Russia Today

"Russian propaganda"  Russia Today   (State media, Corporate media, Independent media)
Abbreviation	RT
Formation	10 December 2005
Headquarters	Moscow,  Russia
Type	•  State media •  news channel •  propaganda
Slogan	Question more
Interest of	"Philip Cross", Reframing Russia, Liz Wahl
Owners	Russia
A global TV channel backed by the Russian government. Allows Western dissidents on air and some deep politics to be discussed. Putting a positive spin on the government, but not too bad coverage of Russia either.

RT, originally Russia Today, is a television network funded by the Government of Russia. It operates cable and satellite television channels directed to audiences outside of Russia as well as providing Internet content in various languages, including Russian.

RT International, based in Moscow, presents around-the-clock news bulletins, documentaries, talk shows, debates, sports news, and cultural programmes about Russia. RT operates as a multilingual service with conventional channels in three languages: the original English language channel was launched in 2005, the Rusiya Al-Yaum Arabic language channel in 2007, and the Spanish language channel in 2009. RT America and RT UK offered some locally based content for those countries.

Reporting

Liz Wahl, a correspondent and anchor for the RT US from 2011 to 2014 resigned on air and denounced the station, alleging systematic anti-Western bias. She then joined the Institute for Statecraft, in which capacity she wrote for Stopfake that “there was constant pressure from the top to deviate from accuracy to deliver an anti-American and anti-Western narrative.”

Integrity Initiative Leak

Full article: Integrity Initiative Leak

RT showed considerable interest in the Integrity Initiative Leak, and reported on the pronounced Western commercially-controlled media's disinterest in the topic.

Frozen funds

On 17 October 2016, Britain's National Westminster Bank (NatWest), which is part of RBS Group, informed RT UK that it was going to close all of RT's bank accounts, without explanation. Although the British government is the Royal Bank of Scotland Group’s majority shareholder, Prime Minister Theresa May’s office denied any involvement. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov insisted that the decision had not been taken by the bank independently:

“It’s as clear as day that this decision was not made by the bank. And not any other bank – banks don’t make such decisions on their own,” he said. “I believe an old saying is appropriate here: don’t treat others the way you don’t wish to be treated yourself.”

A petition to NatWest started by Oliver Tickell, editor of The Ecologist magazine, which sought to have Russia Today's UK's bank accounts reinstated, soon exceeded one thousand signatures.

On 18 October 2016, the Daily Telegraph reported that NatWest was backtracking on freezing RT's bank account apparently because "Moscow responded to the threat by claiming it would freeze the BBC's finances in Russia and report Britain to international watchdogs such as the OSCE for violating Russia's right to freedom of speech."

Censorship by RT

It may be instructive to note that some material is removed from the Russia Today website.

9/11 Denial

A September 2011 report noted that Vladimir Putin had claimed that the suggestion that the US intelligence agencies were involved in the 9/11 attacks was "complete nonsense". By March 1, 2015, this had been removed from their website.

Truthseeker E30 & E21

The RT site produced a video series, "The Truthseeker", archives of which were available online. Two episodes however, Episode 30, "Who Has Nukes in the Middle East?", and Episode 21 "Americas Next Colonies Part 2" though available on YouTube, were no longer available from RT.com as of 1 March 2015.

Tony Gosling

UK independent journalist Tony Gosling used to be a regular guest on Russia Today, but was dropped after criticism of Russia. ^{[Citation Needed]}

Covid

In December 2021, RT made the documentary "Enemies of the people", a hit piece against Russian Covid dissidents, written by Anton Krasovsky and Margarita Simonyan, RT's editor-in-chief. The documentary was only available on its Russian-language site. At the same time as depicting Russian dissidents as traitors, RT had a relatively soft spot for Western Covid-dissidents.

Censorship of RT

In November 2017, the US Department of Justice demanded that RT register under FARA as a "foreign agent".

After the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, RT was taken off air.

 

A Quote by Russia Today

Page	Quote	Date	Source
2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine	“I asked them – are you with us?” Zelensky said. “They answered that they are with us, but they don’t want to take us into the alliance. I’ve asked 27 leaders of Europe, if Ukraine will be in NATO, I’ve asked them directly — all are afraid and did not respond We were left by ourselves. Who is ready to go to war for us? Honestly, I don’t see anybody. Who is ready to give Ukraine guarantees of NATO membership? Honestly, everybody is afraid”	24 February 2022	Russia Today

 

Related Quotation

Page	Quote	Author	Date
Liz Wahl	<nowiki>“while the few experienced journalists on the [[[RT]]] staff aimed to be fair and objective, there was constant pressure from the top to deviate from accuracy to deliver an anti-American and anti-Western narrative.”</nowiki>	Liz Wahl	8 March 2016

 

Employees on Wikispooks

Employee	Job	Appointed	End	Description
Maria Finoshina	Journalist	November 2005
Peter Lavelle	Show Host	2005
Ed Schultz	Host of News with Ed Schultz	14 January 2016	5 July 2018	Died age 64

 

Related Documents

Title	Type	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:Notes from David Leask meeting 27 March 2018	strategy document	27 March 2018	Chris Donnelly	Integrity Initiative convinced Scottish 'fringe' nationalism is a Kremlin plot caused by RT and Sputnik; intends to influence to tie Scotland to NATO, England wants to keep media and political dominance
Document:Russian propaganda and the US election SHORT	analysis	26 December 2018	Integrity Initiative
Document:Social Media as a vector for propaganda	paper	26 December 2018	Integrity Initiative	A paper on the use of social media as a vector for propaganda... to err "counter Russian disinformation"
Document:The Curious Case Of Russia’s Contradictory Stance Towards 5G Technology	Article	18 May 2019	Andrew Korybko	While RT is telling the English-language international audience to be wary of 5G technology, the Russian state itself is already experimenting with it and doesn’t seem the least bit concerned about the potential health effects that it could have on its people.

 

Documents sourced from Russia Today

Title	Type	Subject(s)	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:A New Islamic cult	interview	Syria US/Foreign policy	20 November 2013	Nadezhda Kevorkova Nacib Hoteit	Insights into the Western (especially US-Israeli) agenda for Syria and the Middle East following the effective blocking of a Libya-style military intervention in Syria by Russia in the Summer of 2013.
Document:A new US puppet government for Ukraine	audio transcript	Victoria Nuland Geoffrey Pyatt 2014 Ukraine coup	7 February 2014	Geoffrey Pyatt	Clear, unambiguous confirmation that the US runs the Ukrainian opposition and that what is going on in Ukraine in 2013-14 is US sponsored "Regime Change". This is how the US installs its puppet governments while feigning outrage at the terrorist violence it organises and provokes to do so".
Document:A new turf war with Strasbourg pushes Warsaw further down the road towards Polexit from the EU	Article	Poland EU European Court of Human Rights Law Freedom Brexit Polexit	4 August 2021	Paul Nuttall	Will the schism between Poland and the European Union over legal differences eventually lead to "Polexit"?
Document:Britain’s delusions that it could take on the Taliban alone are ludicrous - what are our empire-nostalgic MPs smoking?	Article	Neoconservatism Imperialism Taliban Cold War II Tom Tugendhat Foreign policy Afghanistan/2001 Invasion Afghanistan/2021 Withdrawal	19 August 2021	Tom Fowdy	The UK Parliament was recalled for an emergency debate over the Afghanistan/2021 withdraw. While the BBC focused on the divide between the sides of the house with their face mask wearing, Parliament was united against the withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan. Most MPs are urging Boris Johnson to go back to Afghanistan, and take on the Taliban, alone if necessary.
Document:Douma ‘attack’ witnesses speak at Russia-called OPCW briefing at The Hague	Article	Chemical weapon White Helmets Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Douma attack	26 April 2018		Halil al-Jaish who tended to people at the Douma hospital that day, told the press conference that some of the patients had indeed experienced respiratory problems. The symptoms, however, were caused by heavy dust, which engulfed the area due to recent airstrikes, and no one showed any signs of chemical warfare poisoning.
Document:Is Fukushima's nuclear nightmare over? Don’t count on it	article	BBC/Propaganda Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster Geraldine Thomas	12 March 2016	Chris Busby	Update on the developing Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear disaster and a good illustration of BBC use of "Experts" to present and give credibility to outrageous falsehoods in support of the "nothing to see here" propaganda of the nuclear industry.
Document:Labour & ‘anti-Semitism’: Real goal of establishment smear campaign is to deny socialists power	Article	"Antisemitism" Board of Deputies of British Jews Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn John Mann Iain McNicol Jennie Formby Equality and Human Rights Commission	23 April 2019	Ken Livingstone	After three years of screaming headlines, the truth about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party is finally revealed: just 0.08 percent of Labour’s half-a-million members have said or tweeted something anti-Semitic
Document:Larry Sanger is right, Wikipedia has become the establishment thought police - just look at my entry on there	Article	Wikipedia Corporate media Censorship Larry Sanger Infowars Vanessa Beeley Orwellian language Cancel culture	12 July 2021	Eva Bartlett	Eva Bartlett in an op-ed for RT, writes about the problems with Wikipedia.
Document:Ratko Mladic Interview	interview	Serbia Srebrenica Massacre Yugoslavia Ratko Mladić	26 August 2011	CNN
Document:Refugee crisis-Brought to you by Western Imperialism	article	2015 European refugee crisis	20 September 2015	André Vltchek	Home truths for European countries about their refugee crisis
Document:The real legacy of Chernobyl	article	IAEA Nuclear Industry Chernobyl disaster WHO	26 April 2016	Chris Busby	Suppressed information about the health risks of radiation 30 years after the Chernobyl disaster
Document:US bombs Syria and ridiculously claims self defence	Article	Middle East Syria Joe Biden US/Exceptionalism	26 February 2021	Caitlin Johnstone	The US can bomb who it likes, whenever it likes, and when it does it is only ever doing so in self-defence, because the entire planet is the property of Washington DC. It can seize control of entire clusters of nations, and if any of those nations resist in any way, they are invading America’s sovereignty.
Document:Vladimir Putin Interview	interview	"War on Terror" 2011 Syrian Insurgency Edward Snowden LGBT	5 September 2013	Vladimir Putin	Press interview with Vladimir Putin ahead of the September 2013 G20 meeting in St Petersburg
Document:Western focus on delegitimizing Syria election	article	2011 Syrian Insurgency	4 June 2014	Sharmine Narwani	Ascerbic commentary on the attitudes and reporting of the western media on the June 2014 presidential election in Syria
Document:Why is disgraced MI6 author of the dodgy Trump-Russia dossier involved in a controversial group seeking harsh Covid restrictions?	Article	Christopher Steele Carole Cadwalladr Russiagate COVID-19/Lockdown/UK Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies Freedom Day Independent SAGE Steele dossier	24 July 2021	Kit Klarenberg	Christopher Steele, the Russiagate spook is involved in lobbying for more lockdowns in the UK.
Document:Will Geneva talks lead right back to Assad’s 2011 reforms?	article	2011 Syrian Insurgency	10 February 2016	Sharmine Narwani	Informed speculation that the Geneva conference on Syria will produce a result that could have been had 4 years earlier and before the loss of some 250,000 lives, countless refugees and massive infrastructure destruction.
Document:Would-be German chancellor Scholz jumps the gun on EU expansion eastward, which may provoke more states to follow the UK and exit	Article	Russia Vladimir Putin Ukraine EU Georgia Brexit Eastern Europe Moldova Olaf Scholz Cold War II Russiagate Viktor Orbán Nord Stream 2021 German parliamentary election	15 August 2021	Paul Nuttall	Olaf Scholz is a possible candidate for Chancellor of Germany at the September 2021 German parliamentary election. He has warned Russia to expect further European integration and expansion into Eastern Europe. Will this encourage more countries to follow the UK and leave the European Union?
Document:‘No slither of evidence’ against Russia over Skripal attack, George Galloway tells RT	Video	Theresa May Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons Skripal Affair	28 March 2018	George Galloway	George Galloway concludes: "The OPCW, which is currently examining samples of the nerve agent used against the Skripals, will presumably be lent upon to obfuscate the outcome. No one will ever know the truth.”
Document:‘What about the Israeli army killing unarmed Palestinian civilians’	Article	"Antisemitism" Israel Palestine Charles Michel	27 April 2018	Ken Loach	Ken Loach asked the Belgian prime minister: “Mr Michel is a lawyer, did he wonder about Israel’s failure to comply with international law? Has he asked the question of colonisation of the Palestinian territories? Has he asked the question of unarmed Palestinian civilians killed by the Israeli army? Has he asked the question of refugees living under the protection of the United Nations?"

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