Numerous former RT/Sputnik employees have verified that RT/Sputnik censors or demands self-censorship of their writers: William Dunbar, Liz Wahl, Andrew Feinberg, James Kirchick, Sophie Shevardnadze.
"Russia Today correspondents in Ossetia found that much of their information was being fed to t…
Numerous former RT/Sputnik employees have verified that RT/Sputnik censors or demands self-censorship of their writers: William Dunbar, Liz Wahl, Andrew Feinberg, James Kirchick, Sophie Shevardnadze.
"Russia Today correspondents in Ossetia found that much of their information was being fed to them from Moscow, whether it corresponded to what they saw on the ground or not. Reporters who tried to broadcast anything outside the boundaries that Moscow had carefully delineated were punished. William Dunbar... mentioned that he was hearing unconfirmed reports that Russia had bombed undisputed Georgian territory. After the interview, he 'rushed to the [RT] studio to do a live update via satellite,' he says. 'I had been told I would be doing live updates every hour that day. I got a call from the newsroom telling me the live updates had been cancelled. They said, "We don’t need you, go home." ' " https://archives.cjr.org/feature/what_is_russia_today.php
"In practice, Sputnik’s mission statement—“Telling the Untold”—means that Sputnik’s content should reflect the Russian side of any news story, whether it lines up with reality or not. When it came to the issue of Crimea (which has been occupied by Russian-backed troops since 2014), we were never to write anything on the subject that didn’t include language noting that 90 percent of Crimea residents voted in a referendum to rejoin Russia. Of course, when I’d include details of the tanks and armed men that lined the streets while the people of Crimea voted in that referendum, it would be removed from the story before it went live." https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/21/russian-propaganda-sputnik-reporter-215511/
“In order to succeed there you don’t question… In a way you kind of suppress any concerns that you have and play the game.”
[Liz] Wahl recalls a story she attempted to report about last year’s French intervention in Mali, aimed at repelling an al-Qaeda takeover of the country. She interviewed a Malian man who “talked about what it was like to live under sharia law, people getting limbs amputated…And I thought it was probably one of the best interviews that I’ve ever done. I was touched by what he said as a first hand source, but he also talked about how the French were well-received there and how they were waving French flags and how they should have come sooner, how grateful a large part of the population was, having seen people being literally tortured and having their limbs cut off.”
That story, however, didn’t fit the RT narrative, which portrays every Western military intervention as an act of imperialism while depicting Russian ones as mere humanitarian attempts at “protecting” local populations, as the network constantly describes Moscow’s role in Crimea. Needless to say, Wahl’s interview with the thankful Malian never aired. “I was told after that it was a ‘weak’ interview,” Wahl said. https://www.thedailybeast.com/exclusive-rt-anchor-liz-wahl-explains-why-she-quit
"conspiratorial fantasies of how RT operated"
Numerous former RT/Sputnik employees have verified that RT/Sputnik censors or demands self-censorship of their writers: William Dunbar, Liz Wahl, Andrew Feinberg, James Kirchick, Sophie Shevardnadze.
"Russia Today correspondents in Ossetia found that much of their information was being fed to them from Moscow, whether it corresponded to what they saw on the ground or not. Reporters who tried to broadcast anything outside the boundaries that Moscow had carefully delineated were punished. William Dunbar... mentioned that he was hearing unconfirmed reports that Russia had bombed undisputed Georgian territory. After the interview, he 'rushed to the [RT] studio to do a live update via satellite,' he says. 'I had been told I would be doing live updates every hour that day. I got a call from the newsroom telling me the live updates had been cancelled. They said, "We don’t need you, go home." ' " https://archives.cjr.org/feature/what_is_russia_today.php
"In practice, Sputnik’s mission statement—“Telling the Untold”—means that Sputnik’s content should reflect the Russian side of any news story, whether it lines up with reality or not. When it came to the issue of Crimea (which has been occupied by Russian-backed troops since 2014), we were never to write anything on the subject that didn’t include language noting that 90 percent of Crimea residents voted in a referendum to rejoin Russia. Of course, when I’d include details of the tanks and armed men that lined the streets while the people of Crimea voted in that referendum, it would be removed from the story before it went live." https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/08/21/russian-propaganda-sputnik-reporter-215511/
“In order to succeed there you don’t question… In a way you kind of suppress any concerns that you have and play the game.”
[Liz] Wahl recalls a story she attempted to report about last year’s French intervention in Mali, aimed at repelling an al-Qaeda takeover of the country. She interviewed a Malian man who “talked about what it was like to live under sharia law, people getting limbs amputated…And I thought it was probably one of the best interviews that I’ve ever done. I was touched by what he said as a first hand source, but he also talked about how the French were well-received there and how they were waving French flags and how they should have come sooner, how grateful a large part of the population was, having seen people being literally tortured and having their limbs cut off.”
That story, however, didn’t fit the RT narrative, which portrays every Western military intervention as an act of imperialism while depicting Russian ones as mere humanitarian attempts at “protecting” local populations, as the network constantly describes Moscow’s role in Crimea. Needless to say, Wahl’s interview with the thankful Malian never aired. “I was told after that it was a ‘weak’ interview,” Wahl said. https://www.thedailybeast.com/exclusive-rt-anchor-liz-wahl-explains-why-she-quit