RT is pure propaganda. We have now a German program by RT. Website: http://www.rtdeutsch.com
Straight from Putin's mouth...
Straight from Putin's mouth...
Sure, they're biased, but that doesn't mean they are always outright lying -- at least not more than American media.
The idea of a unbiased news is a pipedream. I'm fully aware that German public television was intentionally created in a way that would supposedly protect it from the government's influence, but that doesn't mean they succeeded.
The "Lügenpresse" chants are asinine, of course. It's not anyone's fault media isn't trustworthy, we were just wrong to think that it could ever be made to be unbiased, considering how biased the source material always is.
I think the only safe way to consume information is to keep its origin in mind. I distrust RT and CNN equally -- but if they both share the same details in a story, there's likely some truth to it.
> Sometimes all you need to do to create propaganda is just show some unpopular facts in isolation
RT does quite a bit more than that.
In Russia there are less alternatives to state media.
CNN, sure, I would not trust them, too.
English RT and English Al Jazeera are international channels, like BBC World.
That said, some of the programming on RT is pretty similar in nature to what you'd find on, say, Arirang TV (an English South Korean channel). I.e. less (political) propaganda and more good old (commercial) PR.
If I'd have to say anything good about RT versus other international news channels, it's their coverage of the protests in Turkey. Even in Germany (where Turkey is seen as no more foreign than Greece or Italy and a significant share of the population has ties to Turkey) the protests were at best a footnote of the regular news reporting. RT on the other hand would have reporters right in the middle of it, getting teargassed and documenting the different motivations for the various groups involved.
Oh, and of course our media was extremely supportive of the rebellion in Syria despite the growing influence of Islamist groups. Until they decided to change directions completely when ISIS/ISIL showed up. And now they refer to them (supposedly objectively!) as "terror militia IS".
Frankly, calling anything a "terror militia" while pretending to be objective is pretty damn insulting. It completely discards any notion of them having any motives or being in fact humans. It's how you talk about an enemy in your propaganda when you're at war, it's not how you cover a news story.
Calling German media "Lügenpresse" is silly, but not because it's outrageously inaccurate. It's silly because all media is inadvertently lying. You can't just present the "facts" because they're inconsistent, disjointed and confusing (because they're not only incomplete, but also always subjective). But as soon as you start to create a narrative, you're simplifying the facts and introducing a biased perspective. Yet you have to create narratives to make the news relateable and interesting to your audience (and stakeholders).
What's the alternative? I don't think there is one. Blogging and "YouTube journalism" is a start, but it's already been subverted at this point. It's no more difficult to feed misleading or biased information via individual "citizen reporters" than it is to influence corporate/national media. I guess correct attribution would go a long way, but now that "official" news programmes directly copy YouTube videos and online articles seem to be more about editorialising than citing the actual sources, I don't see that happening -- no party (other than the audience) would benefit from more accountability in the news, sadly.
I did not imply that. English and German RT is propaganda for foreign viewers.
> RT on the other hand would have reporters right in the middle of it, getting teargassed and documenting the different motivations for the various groups involved.
I don't think being teargassed makes good reporting.
> Islamist groups. ... "terror militia IS
These are different groups.
> It's silly because all media is inadvertently lying
Wrong.
> What's the alternative?
Definitely Rt is no alternative. They don't even try to sort through the facts.
A known mafia boss (Delyan Peevski) has control of over 50% of the newspapers and 80% of the distribution of all newspapers through another company.
All the attorney generals of Bulgaria have been obviously corrupt, having dinners with prominent mafia bosses on yachts, etc. Everything in the judiciary system is made corrupt by design. All forms of opposition are crushed in infancy either by propaganda, intimidation or infiltrating the opposing organization and breaking it from the inside.
It's HELL. We don't know what to do. When we think the situation can't be any more dire, another, greater scandal is already looming. It's depressing and crushing.
The free press index lists Russia quite a bit behind Bulgaria or Romania...
Estonia in particular seems to be doing the best, better than Ireland, Belgium, Luxemburg and Swiztzerland.
But if the RSF metrics are to believed, all the Baltics seem to perform significantly better than countries like Spain, the UK, France, the US or Italy...