I Was Putin's Pawn

[PosterChild]

Last edited Sun Mar 23, 2014, 11:04 AM - Edit history (1)

What it was like to work for the Russian propaganda machine, and why I quit on live TV.

POLITICO - I Was Putin's Pawn

I knew I had to quit. I’d been a correspondent for RT for about two and a half years. I’d looked the other way as the network smeared America for the sake of making the Kremlin look better by comparison, while it sugarcoated atrocities by one brutal dictator after another. I’d been thinking about leaving for a long time, but was trying to hang in there until I figured out my next move.
Then Russia invaded Ukraine, and I came to see just how dangerous a propaganda tool the network was. I couldn't be a part of it any longer. I decided, somewhat arbitrarily, that March 5th would be my last day. And when that day came, after some particularly egregious coverage of the Ukraine crisis, I knew my resignation had to be public; I couldn't just silently disappear. That afternoon, I went to the bathroom to scribble down some thoughts before making my dramatic exit. During the 5 p.m. broadcast, after the coverage of Ukraine wrapped up, I made my closing statements:

“I cannot be part of a network funded by the Russian government that whitewashes the actions of Putin,” I said. “I am proud to be an American and believe in disseminating the truth. And that is why, after this newscast, I am resigning.”

[Democracyinkind]

1. The last paragraph is hilarious. I bet Kristol can hook her up. nt

[Warpy]

2. Yeah, and she can fail to report on massive demonstrations here

especially the ones brutally put down by Robo Cop.

[reACTIONary]

4. Which "massive demonstrations" were not reported on here? (nt)

[reACTIONary]

3. My faviorite excerpt...

... is the Ron Paul angle:

Soon our attention shifted to the 2012 presidential election. In RT’s eyes, only one candidate mattered: Ron Paul. I don’t remember Paul ever speaking to RT during campaign season, but that didn’t stop our obsessive coverage of the “rock star” candidate. After a while the bosses’ fixation with him seemed bizarre. Why were they pushing non-stop coverage of this long shot?

She says it was Paul's non-interventionist foreign policy stance - if you can consider his stance can be a "foreign policy". I think it's just that Paul is a fringe extremist nut-case and thus a draw for the sort of audience that RT seems to seek.