Media

[TsarSamuil]

Losing ground? RT, Guardian & the facts behind BBC cash call.

RT Eds: commentary, views, feedback and responses from RT’s global team
December 23, 2014 16:53

The Guardian’s latest hatchet job on RT indicts the channel on the basis of it outspending (and admittedly outgunning) the BBC’s international radio service.

The article below was submitted to The Guardian to be published in its “Comment is Free” opinion section as a response to the newspaper’s latest, largely unsubstantiated, piece about RT. So far The Guardian has not published RT’s response.

Evidently The Guardian has developed an obsession with our channel, publishing over a dozen articles directly or indirectly about RT in a month-and-a-half.

The latest hit-piece disguises itself as broadly addressing publicly-funded broadcasters from Russia and China, yet there are no concrete facts or figures mentioned about any organization, other than RT. According to the Guardian, RT is coming to get you. And it has piles of cash to do it with. How can the impoverished BBC even think about competing? No wonder it's “losing the information war.”

In the process of making its scaremongering claim, the Guardian once again abandons the basic principles of journalism and attempts to string together several non-facts:

1. For the sake of drawing a favorable comparison to the poor old BBC, the Guardian does some creative accounting when converting RT’s ruble-denominated budget for 2015 into British pounds, and comes up with a figure of £220 million instead of £175 million – the number that should be fairly easy to get right simply by plugging in RT’s budget into an online pound-ruble conversion calculator. Having inflated the sum by nearly 30 percent, the Guardian then draws the comparison between RT and the BBC World Service – the only other budget figure quotes in the entire piece. The article is filled with the former Beeb chief’s fears and lamentations about financial disadvantage, even though, at £245 million per year, the service is outspending RT by almost 50 percent on radio and online platforms alone.

2. Nonsensically, the Guardian decides to compare the international broadcasting expenditure of the BBC World Service and RT – radio vs. television platforms – entirely ignoring the quintessential operating difference: the fact that any kind of TV broadcasting incurs massive expenditure on transmitting video signal via satellite, something that radio services never have to consider. It would be much more fitting to compare the BBC World Service budget to that of other international radio services, but the Guardian is far too carried away with its arguments to consider facts. As such, it only mentions other radio services in passing, vaguely and without specifics, instead choosing to concentrate on RT as the “big bad” coming for susceptible British minds with its endless resources.


(RT chart)

3. In this context, if the Guardian really wanted to make a sound comparison, it would be far more fitting to pit RT against BBC World News, the UK’s global TV news network. Positioned as an independent organization, BBC World News nevertheless has been doing the UK government’s bidding on foreign policy on television sets around the world for more than two decades, faithfully following the official line of the UK Foreign Office in international affairs – just peruse its coverage of the NATO campaign against Yugoslavia, the Arab Spring or the conflict in Ukraine. And compared to the transparency of RT, nobody knows how much cash BBC World News is spending annually on this effort.

4. Meanwhile, the UK government continues to support the BBC World Service by funding it through the license fee. Though the concept sounds fairly free-market, it is anything but. Every British household that owns a television that they use to receive signal for broadcast channels – regardless of whether they ever watch the BBC – must pay a license fee to the UK government (this year, the figure is £145.50). The government then allocates these revenues to the BBC and its various media platforms, including, as of April 2014, the World Service’s radio and online channels.

5. By the way, the Guardian, which, in its tireless anti-RT efforts, has taken to referencing anyone spouting anything “damning” about RT (such as noted “media experts” Pussy Riot) without bothering with verification, quotes an ex-RT journalist about “average” compensation figures for RT UK staff. The number cited is, in fact, more than double what it is in reality, and below what is offered by the BBC, according to salary comparison site GlassDoor. Also, the claim that “all London staff” members receive a “13th month” salary is downright fiction. Moreover, considering that the ex-employee in question was a reporter and not a management executive, there simply could be no basis for her to have access to the kind of information that would allow for the broad statements about compensation for “average” and “all” RT UK employees alike. This logical pitfall goes unquestioned by the Guardian.

But for the sake of the Guardian’s argument, how does the BBC World Service fare in the competition with RT on the level-playing field that is social media? RT is the #1 TV news network on YouTube, beating the World Service’s channels in every language the services are offered. RT International also surpasses BBC World Service on Facebook, and on Twitter by a factor of five.

So, if RT is indeed winning the information war, it is clearly not thanks to the money. No, this is happening because audiences around the world, including in the UK, have become inundated with the same talking points from the mainstream media and are looking for something fresh. Something that RT delivers.

[TsarSamuil]

Huh? Wtf is going on? I knew BBC was scum but..

UK: Anonymous march on BBC's 'paedo palace' HQ.

RuptlyTV
23 dec. 2014



Several dozen Anonymous protesters marched to the BBC headquarters in London, Tuesday to demonstrate against what they allege to be the institution's bias and its alleged protection of paedophiles. The march commenced at Threadneedle Street in the City of London and culminated at the BBC’s Broadcasting House in West End.

[TsarSamuil]

Wow...BBC is really going downhill, just visited the site and it had a huge Netflix banner when I clicked on a story..

[Deleted]

Who needs BBC when there's RT. ^^

[TsarSamuil]

CrossTalk: Media failures.

RT
Jan 12, 2015



Traditionally, the role of media has been to inform society and keep an eye on the powers that be. Today media follows a very different model - for the most part the mainstream merely echoes the opinions of the elite. Is it any wonder audiences are looking for alternative media sources? CrossTalking with Patrick Henningsen, Brian Becker and David Swanson.

[TsarSamuil]

Vid,
rt.com/news/225543-rt-isis-us-broadcaster/

Head of US state media put RT on same challenge list as ISIS, Boko Haram.

RT.com
January 23, 2015 12:57

Newly-appointed chief of US Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), Andrew Lack, has named RT one of the agency’s main challenges alongside extremist groups like the Islamic State and Boko Haram.

Lack, the first chief executive of the BBG, mentioned RT in an interview with The New York Times.

“We are facing a number of challenges from entities like Russia Today which is out there pushing a point of view, the Islamic State in the Middle East and groups like Boko Haram,” he said. “But I firmly believe that this agency has a role to play in facing those challenges.”

RT never expected to find itself on a list with the two most dangerous terrorist groups of the day and is seeking clarification on the comment.

“We are extremely outraged that the new head of the BBG mentions RT in the same breath as world’s number one terrorist army,” said Margarita Simonyan, RT’s editor-in-chief. “We see this as an international scandal and demand an explanation.”

Apart from BBG itself, RT is also seeking clarification from the US State Department and the US Embassy in Russia.

It’s not the first time the BBG, a bipartisan agency that supervises government-sponsored media, targeting international audiences, has referred to RT as a ‘challenge.’

“Let’s put together a plan of how much that would cost and how to do something that we could compete with Russia Today [RT] and then let’s go to the Hill and then let’s go to the White House and tell them what it’s going to cost to compete, and let’s see if we can do it,” BBG chairman Jeffrey Shell said in August 2014.

RT is viewed this way “because there’s a terror in London and in Washington of new upstarts, of new information coming out and challenging the narratives that they have owned for the last 50 years of so,” editor of politics.co.uk Ian Dunt told RT.

This time the New York Times article mentions RT’s “significant American presence” and argues Russia “poured millions” into its US bureau and the Sputnik news agency.

US politicians have lashed out at RT in the past. John Kerry attacked the channel for its coverage of the Ukraine crisis last spring and called RT a “propaganda bullhorn.”

Following Kerry’s rant, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov decried John Kerry’s comments about RT as “uncivilized” and “prosecutorial.”

“[The West] has been convinced for some time that it has a full monopoly on mass media,” said Lavrov in a statement. “Russia Today has won a large audience in the US and Western Europe, not to mention in Latin America and the Arab world."

“As a broadcaster, RT does indeed present a challenge to US international broadcasting in terms of competing for viewership,” said Director of Advocacy and Communications of the International Press Institute (IPI) Steven M. Ellis. “But RT obviously does not present the type of threat to journalists’ physical security that entities such as the Islamic State group or Boko Haram pose. Mr. Lack could have phrased his comments more carefully to make this distinction clear, and we hope he will do so in the future.”

US television professionals have, however, been more amenable to RT and have nominated its reporting for media awards. RT received an Emmy nomination for its series of Guantanamo hunger strike reports in 2014, and the channel was earlier nominated for Emmies in 2010 and 2012.

[TsarSamuil]

rt.com/uk/225219-rt-mh17-ofcom-cleared/

RT cleared over coverage of MH17 crash reporting after complaints to Ofcom.

RT.com
January 22, 2015 16:08

The UK’s media regulator has assessed whether RT’s coverage of the MH17 plane crash was biased following several viewer complaints, and hasn’t found any problems that merited investigation, nor any breach of standards.

The original grievances concerned RT’s July 17-22, 2014 coverage of the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 crash in eastern Ukraine, and the subsequent speculation about possible culprits in the downing of the plane. After careful review of 30 hours of off-air recordings, Ofcom concluded the complaints “didn’t raise issues warranting investigation.” RT has been cleared of all charges of insufficient impartiality and factuality in these reports.

“A lot of noise has been made in recent months by the mainstream media about the alleged bias in RT’s coverage on this tragedy; now Ofcom has looked into the issue and effectively found it all baseless,” said RT’s editor in chief Margarita Simonyan. “We have frequently struggled to get the mainstream media to accept our right to broadcast alternative points of view without being subjected to accusations of 'bias'," she said, adding that RT believes vibrancy of debate is safeguarded by a range of media voices.

In November 2014, Ofcom found certain RT reports on the crisis in Ukraine to be in breach of the regulator’s impartiality rules, but RT’s coverage of the Maidan protests has otherwise been positively recognized by RT’s industry peers and the audience. It was nominated for the Monte Carlo Television Festival Award for best 24-hour newscast, and in November received high commendation from the jury of the Association of International Broadcasters (AIB).

RT "has become a favored destination for those seeking an alternative view" on the events in Ukraine, Britain’s Express newspaper noted in March.

Ofcom also cleared RT of accusations of breach brought against the channel for using graphic imagery in the 'breaking news’ broadcast of the crash. The UK regulator found, in reports containing blurred images of crash victims, RT had taken “sufficient steps to limit the potential for offence. This included pixelating graphic imagery and only broadcasting it after the watershed,” – that is, after 9 pm local time, when TV programs that might be unsuitable for children can be broadcast. Some of RT’s broadcasts about the crash were preceded by visual (textual) and/or voiced warnings that graphic images might be shown.

In contrast, Ofcom didn’t clear the BBC of a complaint that the passport of a crash victim was inappropriate for broadcast. But, with the company having removed the materials from its subsequent broadcasts and apologizing, the watchdog considered the matter resolved.

The UK's communications regulator, monitoring the content and quality of TV and radio services in the country, is still investigating other complaints regarding impartiality in some of RT's broadcasts last year.

[TsarSamuil]

#NewsIsNotTerror On-Air Promo.

RT
Jan 29, 2015



Newly-appointed chief of US Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), Andrew Lack, has named RT one of the agency’s main challenges alongside extremist groups like the Islamic State and Boko Haram.

[TsarSamuil]

moved it here

Long list of videos

www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPszygYHA9K216U5fed6XL6ucS4PX2qY4

Up close & personal: RT reporters featured in new documentary.

RT.com
April 09, 2014 11:08

From dodging bullets in Kiev to witnessing atrocities in Syria - seven RT correspondents feature in ‘News Team’ a documentary series, directed by Josh Silberman, whose previous work includes hits such as ‘Deadliest Catch’ and ‘Dancing with the Stars’.

He’s filmed the lives of fishermen working in some of the most inhospitable waters on the planet and watched contestants overcome their deepest fears. Now Silberman is set to see months of hard work come alive with the premier of ‘News Team’, which he says is “one of the finest shows I’ve ever been a part of.”

News Team is a 20-part series which follows the lives of seven RT reporters as they travel the globe bringing the latest stories to our screens. Becoming a reporter is a dream that many aspire to, however Silberman tries to show the reality of what is a difficult, time-consuming and at times dangerous occupation.

“I don’t think it’s a TV show about TV. I think it’s a TV show about people. People that risk their lives to tell the world about what’s happening outside of their living rooms,” he said.

It was curiosity more than anything that led Silberman to want to produce a documentary series about news reporting and he stated he chose to work with RT due to the team’s ability to think differently as well as the access they are allowed because of their “political and geographical standing,” while he was quick to add how none of his preconceptions about the difficulty of working in Russia were, in fact, true.

“I thought I would run into a bureaucratic nightmare working with a Russian-based news agency. However, it was the opposite. RT let me tell the story that actually happened and never baulked at any of the footage, story or situations that were aired,” Silberman added.

The American has managed to fit a lot into his short, but productive career. He has gained a reputation for producing some of the most inhospitable places on the planet in order to give viewers an insight into people’s professions and News Team has proved no different.

“I’ve worked a lot chronicling people’s enduring, extreme and sometimes crazy professions on numerous shows like Ice Road Truckers, Flying Wild Alaska, Mall Cops and Deadliest Catch,” said the 33-year-old. “I think ‘news correspondents’ was the next logical step for a TV series because it doesn’t get any more real, unpredictable or exciting than the news, especially in a warzone.”

The seven reporters - Maria Finoshina, Margaret Howell, Thabang Motsei, Peter Oliver, Egor Piskunov, Paula Slier and Aleksey Yaroshevsky - are followed around the clock to wherever the latest breaking stories take them. The viewer gets to experience what it’s like to report in a war zone and how a correspondent deals with some of the less glamorous aspects of the job, such as sorting through hours of footage to produce a report of just a couple of minutes. However, what interested Silberman, who was named the 2011 Producer of the Year by the Producers’ Guild of America (PGA), was how the characters developed during the series.

“It was surprising to see how each journalist came to view and cover their stories differently, not just in regards to politics, but in terms of allowing their personality and background to factor into their reports,” the Milwaukee native commented. “These weren’t a bunch of RT robots on the ground, but different people from different walks of life, telling stories sanctioned by RT, but with their own personal approach.”

It is a step into the unknown for both RT and for Silberman, and he believes that the viewers will build an instant rapport with the seven featured reporters.

“I think viewers will connect with the characters. It’s not about what they are saying, but how it’s being said. It’s their honesty, dedication and passion honesty to telling the story is so real and transcends politics.”



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FACTBOX: RT News Channel.

MOSCOW, April 9 (RIA Novosti) – The Russian RT news channel has been honored with a prestigious gold medal award at the New York Festivals, besting the US-based CNN news channel, and claiming an additional two bronze medals, RT’s press service told RIA Novosti.

RT News Channel, previously known as Russia Today, is a Russian international information TV company. RT is the first Russian channel presenting round-the-clock news in English, Arabic and Spanish.

The RT editor-in-chief is Margarita Simonyan and in late 2005 the network began English-language news broadcasts from Moscow.

RT has 22 bureaus in 19 countries, with offices in Washington, New York, London, Berlin, Cairo and Baghdad, employing over 1,000 media professionals around the globe.

The network has a global reach of over 644 million people in more than 100 countries.

In 2007, RT was the first Russian channel to upload its videos to YouTube, becoming one of the most watched providers of content on the video website.

In 2009, the network launched a unique project, FreeVideo, that offers free online access to RT’s videos for media professionals. All FreeVideo files are available in several formats and have detailed commentaries in five languages: English, Spanish, Arabic, German and French. CNN, Fox News, ABC, AP and Reuters have used FreeVideo files in their coverage.

In 2011, RT launched RTDoc, a television channel featuring documentaries about Russia, broadcasting 24/7 in English, which have received a number of prestigious awards.

RT began broadcasting "Larry King Now" last year, an exclusive show hosted by the famed US interviewer Larry King.

Late last year, the network launched a radio station, Sochi Today, in preparation for the Winter Olympics in the Russian Black Sea resort. It became the first radio station to broadcast in Sochi primarily in English.

RT has won a wide range of prestigious awards. In 2010, the network became the first ever Russian TV channel to be nominated in the Emmy International Television Awards. In 2012, the news channel received a second Emmy nomination for covering the Occupy Wall Street movement.

Last year, the channel took the top prize for best round-the-clock news channel at Europe's most prestigious gathering of TV officials, the Monte-Carlo Television Festival.

And last year, the news channel also won the top prize at the New York Festivals. The "Julian Assange Show," RT’s weekly interview program, was the winner in the category for political documentary and information programs.

In April, RT also took the gold and two bronze medals in the New York Festivals. Its "Blood and Honor" documentary, which bested an effort by CNN, won the prize in the category for social documentaries.

The promo "Noticias desde dentro" on the Spanish version of RT's 24-hour news channel won the bronze in the News Promotion category. An RT Technology Update broadcast focusing on new ways of using nuclear energy in industry won another bronze medal in the Science & Technology category.

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The News Team (Episode 1)

RT Documentary
Apr 9, 2014



Seven RT correspondents. Seven of the biggest news stories around the world. In News Team, an award-winning documentary crew traverses the globe, keeping up with the channel's leading reporters as they cover the news. This week it's the turmoil in Ukraine, reported by Alexey Yaroshevsky, and RT's routine through Maggie Howell's eyes.

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NewsTeam: Inside Kiev Coup (Episode 2)

RT Documentary
Apr 22, 2014



Seven RT correspondents, seven biggest news stories. In News Team, an award-winning documentary crew traverses the globe, keeping up with the channel's leading reporters as they cover the news.This week Peter Oliver and Alexey Yaroshevsky are caught in the middle of crackdown on protesters in Kiev, and Egor Piskunov runs for his report.

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NewsTeam: Reporting from Kiev, Geneva, Moscow (E3)

RT
Apr 27, 2014



Seven RT correspondents, seven biggest news stories. In News Team, an award-winning documentary crew traverses the globe, keeping up with the channel's leading reporters as they cover the news.This week Maggie Howell reports from Red Square, meanwhile Alexey Yaroshevsky still inside Kiev chaos and Egor Piskunov gets ready for his report from calm Geneva.

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NewsTeam: Moscow hostage situation & Kiev warzone (E4)

RT
May 4, 2014



Seven RT correspondents, seven biggest news stories. In News Team, an award-winning documentary crew traverses the globe, keeping up with the channel's leading reporters as they cover the news.This week Maggie Howell breaks news from Moscow while Egor Piskunov is searching for 'right people' in Paris and Peter Oliver reporting from volatile Kiev.

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NewsTeam: Ukraine's East & West (E5)

RT
May 11, 2014



Seven RT correspondents, seven biggest news stories. In News Team, an award-winning documentary crew traverses the globe, keeping up with the channel's leading reporters as they cover current events. This week Paula Slier joins the team of Ukraine reporters, Peter Oliver has another tough day in Kiev and Egor Piskunov is passionate about helping.

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NewsTeam: On the ground in Kiev, Geneva, Moscow (E6)

RT
May 18, 2014



Seven RT correspondents. Seven of the biggest news stories around the world. In News Team, an award-winning documentary crew traverses the globe, keeping up with the channel's leading reporters as they cover the stand-off in Ukraine, the war in Syria, and the machinations in the EU's corridors of power.

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NewsTeam: From Moscow newsdesk to Kiev inferno (Episode 7)

RT Documentary
May 21, 2014



Seven RT correspondents, seven biggest news stories. In News Team, an award-winning documentary crew traverses the globe, keeping up with the channel's leading reporters as they cover current events. This week Thabang Motsei tells you how a newsroom works while Peter Oliver gets a warm at Kiev fires.

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NewsTeam: Ukraine barricades & Geek Picnic (Episode 8)

RT Documentary
May 29, 2014



Seven RT correspondents, seven biggest news stories. News Team: an award-winning docu-reality crew traverses the globe with RT reporters. Peter Oliver reports from Ukraine barricades, Thabang Motsei is scanned at Geek Picnic & Maggie Howell opens up about professional challenges with Egor Piskunov.

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[TsarSamuil]

Evo Morales: RT is voice of developing countries, peoples of the world.

RT.com
January 30, 2015 04:19

RT has become the voice of revolutionaries and countries that the United States would like to silence, said Bolivian leader Evo Morales, commenting on remarks by the BBG chief who compared the challenge posed by RT with those of ISIS and Boko Haram.

Morales was responding to comments made by Andrew Lack, the new head of the US Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), in which he compared RT to terrorist organizations.

“When the media turns into the voice of the people, especially in the voice of revolutionaries, there are those people and the media, who will judge them and falsify the truth,” Morales told RT. “This media is the voice of the developing countries, the voice of the peoples of the world, and it deserves our admiration.”

Despite smear campaigns, misrepresentation of facts, and pure lies, such media should continue their work to “give the microphone to the peoples of the world,” he added.

Earlier this week, former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura told RT that Lack was effectively calling for censorship.

“There should be no Big Brother telling us what we can or cannot see,” Ventura said. “If someone desires to watch RT TV and takes the opinion they don’t like, well then they merely don’t have to put it to that station.”

Lack’s statements drew backlash online, under the hashtag #NewsIsNotTerror, prompting the US State Department to distance itself from the comments.

Downplaying the “threat” RT poses to US mainstream media, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland even said the channel should be allowed to stay within America's "truthful" media space, which is “full of dynamic truthful opinion.”

[TsarSamuil]

Archival - Al-Jazeera TV Host Faysal Al-Qassem: Western Media Is Neo-Goebbelism.

MEMRITVVideos
Jan 30, 2015



During a show that aired on Syrian TV in February 2007, Al-Jazeera TV host Faysal Al-Qassem aired his views on the Western media, calling it "Neo-Goebbelism." Al-Qassem said that there is no free media in the West, and claimed that "the code of the Internet web is located, at this very moment, on board one of the American aircraft carriers, which sails the oceans. With a single push of a button," he said, "they can disconnect any country from the Internet."

[TsarSamuil]

RT responds to ‘ostracism’ calls by Economist editor at Munich conference.

RT Eds: commentary, views, feedback and responses from RT’s global team
February 08, 2015 07:53

A senior editor at the Economist, Edward Lucas, has used a panel discussion at the Munich Security Conference to slander RT’s standard of journalism and call for media “ostracism” of our employees. Here is our response.

We are absolutely outraged by Mr Lucas’ comments. It is the height of hypocrisy to come to an event, dedicated to the collective resolution of the multitude of tough security questions the world faces today, to use it as a platform for specious attacks.

In fact, while Mr. Lucas was shaming RT journalists from the comfort and security of this conference, our crew was under fire near Donetsk.

RT correspondents risk their lives every day to report on stories and events nobody else dares touch, to show people around the world the side of reality that most other news media either inadvertently or deliberately conceal.

To attack them in such a despicable manner is a disgrace to Mr Lucas, to the journalistic organizations he represents and to the Munich Security Conference.

"The use of information warfare was another big mistake we made in 1991. We thought: what can possibly go wrong? We have a free press, we have a free media market – truth will triumph. Well, it doesn’t. It doesn’t triumph when you’re faced with RT, the former Russia Today, or with Sputnik – the so-called media organizations, which are directly plugged into the Kremlin lie machine.

We see very clearly what happened in the case of Crimea where Russia won the war in Crimea without really having to fire a shot. They had so corroded and confused the decision-making capabilities of Ukraine that even though the Ukrainians had thousands of troops, lots of ammunition, lots of weapons, they had bases in Crimea, but those soldiers were left leaderless and confused and didn’t know what to do. And Crimea fell almost without a shot.

The use of force is only part of this hybrid warfare. Sometimes it’s just assassination as we saw in London a few years ago with the murder of Aleksandr Litvinenko. It can be the use of organized crime. It’s the use of cyber-attacks to disable and confuse. It’s also the little green men whom we saw in Crimea – deniable. When you complain about them, you’re told that this is just patriotic volunteers on holiday.

We also see the use of airspace violations – dozens and dozens and scores and scores of airspace violations in the Baltic States, the new frontline states of Europe. Very difficult to know what to do to respond. Do you want to shoot these planes down and start a war? Do you protest when the protests are just ignored? What do you do?

We see the use of nuclear bluff increasing in Russia energetically modernizing its tactical nuclear weapons just at the time when the West has been withdrawing its tactical arsenal in the pursuit of global Nuclear Zero.

And what unites all these things is they wouldn’t matter if we were strong. They are all based on the exploitation of our weaknesses, of ethnic and religious divisions or – as we saw in Ukraine – of regional and social divisions, of political divisions. Why do people watch RT so avidly? Because they think that the mainstream media isn’t telling them the truth and they are fed up with the political elite in our countries and the economic growth or lack of it, which they are delivering. And the fundamental point is this is a joined-up threat.

We need to get back the ability to rebut and to criticize. If RT puts on people – and it does put on people who are Holocaust deniers, who think that 9/11 was an inside job, who believe that [the] Pope is a lizard – I’m not joking, this is true – we should be able to humiliate those channels and those people and the people who put them on, and the producers who put them on and push them out into the media fringes so they are no longer treated as real journalists and real programs but as cranks and propagandists.

I think we could do a bit more of ostracism. I’m quite happy to say that if anyone puts a CV on my desk, and on that CV I see they worked at RT or Sputnik or one of these things, that CV is going into the bin and not into the intro. We would not have accepted it during the Cold War that people could move from working for Pravda, or Izvestia, or TASS, and then into jobs in Western media. Far too many people see a job at RT as the first stage on a career ladder. It’s not. It’s the last stage on a career ladder. It’s like working as a PR person for a tobacco company, but even worse. And only then would I start looking at regulatory things — and there are things we can do on a regulatory side. We have a regulated media space. In my own country, Ofcom is complaining to RT about its lack of balance. So, there are things we can do but I think those things are the last resort, not the first resort."


Edward Lucas, Senior Editor of The Economist speaks at a panel discussion at the 51st Munich Security Conference.Edward Lucas, Senior Editor of The Economist speaks at a panel discussion at the 51st Munich Security Conference.

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Cranks & propagandists: Meet the Economist editor who desperately wants to gag RT.

RT Eds: commentary, views, feedback and responses from RT’s global team
February 09, 2015 23:08

At a time when the Western media machine no longer enjoys singular purchase on the news, and a more balanced view on global events is instantly available, foreign news organizations like RT are being described as enemies.

Just one month after Andrew Lack – the newly appointed chief of the US Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) – mentioned RT in the very same breath as the Islamic State and Boko Haram, Edward Lucas, senior editor of British magazine The Economist, advised that RT be pushed “into the media fringes so they are no longer treated as real journalists and real programs but as cranks and propagandists.”

Clearly, the mud-slinging “information war” that Hillary Clinton spoke of back in March 2011 is in full swing. And it seems like Western "info troops" are dropping their "dirty bombs" into the info space.

Fear-mongering sells well

Meet one of the soldiers. On top of his journalism, Edward Lucas is also a prolific writer. His books on Russia – ominous titles like ‘Deception: Spies, Lies and How Russia Dupes the West’ and ‘The New Cold War: Putin's Russia and the Threat to the West,’ mostly printed with Putin’s image looming on the cover – are to Russophobes what Stephen King novels are to horror fans. Unfortunately, however, Lucas is hawking a damaged product to an unsuspecting public. But he should know better, since he’s certainly neither a stranger to Russia, nor to the world of publishing.

Lucas, who served as The Economist's Moscow bureau chief from 1998 to 2002, has become something of a self-appointed mouthpiece for the “real story” on Russia. This allows him to offer his fire-and-brimstone opinions at international security meetings (no irony there), where virulent, hysterical views on Russia sell better than lemonade in hell.

But he is, for sure, not even close to being a lone fighter on that battlefield. Meet Lucas’ wife, Christina Odone. She heads communications at the Legatum Institute, a think-tank which officially proclaimed “countering Russian propaganda” as its key initiative back in October. Dear Russia-basher Anne Applebaum, who is married to former Polish Foreign Minister Sikorsky, is also onboard the Legatum ship (of course she is). And who was at captain's bridge there until 2014? Jeffrey Gedmin, who, before becoming Legatum's CEO, headed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty – one of the main assets of BBG. Yes, that same BBG whose current CEO puts RT on the same challenge list as ISIS terrorists. Connections are pretty tight, aren't they?

War recipe premiere: How to invade using a TV channel

But back to Munich. In an effort to explain how Russia “won the war in Crimea without really having to fire a shot,” Lucas told attendees at the Munich Security Conference that it was accomplished due to “so-called Russian media organizations” that have “corroded and confused the decision-making capabilities of Ukraine that even though the Ukrainians had thousands of troops…Crimea fell almost without a shot.” (Lucas never bothers to explain this mysterious mind-altering technique supposedly employed by Russian media, but one might assume it involves amulets and incantations of some sort).

So was this some sort of a desperate cry for bloodshed on the part of Lucas, who, after cheerleading the Western invasions of Middle Eastern countries and planting the seeds of democracy in the burnt-out craters of drone strikes, can’t comprehend a peaceful resolution to an approaching tragedy? Does he really believe that the people of Crimea, who marched to the polling stations as opposed to the battlefields to vote (overwhelmingly) in favor of joining the Russian Federation, were deprived of their “decision-making capabilities” by the likes of RT? Calling it a stretch, anyone?

Secure & entice

This was certainly not the first time Lucas had spoken like some medieval warlord intoxicated by the fumes of war.

In September, Lucas fired off a lengthy and deluded letter to the UK House of Commons, where he offered some brilliant insight on how to engage Russia: “Many European countries have no appetite for confrontation with Russia. They take an essentially pacifist stance, that military solutions never solve problems, and that dialogue is under all circumstances better than confrontation. The United States is distracted by multiple urgent problems elsewhere and many Americans wonder why they should be borrowing money to pay for security in bigger, richer Europe.”

“That gives Russia, with its bold decision-making and high tolerance for risk and pain, free rein. Our feeble response has allowed Russia to wage war in Ukraine with disastrous effect.”

So, quick recap, here’s the world according to Mr. Lucas: European countries are much too pacifistic, the US is too busy heroically solving global problems, and Russia is waging war in Ukraine. Simple as that.

The Economist vs RT

Media wars are nothing new to the sphere, but it is one thing to criticize the approach and quite another to call for bans. Just two weeks ago, RT’s Anissa Naouai slammed The Economist, which Lucas edits, for its approach to Russian news. In particular, she pointed out that viewers simply cannot verify some facts the magazine cites, and are forced to believe them – even if they are not necessarily true.

Will Stevens, of the US embassy in Moscow, decided to come to the magazine’s rescue and asked his followers on Twitter: “whom do you trust? RT for @theeconomist, Fav for @rt_com.” RT has so far scooped over 1,500 votes, while The Economist stands with 81 support retweets.

“We have a regulated media space,” Edward Lucas might conclude. “In my own country, Ofcom is complaining to RT about its lack of balance. So, there are things we can do but I think those things are the last resort, not the first resort."

Well, indeed RT has come under the British media regulator’s gaze after some viewers accused the channel of unbalanced reports on the MH17 tragedy. The public scrutiny even prompted a reaction from Russia’s Foreign Ministry. FM Sergey Lavrov warned at the time that taking the channel off air in the UK would be “an absolutely barefaced attempt at censorship.”

However (and this might be a big surprise for Mr. Lucas), in late January – after watching 30 hours of RT – Ofcom itself concluded the claims were unfounded.

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Edward Lucas suggests KGB methods against RT.

RT.com
February 11, 2015 13:06

Why do some of the “moral leaders” of the West get so excited about the Russian media not agreeing with them?

Edward Lucas, the senior editor at The Economist magazine, made in fact a self-defeating confession in his speech at the Munich security conference: “Why do people watch RT so avidly? Because they think that the mainstream media is not telling them the truth and they are fed up with the political elite in our countries.”

Sorry, Mr. Lucas, but in what way is this situation in the West different from the state of affairs in Brezhnev’s Soviet Union, where people no less avidly tuned in to the BBC and Radio Free Europe? People in the USSR did it for the same reasons - because they thought that the “mainstream” Soviet media was not telling them the truth and because they were fed up with the political elite in their country (which now became 15+ different countries).

Of course, in the view of Mr. Lucas, this is an unbearable situation. History knows two ways to remedy it. One was tried by Mr. Gorbachev who stopped jamming Western stations in 1987-1988 and allowed internships of Western journalists in Russia and of Soviet journalists – in Western publications. The other one had been tried before Gorbachev by Brezhnev and many others, who jammed the foreign radio and arrested the locals who dared to work for it. Now Mr. Lucas is actually proposing to use Brezhnev’s tactics, temporarily replacing arrests with ostracism:

“I think we could do a bit more ostracism,” Mr. Lucas said at the Munich conference. “I’m quite happy to say that if anyone puts a CV on my desk, and on that CV I see they worked at RT or Sputnik or one of these things, that CV is going into the bin and not into the in-tray. We would not have accepted it during the Cold War that people could move from working for Pravda, or Izvestia, or TASS, and then into jobs in Western media. Far too many people see a job at RT as the first stage on a career ladder. It’s not. It’s the last stage on a career ladder.”

How is this thinking different from the thinking of the KGB generals (whom Mr. Lucas likes to condemn so much), who made sure a job with Radio Free Europe would be the last stage on a career ladder for a young Soviet citizen in the early 1980s? (I have some acquaintances who had to go through such an ordeal.) Mr. Lucas should also take note that even in the early 1990s, still under the Soviet Union; journalists from some Soviet media were offered jobs and internships in Western media. Now Mr. Lucas wants to return to the preceding epoch, obviously.



How does all of this jive with Western values?

“The kind of language which some of the Western “leaders of opinion” use against their Russian opponents is detrimental to the Western values in the first place. Sanctions against Russia contradict the principle of free economic activity, the Magnitsky list was against the presumption of innocence, since some Russian citizens were declared criminals without a trial,” comments Ben Aris, chief editor of the Business New Europe internet news outlet.

One could add – certain words and actions of Edward Lucas and his comrade-in-arms, author of several fiery anti-Putin books, Ben Judah – some of these words and actions breach the rules of debate.

Since I took part in several radio discussions on the BBC World Service and Sky News with Lucas and Judah, I can testify that they never object to the essence of the opponent’s arguments. Instead, they prefer personal attacks. “There is no sense in listening to HIM,” Ben Judah said in a recent debate with me on Sky News. I had to retort that, when arguing with Mr. Judah, I criticized his line of argumentation and language (“Putin’s cleptocracy”, “Russia’s aggression”), and not his persona.

“This is a new low in the argumentation of Mr. Lucas,” Charles Bausman, Moscow-based American CEO of the Russia Insider internet resource commented. “In fact, whenever Mr. Lucas opens his mouth he becomes a great asset for the so called Russian propaganda that he likes so much to talk about.”

Indeed, the best propaganda you can do against Edward Lucas is just to quote him in full. His words speak for themselves.

Dmitry Babich, Political analyst, for RT.

[TsarSamuil]

rt.com/usa/230323-nbc-williams-internal-probe/

NBC’s Brian Williams off air, under internal probe for fake Iraq War tale.

RT.com
February 08, 2015 09:58

NBC TV anchor Brian Williams chose to stay off air in the wake of an internal probe he faces for embellishing a story about taking fire while flying a chopper in Iraq in 2003. The deceit was exposed by troops involved in the same airlift.

Earlier this week, 55-year-old Williams had to admit that a story he used to tell on the air for years about coming under fire in a military helicopter is not true. Veterans, who were with Williams in Iraq, said the TV host only “linked to the attacked unit by radio” while actually flying with a different helicopter.

Williams apologized last Wednesday, admitting his helicopter wasn’t hit by an RPG grenade, but his critics refused to believe he made an "honest mistake".



Williams has been anchoring NBC Nightly News since 2004. On Friday, he hosted his show from New York without mentioning the unfolding scandal. The same day NBC direction launched an internal investigation into the issue endangering the network’s credibility.

“As managing editor of NBC Nightly News, I have decided to take myself off of my daily broadcast for the next several days, and Lester Holt has kindly agreed to sit in for me to allow us to adequately deal with this issue,” Williams posted on NBC's website.

“In the midst of a career spent covering and consuming news, it has become painfully apparent to me that I am presently too much a part of the news, due to my actions,” the anchor explained.

Williams is reportedly watched by nine million Americans every evening and earns $10 million a year. He renewed his contract with NBC for the next five years in December.

The scandal over the Iraq flight sparked suspicion about Williams’ other reports. While covering the aftermath of Katrina hurricane, he said he saw dead bodies floating by, but now it’s suspected he was in an area that was not actually flooded.

‘‘When you look out of your hotel room window in the French Quarter and watch a man float by face down, when you see bodies that you last saw in Banda Aceh, Indonesia and swore to yourself that you would never see in your country…’’ Williams commented in 2006, while covering the New Orleans flooding from the Ritz-Carlton hotel in the French Quarter.

Brian Williams himself expects the scandal to cast a serious shadow over his career.

“Upon my return, I will continue my career-long effort to be worthy of the trust of those who place their trust in us,” Williams wrote.

[TsarSamuil]

rt.com/news/232455-rt-french-german-news/

Want more RT? Tune in for French and German.

RT.com
February 15, 2015 16:21

RT is reaching out to French- and German-speaking audiences with two recently-launched news outlets. RT en francais and RT Deutsch offer alternative-to-mainstream online news and comments, with a strong social media focus on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube.

French and German bring RT’s language output to six, along with English, Arabic, Spanish and Russian.

RT is already the leading news provider on YouTube. Last December, RT hit 2 billion views on the popular video hosting resource. Only a year earlier, RT International was the first news channel to achieve over 1 billion views.

The addition of RT France and RT Deutsch can only take that figure to even greater heights.

RT Deutsch has already garnered over 74,000 ‘likes’ on Facebook and over 24,000 YouTube subscribers. Its Twitter audience is some 4,000 people.

The two new RT divisions aim to fill a gap in the media market that’s untapped by mainstream outlets.

“The crisis in Ukraine has shown, for example, the extent to which the established German-language media landscape is characterized by a one-sided, often very manipulative and very simplistic view of things,” RT Deutsch says.

“Our mission statement is: ‘We show the missing part of the overall picture.’ It’s precisely the part that is otherwise concealed or cut away,” the channel says.

English-, Arabic- and Spanish-speaking audiences have already demonstrated quite a thirst for alternative reporting. Now German and French speaker can tune in and QUESTION MORE!

[TsarSamuil]

For propaganda & 'democracy promotion’: State Dept seeks budget to counter RT.

RT.com
February 26, 2015 00:04

Citing RT’s influence, Secretary of State John Kerry asked US lawmakers for more money for propaganda and “democracy promotion” programs around the world.

“Russia Today (sic) can be heard in English, do we have an equivalent that can be heard in Russian? It’s a pretty expensive proposition. They are spending huge amounts of money,” Kerry told the House Appropriations Subcommittee, apparently forgetting that Voice of America had been broadcasting in Russian since 1947.

He had also raised the topic earlier in the day, before the House Foreign Affairs committee, where Representative Ed Royce (R-CA), opened the hearing with the allegation that “Russia’s military aggression is matched only by its propaganda.” To Kerry’s approval, Royce went on to claim that “Russia is spending more than $500 million annually to mislead audiences, sow divisions, and push conspiracy out over RT television.”

Royce’s remarks echo the claim made by Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG) chief Andrew Lack last month, when he listed “Russia Today” (sic) in the same breath as ISIS and Boko Haram as one of the challenges facing his agency.

In reality, RT’s budget for 2015 is less than half the amount cited by Representative Royce – $225 million, according to the current exchange rate, or 13.85 billion rubles. By contrast, the US government media receives $721 million. The BBC World Service, which complained about RT “winning the information war” in January, is funded to the tune of $375 million a year.

In the budget proposal submitted by Kerry, the Department of State is asking for “$639 million to help our friends in Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova as they seek to strengthen their democracies, withstand pressure from Russia, and to integrate more closely into Europe.” [PDF] The Department of State is also requesting over $2 billion – described as “a significant increase” – for “democracy, human rights, and governance programs.”

Not everyone agrees that American claims on the nature of the global media war are factually correct. Executive Director of the Ron Paul Institute, Daniel McAdams, is one dissenting voice.

“I think the problem the US has is they have an unlimited advertising budget, but the product they’re selling is not very attractive overseas. People are tired of US interventionism; they’re tired of US exceptionalism; they’re tired of the US bombing their country – if you’re a Somalian, you don’t care about listening to a radio broadcast from the US, you just wish the US would stop bombing you,” McAdams believes.

“But I’ll say one thing. The BBG budget is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how the US government influences media oversees. There’s probably another $100 million in direct support to so-called ‘independent news publications’ oversees, and these are all different newspapers and broadcasting outfits that tow the US line that aren’t directly US-related.”