RT

RT (formerly Правда Russia Today) is a Russian state-run 24/7 English-language Ministry of propaganda news channel launched in December 2005. The network aims to present the world with a Russian point of view and "become Russia's version of the BBC",[2] but comes off like a state-sponsored Fox News, prone to coverage slanted against "the West" in general and the United States in particular, and indulging in conspiracy theories and other fringe beliefs. The European Parliament has termed it "[an instrument of] international soft powerFile:Wikipedia's W.svg" and "Russia's main international media weapon".[3]

You gotta spin it to win it
Media
Stop the presses!
We want pictures
of Spider-Man!
  • Journalism
  • Newspapers
  • All articles
Extra! Extra!
  • WIGO World
v - t - e
Some dare call it
Conspiracy
What THEY don't want
you to know!
Sheeple wakers
v - t - e
“”Every single day we're lying and finding sexier ways to do it.
—Former RT reporter Sara Firth[1]

RT's preferred methods of disinformation are lying by omission and treating rumors as fact. This allows it to further a set of narratives, spins and rumors, without publishing something that could in isolation be regarded as an intentional lie. The only "news" they publish is re-heated articles from Reuters and other wire services. They sometimes approach real news when they publish stories that don't have any connection to the U.S. or any Russian interests.

Ironically, the channel was founded by a Soviet bureaucrat-turned entrepreneur who merged his private channel with the state channel.

Conspiracy theories

Conspiracy-related posts form the bulk of all comments on the majority of videos published by RT online. Although Fox News has supported conspiracy theorists[4] including Birthers,[5] Russia Today is the only international news organization that promotes conspiracy theories on an industrial scale. For example, there is a compilation of (originally no fewer than) 56 Russia Today YouTube videos on 9/11 (7 now deleted).[6] The majority publicize and clearly support conspiracy theories. The remainder involve other criticisms of the United States.

RT regularly features interviews with cranks as experts on various subjects. The conspiracy theories it gives publicity to are generally those that portray the United States as deeply amoral, malicious and/or doomed to failure. However, as a government mouthpiece of the world's number one fossil fuel supplier, RT has also featured global warming conspiracy theory proponents including Piers Corbyn,[7] Christopher Monckton,[8][9] James Corbett,[10] and Patrick Michaels.[11] Other examples are in a compilation of seven videos on "Climategate".[12]

RT's news articles have sourced fake news websites such as InfoWars[13] and WND.[14] Uber-conspiracy theorist and InfoWars founder Alex Jones has been interviewed by the network on numerous occasions,[15][16][17][18] and other conspiracy theorists that have appeared as guests on his radio program and been interviewed (several times in most cases) by RT include Mike Adams,[19] Mark Dice,[20] David Ray Griffin,[21] Jesse Ventura,[22] Lyndon LaRouche,[23] and Gerald Celente.[24] It's a needle-thread away from Scopie's Law status.

Peter Lavelle hosts CrossTalk on RT. On July 23, 2014, he claimed on his show that "I'm not a conspiracy theorist and I never allow conspiracy theorists on my program."[25] However, in the same show, he went on to propose that a conspiracy theory that Ukraine shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in order to gain worldwide sympathy (rather than the consensus opinion that it was a Russian-sponsored militia).[25] PolitiFact has further documented several conspiracy theorists who have appeared on his show on other dates.[25]

Alongside nutty conspiracy theorists, RT had also given voice to genuine whistleblowers from the Western world like Julian Assange or Edward Snowden, while (unsurprisingly) ignoring similar whistleblowers or opposition figures (like Garry KasparovFile:Wikipedia's W.svg) from Russia.[26]

Funding and objectives

In 2012, RT was allocated Russian government funding of 11 billion rubles (approx. $365 million) in addition to advertising revenue.[27]

RT's self-described objective is to "show you how any story can be another story altogether."[28] In this, at least, they do not disappoint. Margarita Simonyan, RT's editor-in-chief, has specified that the station was born out of the desire to present an "unbiased portrait of Russia".[2] Ironically (but not surprisingly for anyone who knows about what "unbiased" usually means), most critics share the opinion that the channel's main objective is to present a very biased portrait of other countries.[29][30]

Influence

RT promotes itself heavily on YouTube, and has achieved a significant following. A 2012 survey published by the Pew Research Center's Journalism Project found that the network had the largest percentage of top videos out of all the other news organization surveyed:[31]

Russia Today has developed a large online following through a combination of factors. The network has actively promoted its online content. The RT YouTube channel has more than 280,000 followers and the videos in its official channel have been viewed more than 740 million times, a number far greater than many other well-known sources such as Al Jazeera English (380 million views), Sky News (52 million) and Fox News (23 million). Other prominent news organizations have far fewer followers, such as ABC News (111,000), the New York Times (78,000) and ITN News (54,000).

Political bias
“”Globally, you're probably the most popular man in modern history... you are looked on as a savior of sorts.
—RT's Peter Lavelle to Putin[32]

Russian political dissident Boris Kagarlitsky described RT as a "continuation of the old Soviet propaganda services".[29] The network is also accused of having close ties with the Russian state authorities[33] and helping the Kremlin project an overtly positive image of Russia by refraining from criticizing the government, particularly Vladimir Putin.[34][35]

Other criticism includes claims that RT is deliberately and incessantly engaging in US/NATO/EU-bashing through "interviews" in which only Russian ultra-nationalists or exuberantly critical, anti-Western "experts" are interviewed — without any probing questions or challenges by RT reporters, and without even bothering to hear opposing points of view.[29] The following "news" titles from RT may provide some examples of this:

Some Western interviewees[36] have found the experience of an RT interview weird. The network fishes extremely hard for the quote they're looking for and are prone to just completely making shit up in the resulting story. Other Russian networks (e.g. NTV) don't weird interviewees out like this.

RT was also the only network to broadcast The World Tomorrow (a.k.a. The Julian Assange Show), considering it as "rallying a global audience of open-minded people who question what they see in mainstream media". The irony is not lost to anyone.[37]

A European Parliament briefing said:

RT brands itself as a platform for provocative and original perspectives (its slogan: 'Question More'), raising sometimes legitimate concerns – for example over fracking, austerity policies, the EU's democratic deficit, NSA surveillance – that resonate with a heterogeneous mix of environmentalists, civil liberties campaigners, eurosceptics, far-right parties, and various disaffected groups. Its reports feature the Occupy Wall Street movement, Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, and Scottish Nationalists – precisely the kind of dissenting voices whose counterparts within Russia are ignored by the Russian domestic media.
While RT focuses on attacking the US and EU rather than defending Russia, the methods it uses are very similar to Russian domestic media. Like her domestic counterparts, RT chief editor Magarita Simonyan admits to having a hotline to the Kremlin, and she echoes Dmitry Kiselev's disregard for 'objective reality'. Conspiracy theories are a staple both on RT and domestic media – one Spanish-language RT article (since withdrawn) speculated that the US may have been to blame for spreading the Ebola virus.[3]

Progressive voices

Due to its status as an "Alternative media outlet",File:Wikipedia's W.svg RT UK and RT America enjoy a large degree of sympathy from both the far-left and the far-right in Europe.[38] RT America is known to employ several left-wing journalists and reporters, who criticize militarism, corruption and money in US politics. They include the co-hosts of the Ring of Fire network (journalist Farron Cousins and lawyer Mike Papantonio), former MSNBC host Ed Schultz, progressive radio talking head Thom Hartmann, Alyona Minkovski (who left and joined The Huffington Post), Abby Martin (who left and joined teleSUR[note 1] with Chris Hedges), frequent guest Sam Seder of the Majority Report, and even Larry King of all people. David Pakman, Benjamin Dixon, Martin, Seder, and Hartmann are also part of the Ring of Fire, but other than the last two, they don't appear at all on RT America, which means they have complete autonomy over their own shows.

Over in the UK, some of the comedic "progressive" voices include George Galloway on his show Sputnik (although his comedic skills are not premeditated),[39] Sam Delaney'sFile:Wikipedia's W.svg News Thing[40] and fake newsreader Jonathan Pie[41] Despite being partially funded by the Russian government, these individuals have a degree of autonomy over their own shows. Pie, for example, has used his platform to criticize Russia's anti-LGBT laws and attitudes, alongside other countries.[42] Alex Salmond, former first minister of Scotland for the center-left Scottish National Party, started a chat show in November 2017, whose early episodes featured Labour and Conservative politicians and discussed Catalan independence, Brexit, and LGBT rights. Salmond said the show is editorially independent because it is produced by his own company.[43] Given the sexual misconduct allegations that have plagued him recently,[44] it remains to be seen if the show will survive, although he was cleared of all charges.

This is actually a very calculated move on RT's part: plant genuine left-wingers on their English-language outlet and allow them to give legitimate criticisms of the United States without allowing them to talk negatively about Russia (unless they have their own shows to do that without RT breathing down their throats). This means they can look at the average public and say, "See? We're not totally bullshit!" so they can claim a veneer of credibility. We recommend ignoring RT altogether, of course.

SputnikNews

Mindful of RT's unfortunately accumulating reputation as bat-guano insane propaganda, the same government department launched the totally unrelated SputnikNews, which will surely not gather a similar image as the home of gibbering delusion, with headlines like "US Anger with RT Will Start World War Three".[45] Possibly. Or given that SputnikNews quickly established itself as more overtly conspiratorial and biased in favor of the Russian government, it could be that it was created to make RT seem reasonable in comparison.

Andrew Feinberg, an American citizen and SputnikNews' former White House correspondent, was interviewed by the FBI in September 2017; he also turned over to them "a thumb drive containing thousands of internal Sputnik emails and documents."[46] The FBI investigation was with regard to whether SputnikNews was "acting as an undeclared propaganda arm of the Kremlin" in violation of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), but may have also been in connection with Russian tampering in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.[46]

Radio Sputnik

Radio Sputnik is the audio service of the Sputnik platform, broadcasting Russian propaganda across the world in several languages. Through the efforts of Florida resident Arnold Ferolito, it is carried on several broadcast stations in Washington, D.C. and Kansas City. After brokering deals with radio stations to put Radio Sputnik on the air, Ferolito was pressured to register as a foreign agent under terms of the Federal Agents Registration Act (FARA).[47][48]

Stopped clock

Much to our surprise, the French-language version of RT published a debunking of "two Russians pursued their aggressors from Le Bourget to Saint-Denis" (unsurprisingly fake news from...French far-right Pro-Putin websites!).[49]

gollark: That's not salary.
gollark: True, true.
gollark: Or utilHz, if you like.
gollark: The correct unit is of course US$/s.
gollark: Humans are perfectly rational if you ignore the ways they are constantly irrational.

See also

Notes
  1. basically Venezuelan RT

References
  1. Another RT Reporter Publicly Quits Her Job[a w], Gawker
  2. Russia Today to be 24-hour, English TV station, CBC
  3. Briefing 2015: Russia's disinformation on Ukraine and the EU's response (European Parliament)
  4. Fox News' conspiracy theory obsession, Media Matters
  5. "Fox Promotes Birther Myth In At Least 52 Segments", Media Matters
  6. A playlist
  7. RT interviewing quack Piers Corbyn
  8. RT interviewing the Lord!
  9. "The great climate change swindle: global warming is not manmade!"
  10. James Corbett RT YouTube search
  11. Patrick Michaels on climate change
  12. Another playlist
  13. Alleged US Army doc: Re-education camps and psy-op missions aimed at activists RT. May 3, 2012.
  14. ‘Absolutely easy’: Global train systems are vulnerable to hacking, warn security researchers RT. December 31, 2015.
  15. RT interviewing Jones on FEMA concentration camps
  16. RT interviewing Alex Jones on Gulf oil spill conspiracy
  17. RT interviewing Alex Jones on CIA creating Al-Qaeda
  18. RT showing Alex Jones demonstrating against Bildeberg conference
  19. The US government deliberately created e-coli!
  20. Mark Dice on secret think tanks to further “American imperialism”
  21. David Ray Griffin on 9/11 conspiracy theories
  22. Jesse Ventura on American conspiracies
  23. Lyndon LaRouche alleging that the Russo-Georgian War was a “British-American operation intended to crush Russia”
  24. 'America lives in a fascist state' —; Gerald Celente
  25. RT's Peter Lavelle says he doesn't allow conspiracy theories on his show, then utters one by Katie Sanders (Wednesday, July 30th, 2014 at 5:32 p.m.) PolitiFact.
  26. How Russia's independent media was dismantled piece by piece, The Guardian.
  27. Anatomy of nonresistance, Lenizdat
  28. About Us, RT
  29. Journalism mixes with spin on Russia Today: critics, CBC
  30. Russia: New International Channel Ready To Begin Broadcasting, RFE/RL
  31. YouTube Video Creation – A Shared Process, Pew Research Center
  32. Might be regretting saying that in a few years.
  33. Russia Today Built on Kremlin Ties, Kommersant
  34. Russia Pumps Tens of Millions Into Burnishing Image Abroad, Washington Post
  35. "No country can legally invade another country without UN approval" Oh.
  36. In this case, one RationalWikian and people he's asked
  37. Assange TV Presented by the Kremlin, New York Times
  38. Everett, Chris (August 4, 2016). "The 'alternative' right has a Putin problem". Comment Central.
  39. See: "Sputnik" stories on the RT website.
  40. See: "News Thing" stories on the RT website.
  41. Bish, Joe (June 9, 2016). "The Cult of Jonathan Pie, Facebook's Dire Political Satirist". VICE.
  42. "A slice of GAY Pie", via Johnathan Pie's official YouTube channel.
  43. "'Be ashamed, Alex': Salmond courts controversy with RT", The Guardian, 17 November 2017
  44. "Alex Salmond resigns from SNP after sexual misconduct claims", The Guardian, 29 August 2018
  45. US Anger With RT Will Start World War Three – Emir Kusturica. Sputnik News, 15 May 2015.
  46. Sputnik, the Russian news agency, is under investigation by the FBI by Hunter Walker & Michael Isikoff (September 11, 2017) Yahoo News.
  47. Chris Haxel, Russian 'Propaganda Machine' Selects Kansas City As Its Second Radio Broadcast Site. kcur.org, 25 January 2020. It appears that the Kansas City station that airs Radio Sputnik will sell airtime to anyone. They also broadcast Rick Wiles' racist, conspiracy-clogged TruNews.
  48. Jeff Pegues, Russia's Radio Sputnik, funded by the Kremlin, airing in Kansas City. CBS News, 17 February 2020.
  49. https://www.debunkersdehoax.org/quand-la-fachosphere-russe-dement-les-medias-mainstream-et-la-fachosphere-francaise

ru:RT

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