Den of Deceivers

Russia Today (RT) broadcasts the odd documentary programme which is genuinely, but Oliver Kamm is absolute spot on with his 'Thunderer' column in The Times - for the most part RT is nothing more than a propaganda channel for Vladimir Putin. 

We cannot allow Russia Today to get away with its lies

This is not a news channel, it’s a propaganda outlet for Putin

By Oliver Kamm - The Times

Extra-terrestrials disguised as nuns have been out shopping in Los Angeles. President Kennedy was murdered by the CIA for opposing the Vietnam war. The 9/11 attacks were committed by the American government. The genocide of 8,000 Bosnian Muslims at Srebrenica in 1995 is a myth.

You’d be surprised if these outlandish and deranged assertions appeared in The Times. Yet they’ve all been aired by the Kremlin-backed channel Russia Today, known since 2009 as RT. The station’s international programming has long been available in Britain. Yesterday it launched a UK service, broadcast from London.

Ofcom is the independent regulator. It requires TV channels to report news accurately and present it with impartiality. RT doesn’t do that.

Ofcom has already ruled against RT’s news coverage in separate cases and is investigating several further complaints. In one flagrant breach an interviewee on RT claimed, with neither evidence nor challenge, that a massacre by President Assad’s forces in Syria had been committed instead by rebels.

The problem with RT is not just bias but that it’s not a news channel at all. It’s a propaganda outlet for Vladimir Putin. Its broadcasting is a constant diet of lies in the service of a regime that murders journalists, imprisons protesters, defends dictators and menaces neighbouring states.

Don’t take my word for it. Sara Firth, a London-based correspondent, resigned from RT in July in protest at its coverage of the Malaysia Airlines MH17 crash. RT suggested that the plane was shot down by Ukrainian government forces. “I couldn’t do it any more,” said Firth. “Every single day we’re lying and finding sexier ways to do it.”

Liz Wahl, a Washington-based correspondent, resigned from RT live on air in March in protest at its coverage of Russian intervention in Crimea. “RT is not about the truth,” according to Wahl: “It’s about promoting a Putinist agenda.”

I got an email a few days ago from an RT producer inviting me to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on one of the station’s flagship programmes. I replied that I would not appear on a channel whose hostility to news values is evinced by the cranks, racists, fantasists, fabulists and genocide deniers who form its staple list of “experts”.

Ofcom should rigorously apply its own code to this den of deceivers.

Russia Today (14 December 2013)

I've taken to watching a new news channel recently - Russia Today - which as far as I can tell seems to consist of lots of people (presenters and contributors) who admire Russia greatly - while harbouring an intense dislike of the west.

Whenever Russia today covers some remotely controversial subject, a disaffected flunkey gets wheeled out to make an unflattering comparison between Nato countries like Britain or America - and good old mother Russia. 

During an industrial dispute or strike in Britain, for example, it is normal for some left wing politico, often an academic or swivel-eyed Trotskyist, to be wheeled out to tell the viewers that their country is going to hell in a handcart.

Because the Government is useless and politically corrupt - whereas we seldom see or hear very much about life under President Putin and his friends - for example, the recent barbaric treatment of Greenpeace activists.

Anyway I dearly wish that I had watched Russia Today during the great Grangemouth debacle involving the Unite trade union, its unimpressive leader Len McCluskey and the Labour Party selection contest in nearby Falkirk - which became bogged down in allegations of vote-rigging. 

Now that would have made great viewing I'm sure, for unintended comic reasons if nothing else, but my mind was on other things, I'm sad to say.

Yet every time I watch the programme, I ask myself the same question:

Do the people who control the editorial content of Russia Today understand that a similar programme could never be made in President Putin's Russia?  

If they do, then at least we can all sleep soundly in our beds - safe in the knowledge that, whatever else, irony is not dead.

Mother Russia (9 February 2013)

I was idly flicking the TV channels the other day, as is my wont, when I stopped to watch a bit of Russia Today - an odd programme if you ask me, as it seems to be much more interested the the perceived faults of western societies while having little, if anything, to say about the many challenges facing Mother Russia.  

Anyway, the particular programme I stumbled across was about the changing nature of the urban environment in the UK and how city landscapes have been changing in response to  issues like terrorism.

According to the commentators on Russia Today, major towns and cities in the UK are much less welcoming that they were years ago - apparently many areas of land which were once 'public spaces' have been privatised by big business, in areas like Canary Wharf in London, for example.  

The programme also warned that UK citizens can all be tracked at will via our mobile phones as we go about our daily routine of work, rest and play - presumably by UK security services although the purpose all all this alleged monitoring was never explained.

Now having lived and worked in London during the 1980s, I immediately realised this was a load of old baloney - not least because Canary Wharf was not a lovely open public space like Hyde Park before it turned into the big commercial sector it is today. 

So, I thought to myself - "These people are talking nonsense!" - and on the screen at the time was a chap called Professor Stephen Graham who was burbling on about something or other which prompted me to 'Google' his name.

And here's what my Google search produced - a report from the BBC's web site from March 2013 which made me laugh my head off, as it confirmed all my suspicions about the kind of people who appear on these Russia Today programmes. 

"Dissociative state" indeed - that's just a fancy way of saying the man was completely drunk, off his head and out of control because why else would he be vandalising other people's property dressed in just his suit jacket and underpants?

I'll bet the neighbours felt terrorised and wished there was a bit more monitoring taking place of drunken vandals at loose in the streets of Jesmond, which I know well.

See post below from the blog site archive dated 14 December 2013. 


1 March 2013

Newcastle professor Stephen Graham to pay for graffiti spree

A report by a forensic psychiatrist found the professor was in a "dissociative state"

Prof admits 'arbitrary' vandalism

A university professor has been ordered to pay £28,000 compensation for scratching cars while dressed in his underpants and a suit jacket.

Stephen Graham, 48, from Jesmond, Newcastle, admitted four counts of criminal damage in January.

He was given a nine month prison sentence, suspended for a year at Newcastle Crown Court.

Graham scratched the words "very silly", "really wrong" and "arbitrary" on 27 cars in Jesmond in August 2011.

'Detached from reality'

Graham, who is based at Newcastle University's school of architecture, planning and landscape, had drunk alcohol mixed with medication before he caused £28,000 of damage to cars including a Mercedes, an Audi, a Volvo and a Mitsubishi.

The cars were damaged while parked on Northumberland Gardens in Jesmond

The spree took place in Northumberland Gardens, a few streets away from where Graham lived in Lansdowne Gardens.

A report by a forensic psychiatrist, Don Grubin, for the defence, found the professor was in a "dissociative state" when he scratched the cars, and was "detached from reality".

Judge Guy Whitburn accepted his behaviour was totally out of character but said the compensation - effectively the professor and his wife's life savings - must be paid in full.

He added he hoped Mr Graham would be able to resume his career.

Julian Smith, mitigating, said his client was not merely drunk, and he showed no signs of aggression when arrested, but had a bad reaction to the medication and alcohol.

A spokesperson for Newcastle University said: "We will be considering the matter through normal university procedures. We are unable to comment further on an individual employee."