Under the Foreign Agent Registration Act as Agent for the Russian Government Entity Responsible for Broadcasting RT". www.justice.gov. 2017-11-13. Retrieved 2020-11-02.
  7. "Interview: Dinara Toktosunova, Ruptly". IBC. 13 September 2017. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  8. Tuesday, David Fox; October 30; Story, 2018-18:27 Print This. "Ruptly rolls out two compact UHD OB and DSNG vans for file-based production". SVG Europe. Retrieved 2019-11-29.
  9. "Ruptly releases 80 thousand video stories". Broadband TV News. 2018-09-15. Retrieved 2019-11-29.
  10. "Ruptly Expands Video Verification Efforts with RT Digital Merger". The Drum. Retrieved 2021-01-04.
  11. Bennetts, Marc (2017-10-09). "High steaks: the Vladimir Putin birthday burger that never existed". the Guardian. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  12. "UAWire - Russia Today removes a fake video about New York 'Putin burger' from its YouTube channel". uawire.org. 10 October 2017. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  13. "Kremlin Denies Involvement in Nothingburger-Gate". The Moscow Times. 9 October 2017. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  14. Yarst, Nik (27 November 2018). "Correction: Russian Media Outlet Claims Short Kerch Strait Ramming Video Was not Edited". POLYGRAPH.info. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  15. Gold, Hadas (5 April 2019). "How a Russian-owned media outlet landed the first video of Julian Assange's arrest". CNN. Retrieved 1 August 2020.
  16. Short, Elizabeth (18 April 2019). "Ruptly takes a Gold award for Best Live News Coverage at the Shorty Awards". The Drum. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  17. Broderick, Ryan (2018-12-10). "As The Yellow Vests Torched Cars In Paris, Millions Watched At Home On Facebook Live". BuzzFeed News. Retrieved 2021-02-01. By focusing almost entirely on police violence against protesters, RT and its social video counterpart Ruptly are dominating Yellow Vests Facebook groups right now.
  18. Bloomberg (10 December 2018). "France Investigates Possible Russian Influence on Yellow Vest Riots". The Moscow Times. Retrieved 2021-02-01. Much of the tweeted material comes from Russian state media outlets including the Sputnik news website, the RT television network, and Ruptly, a German-based video news agency that belongs to RT. These outlets are covering the French crisis closely; RT has said that 12 of its journalists have been injured in the protests, far more than any other news organization.
  19. Kirillova, Kseniya; Jukes, Peter; Komarnyckyj, Stephen (2020-03-04). "Big Lies and Rotten Herrings: 17 Kremlin Disinformation Techniques You Need to Know Now – Byline Times". Byline Times. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  20. Echols, William (2018-12-11). "Russia Deflects Blame for France's Yellow Vests". POLYGRAPH.info. Retrieved 2021-02-01.
  21. "A Bible Burning, a Russian News Agency and a Story Too Good to Check Out". The New York Times. 2020-08-11. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  22. Graziosi, Graig (2020-08-11). "Video of Portland 'Bible burning' may have been Russian disinformation scam". The Independent. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  23. Perry, Douglas (2020-08-11). "How a Bible burning in Portland reveals Russia's efforts to upend the 2020 U.S. election". oregonlive. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  24. "Russian-backed sites keep targeting U.S. voters after Facebook actions". NBC News. 2020-10-09. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  25. Editor. "Report: Ruptly most watched news agency on YouTube". advanced-television.com. Retrieved 2021-01-28.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  26. Jarrett2018-09-13T09:36:00+01:00, George. "Interview: Matt Tabaccos, Ruptly". IBC. Retrieved 2019-11-29.
  27. "RT launches 'RUPTLY' - Full-service Global Video News Agency" (Press release). Russia Today. 4 April 2013. Retrieved 16 October 2015.
  28. "Archive of the official site of the 2008–2012 Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin". Government of Russia.
  29. Перечень системообразующих организаций, утвержденный Правительственной комиссией по повышению устойчивости развития российской экономики [List of systemically important institutions approved by the Government Commission on Sustainable Development of the Russian Economy] (in Russian). government.ru. Archived from the original (DOC) on 27 December 2008. Retrieved 18 March 2015.
  30. Правительство РФ приняло перечень системообразующих организаций [The Russian government has adopted a list of backbone organizations]. RBK Group (in Russian). Archived from the original on 26 August 2011. Retrieved 24 October 2014.
  31. Davis, Charles (2018-02-01). "Grassroots' Media Startup Redfish Is Supported by the Kremlin". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 2019-02-12.
  32. Moore, Matthew (2018-02-10). "Company behind Grenfell YouTube film has links to Kremlin - News". The Times. Retrieved 2021-01-25.
  33. Seldin, Jeff (2020-11-24). "Russian Influence Peddlers Carving Out New Audiences on Fringes". Voice of America. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  34. Mason, Paul (2020-11-25). "Digital warfare will erode the distinction between the state and civil society". Global Current Affairs, Politics & Culture. Retrieved 2021-01-27.
  35. "Russia's Network of Millennial Media". Alliance For Securing Democracy. 2019-02-15. Retrieved 2020-11-02.
  36. O'Sullivan, Donie; Griffin, Drew; Devine, Curt; Shubert, Atika (February 18, 2019). "Russia is backing a viral video company aimed at American millennials". CNN. Retrieved July 30, 2020.
  37. Birnbaum, Emily (February 25, 2019). "Facebook restores previously suspended Russia-linked pages". TheHill. Retrieved July 30, 2020.
  38. "InTheNow Tweet confirming legal proceedings".
  39. "Facebook Sued By Outlet Over "State-Controlled Media" Label - Tech". LawStreetMedia. 2020-07-31. Retrieved 2020-11-02.
  40. Short, Elizabeth (25 July 2019). "Ruptly launches dedicated Spanish platform". The Drum. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  41. "Ruptly announces Arabic news service | Programming | News | Rapid TV News". www.rapidtvnews.com. 15 March 2019. Retrieved 31 January 2021.
  42. "RT Launches 'RUPTLY' - Full-service Global Video News Agency" (Press release). Reuters. 4 April 2013. Archived from the original on 2013-11-11. Retrieved 20 February 2014.
  43. "RUPTLY Video On Demand". RUPTLY vod. Retrieved 20 February 2014.
  44. Seldin, Jeff (November 24, 2020). "Russian Influence Peddlers Carving Out New Audiences on Fringes". Voice of America. Retrieved November 26, 2020.
  45. Rosenberg, Matthew; Barnes, Julian E. (2020-08-11). "A Bible Burning, a Russian News Agency and a Story Too Good to Check Out". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-01-04.
  46. "The Ruptly Verification Unit: Our push for accuracy - YouTube". www.youtube.com. Retrieved 2021-01-04.
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  48. Юркова, Ольга (2015-07-15). "British Citizen Exposed as a Tool of Russia's FSB". StopFake. Retrieved 2021-01-04.
  49. "NEW Webby Gallery + Index". NEW Webby Gallery + Index. Retrieved 2021-01-07.
  50. "RUPTLY Shortlisted for AIB News Agency of the Year > Media > News on News". News on News. 2020-09-23. Retrieved 2021-01-07.
  51. "White Square 2020 Winners Revealed". arabadonline. Retrieved 2021-01-07.
  52. "Best Multi-Platform Campaign in Social Media - Shorty Awards". shortyawards.com. Retrieved 2021-01-07.
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  54. "The Yellow Vests - The Shorty Awards". shortyawards.com. Retrieved 2019-11-29.
  55. "Ruptly Live Platform wins Digiday award". The Drum. Retrieved 2019-11-29.
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  58. "Ruptly named Commercial Team of the Year at The Drum Online Media Awards | AIB". aib.org.uk. Retrieved 2019-11-29.
  59. "RUPTLY Nominated for Technical Innovation of the Year with "Ruptly Live" and Best Commercial Team by the DRUM ONLINE MEDIA AWARDS | AIB". aib.org.uk. Retrieved 2019-11-29.
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  61. "Ruptly". The Drum. Retrieved 2019-11-29.
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