K-C Radio: Russian Propaganda Hits The Air

 As the FBI and other federal agencies look high and low for signs of Russian interference in the 2020 election, Russian propaganda is being transmitted on America's airwaves in Kansas City, CBS News reports.

Formerly known as Radio Moscow, the Kremlin-funded Radio Sputnik is airing on three local stations and is delivered by Americans from a Washington studio.

Peter Schartel, owner of Alpine Broadcasting Corp. of Liberty, Missouri, the company airing Sputnik in Kansas City, said that he started the broadcasts Jan. 1 both because he liked what he heard during a trial run last fall and because he was getting paid, The NY Times has reported.

Schartel began broadcasting Radio Sputnik, a propaganda arm of the Russian government, on three radio stations, including KCXL 1140 AM, near Kansas City.

The deal was brokered by RM Broadcasting, a Florida firm that hunts for airtime to sell to Rossiya Segodnya, the Russian state media organization behind Sputnik.

Last year a federal judge in Florida ruled against RM Broadcasting’s owner, Arnold Ferolito, after he sued to prevent the Justice Department from forcing him to register as a foreign government agent.


U.S. intelligence agencies believe that in 2016, the Russian government used Sputnik and its TV equivalent, Russia Today, to influence American voters and will attempt to do so again this year. Kansas City community organizer Anita Dixon is annoyed by what she's hearing.

"Borderline propaganda, straddle the fence treasonous, that's what this is to me," she said.

"The American people are not deplorables and they do not have to be forced by our government to tell them what they can or can't listen to or watch," Ferolito said.

Dixon said the divisive content will take its toll. "Once you divide families, once you divide health care, once you divide those things, you will be conquered," Dixon said.