What Is Russia Today?

[Mosaic]

Russia Today was conceived as a soft-power tool to improve Russia’s image abroad, to counter the anti-Russian bias the Kremlin saw in the Western media. Since its founding in 2005, however, the broadcast outlet has become better known as an extension of former President Vladimir Putin’s confrontational foreign policy. Too often the channel was provocative just for the sake of being provocative. It featured fringe-dwelling “experts,” like the Russian historian who predicted the imminent dissolution of the United States; broadcast bombastic speeches by Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez; aired ads conflating Barack Obama with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; and ran out-of-nowhere reports on the homeless in America. Often, it seemed that Russia Today was just a way to stick it to the U.S. from behind the façade of legitimate newsgathering.

So it was fairly unremarkable when Russia Today, in a July 8 segment called “Fox News stirring up racial fears in America,” interviewed the chairman of the New Black Panther Party, Dr. Malik Zulu Shabazz, who lambasted Republicans for playing on people’s fears in an effort to dominate the fall midterm elections.

But then Russia Today did something out of character. When Fox’s Glenn Beck attacked the segment, asking why Russian state-run TV was suddenly “in lock-step” with the Obama administration, Russia Today fired back in a way that was puzzling to anyone familiar with the channel. On July 9, Alyona Minkovski, who hosts a daily program called The Alyona Show, laid into Beck—“the doughboy nut job from Fox News”—with patriotic American fervor: “I get to ask all the questions that the American people want answered about their own country because I care about this country and I don’t work for a corporate-owned media organization,” she said, her voice rising.

Read more here: http://www.cjr.org/feature/what_is_russia_today.php?page=all

[HopeHoops]

1. I think it's a magazine. As for the country, that's a tough call.

[dipsydoodle]

2. Just another news source

for viewers to make of it what they will.

[mmonk]

3. I watch RT for The Big Picture (Thom Hartmann).

[Overseas]

4. I watch most often for Thom Hartmann, but also sometimes the Alyona Show and other perspectives

that I don't get to see on US news.

US corporate media is quite biased too. Just like I do with the US corporate media, I can pick and choose among RT shows.

I get to find out what is up with Bradley Manning, Fukushima, and all kinds of other stories after most US media has left them behind.

I also watch some BBC and DW TV and Link TV and others.

[mmonk]

5. Yeah, I occasionally watch Alyona.

Find her entertaining sometimes.

[longship]

6. Controversial

I watch RT ( on MHz Worldview broadcast on WGVU locally, which features international news and other features.)

As far as RT is concerned, they seem to rely on Inet bloggers for many of their opinion stories. That's not bad, per se. But it looks a bit dodgy --- just my opinion. There's a lot of what one could call conspiracy theories, at least as far as I can tell. But, they also have an edge which I can sympathize with. Basically it's another news network with a philosophy, just not sure what that might be.