James Miller writes: The last two years have been rather tough for the Russian government’s main English-language propaganda outlet, RT.
Following Russia’s illegal and nearly-universally-condemned annexation of the Crimean peninsula, RT anchor Liz Wahl, then anchor and correspondent Sara Firth, quit in protest of what they called “propaganda” which they were forced to spread in order to cover up the Kremlin’s foreign policy activity.
Many of the personalities who remained on the network had their reputations damaged by their own words. The Interpreter alone documented an RT editor who knew information on their website was fake but kept the content up for weeks; a German “expert” and frequent guest who is really a major neo-Nazi leader and publicist; another frequent RT guest who is a 9/11 truther and avowed racist; an RT host who believes that some of the victims of 9/11 knew about the attack beforehand and tried to capitalize on it; a “whistle-blower” and financial expert for RT who thinks that the World Bank and the Vatican are run by a species of non-human coneheads (which is why the pope wears a big hat); yet another RT host who thinks North Korea would be a nice place to live; an anchor who interviewed an entertainer (named by RT as a journalist) who thinks HIV does not cause AIDS; an (already discredited) RT field correspondent who made up a story about being shot at in Ukraine and filmed evidence that proves he was lying; a “human rights expert” who, despite being a holocaust denier who is friends with convicted hate criminals, is a frequent guest on RT; and an RT columnist who is an associate of a now-deported Russian agent and who threatened to sue us just for asking basic questions about his resume. Our work on RT had an effect — basic Google searches of some of RT’s favorite guests and personalities netted our articles exposing these people as cranks. And this, of course, does not even mention our near-daily debunking of Kremlin propaganda, spread by RT, concerning Russia’s foreign and domestic policy, and our special reports tearing apart RT’s coverage of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the shooting down of civilian airliner MH17. [Continue reading…]
A “reader” (who left no name) left this comment: “wow – whoever wrote this crap did the right thing by not putting their name to it. what a fucked up website this is.”
I’m not sure which website they want to disparage — War in Context or The Interpreter, or both? Either way, the author of the excerpt is in bold type, right at the beginning: James Miller (Managing Editor of The Interpreter).
RT’s loyal audience obviously doesn’t welcome this kind of exposé because it doesn’t simply reveal RT’s nature as a crude propaganda outfit — it also exposes its audience as useful idiots.
Understandably, a lot of people are suspicious of their own governments and question the integrity of journalists who cultivate close ties to officialdom. That’s fine. But there’s no use honing ones critical faculties in relationship with the Western mainstream media if you then turn to RT, like a forlorn soul casting yourself at the feet of an evangelical preacher.
Ironically, those who are serious about trying to find out the truth need to be most wary of those who trumpet loudly about “truth” and “lies.”