Who is rt news

This pattern of nonprioritizing journalistic skills is very similar to the one followed in the Soviet era Siebert et al. Our participants, who themselves had no journalistic experience before joining RT, argued that this strategy was adopted to avoid any pushbacks from the journalists in relation to the content or the agenda and to be able to mold the newly hired journalists and shape their minds.

Participant8, who had no experience when they joined one of RT bureaus, stated:. I would say that in all, RT hire inexperienced producers who they can mold in producing what kind of news they want and those who are less likely to put up a fight against certain editorial decisions. Participant8, British journalists dominated RT in There was an agreement among the study participants who witnessed the early days of RT in Moscow that RT management was keen on selecting British journalists.

The British journalists were chosen mainly for their English-language skills. Those young, British, inexperienced journalists were treated like stars. Our participants stated that they were pampered with money, makeup artists, and private cars when they joined RT at its early days. Participant4 said that they were given an extremely generous amount of screen time and a salary that was higher than the salary they get after working for years in other media outlets.

The glamorous treatment of these journalists fostered loyalty and discouraged them from leaving the channel. However, the participants said that in most cases, journalists who work for RT do not agree with its messages.

Participant13 said that RT journalists knew that they were not telling the truth. However, working at RT guarantees that they receive a high salary while living in Moscow. Participant15 elaborated:.

I started working there because it was the easiest way to join journalism, not being a journalism graduate myself and not having any kind of training in journalism. It is the good place for new grads because it is very easy there because the main prerequisite for the job is the language.

In addition to monetary-based loyalty, it was argued in the interviews that RT management instilled in foreign journalists working at RT UK and RT America an image that Russia is a victim of Western politics. This was another strategy that was followed to help socialize non-Russian journalists.

Participant9 noticed that:. They are repeatedly told that Russia is misrepresented in Western media and that Russophobia is on the rise. Participant23 believes that this is done in order to enforce loyalty among foreign journalists. To better socialize the foreign journalists and to protect the channel from whistle-blowers, NDAs were added to the contracts of non-Russian journalists from Participants stated that in the early days of RT, there were clauses in the employment contract to prevent journalists from speaking out but that these were not legally binding outside Russia.

NDAs were imposed in following the MH17 incident to prevent journalists from discussing their work experiences at RT. The NDA made this legally binding outside Russia and journalists could be sued if they were to violate the terms of the agreement.

Participant23 noted:. They tried to make everyone sign [a] nondisclosure agreement. That was around Ukraine. It was for non-Russians. A lot of the foreign staff decided to leave at this point. They [RT] did not want anyone to say bad things about the company. There was something in the contract before but that was not enforceable abroad. Participant23, Socializing Russian journalists was not as necessary.

Russian journalists at RT have a particularly strong sense of nationalism. They often suggest that they are serving their country by working for this channel. Participant6 stated that workers at RT would reaffirm the argument that Russia is mistreated and that they want to empower Russia through RT. They said:. This is what they believe in, and Margarita, and most of them.

They see Russia as being beleaguered and mistreated and they want to empower Russia on the international stage. Participant6, Language socialization is also an important part of the journalistic identity Cotter, In that sense, each news organization produces a style guide in order to maintain a house style and use standard news language Cameron, ; Ebner, Becoming familiar with the roles of the style guide and enforcing them are part of the organizational socialization of journalists Cameron, RT is no exception; it has a style guide to provide guidance to its journalists and to unify its output.

Based on our interviews, the style guide only includes instructions on the terms journalists should use to refer to regimes, countries, and political groups. For example, Participant22 said that:. Obviously within RT, the style guide would speak about the Syrian government or Assad government as opposed to the Syrian regime.

At the BBC, you would talk about the Syrian opposition or Syrian rebels while it is really common at RT to speak about terrorists or militants.

Participant22, Although the style guide existed, our respondents indicated that they rarely used it for editorial checks. Two participants were not even aware of whether RT has a style guide, which might imply that although the style guide exists, it is not strictly enforced. During the research, we were able to obtain a copy of the guide that is being handed to newly hired journalists to help them understand the production process.

This document does not provide any political editorial directives but, rather, provides a professional guide for journalists who are just starting their career at RT. Participant23, however, believes that journalists were being told about the editorial policies of the channel through informal talks with the editors, rather than through a formal, written style guide.

The journalistic socialization at RT is mostly pursued during casual day-to-day directives. One of these goals is to Russionize the channel. Our respondents who witnessed the launch of RT in Moscow argued that hiring British journalists was part of a long-term plan to replace them with Russian journalists later. Those young and inexperienced British journalists who joined RT in in Moscow were responsible for training young Russian journalists who would later replace them.

Participant4 said:. They were getting us to train up their kind of up-and-coming Russians. They were learning journalism from us and the idea was to whittle down the number of foreigners and very largely to be run by Russians. Participant4, Participant21 told us that Russian journalists were being trained at RT to lose their Russian accent and to speak fluent English while presenting on camera. The Russianization plan has partially fulfilled its goals. RT is not only a learning organization in terms of its human resources but also in terms of its rapid adaptation to new narratives in response to political events.

RT has usually portrayed Turkey in a less critical way. In , when Turkish warplanes hit a Russian military aircraft while flying over Syrian territory, RT changed its narrative and started to present Turkey as an enemy.

At that time, RT started disseminating stories on how members of ISIS and jihadists were being smuggled across the Turkish border and how Turkey was causing an immigration crisis in Europe. Nine months after this incident, Erdogan and Putin reached an agreement, and therefore RT stopped portraying Turkey negatively. The refugee crisis is another example of RT altering the angles of stories due to political changes. Participant22 recalled that RT was open to and supportive of the refugees seeking asylum in the West.

However, with the Syrian crisis taking over, RT managers thought that stigmatizing the refugees would be a good opportunity to destabilize Western politics.

According to Participant22, some of these stories were false but remained popular:. Some of the stories were proven to be false at RT but RT would give them a lot of airtime.

Similar alterations took place during the coverage of the Arab Spring. RT was supportive of the Arab Spring in ; however, after the Russian Foreign Ministry evaluated the situation and decided that the Arab Spring was harmful to their foreign policy, RT changed its coverage to be anti-Arab Spring.

Although it is not uncommon for narratives to change on other channels, it is particularly common practice at RT and part of its organizational behavior. Politically, it is difficult to state whether RT is a left-leaning or right-leaning news organization. The majority of the respondents insisted that RT does not have a political identity but rather that it changes its stance to be in line with its broader goals. Later, it started to support far-right ideas and highlight right-wing leaders.

As such it is far more likely that RT is an opportunist organization that adopts ideas that are intended to weaken the power of the West. Shoemaker and Vos in their well-cited book Gatekeeping Theory argue that media messages pass through a series of gates that influences and changes the messages. The most important gatekeeper is the Russian government.

The Russian government is involved in RT in different ways. The government control on RT includes hiring managers, imposing story angles, and, in some instances, disapproving of stories.

Participant3 said that RT has close ties with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and confirms some news stories with the Ministry. During the Soviet era, the appointment of editors was on the basis of their political reliability and knowledge of Marxism rather than their professional competence, in a process which was supervised by the Communist Party Siebert et al.

Similar to this, one of our participants said that the government appoints an advisory team to supervise the hiring of journalists at RT in Moscow. In addition, all of our respondents have confirmed that the top managers and senior editors at all RT bureaus are Russians. Participant18 noticed that:. The higher up the ranks, the more Russians it goes.

So, senior producers were Russian and all the bosses. Down the line, they will be less Russian and more British, or Australians. Participant18, At the RT newsroom in Moscow, there are several news teams and each team is supervised by two editors: a Russian editor who is responsible for the political editing of the stories and a foreign editor who ensures that the writing is at a professional level. Note : A circle represents story development, boxes represent the decision-makers and the gatekeepers at the channel, and thin arrows represent the sequence in which the story follows.

Dotted lines refer to a possible intervention from the government or the editor-in-chief to take a story off-air. Following the morning meeting, news is assigned by the editors to the journalists. The assignments vary according to the topic. When it came to assigning politically sensitive stories, foreign journalists are usually avoided for such tasks.

Participant13 stated:. I am a foreigner, so they would not give me the sensitive stories. The sensitive stories were done by people who understand the line that needs to be taken. Participant13, For instance, during the Georgia conflict in , Participant1 said that they sent Russian journalists rather than British journalists to cover this conflict.

This aforementioned assignment strategy is followed at RT International in Moscow. Participants who worked in foreign bureaus did not have an agreement on whether the stories are directly assigned to them or that they were able to pitch their own stories. What we get was a short word document that has a list of the stories that a senior Russian manager felt that we should cover.

This is what we used to dictate our news agenda … this list was only sent to the news editor and it was not sent to producers. However, a few other respondents, who worked for the foreign bureaus, said that they used to propose stories that are then approved only if they fitted the anti-West narrative of RT.

Participant17 said:. The individual journalists who work for RT … they pitch the story. Whoever is in charge is more than happy to confirm if that story makes the US and the UK look bad. Participant17, After journalists write a script, they need to get it approved by their editor.

Most of our respondents who were based in the Moscow office said that the Russian editor would approve the script and the British editor would check the script to ensure it was professionally styled:. The UK [editor] would look at my script and may amend it or something, and then it goes to the Russian editor and this is where it got screened.

Participant2, One of the respondents said that in the foreign bureaus, scripts are sent to the Moscow office for approval. However, they believe that this process is necessary to ensure the reliability of scripts and to avoid unintended mistakes.

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Germany says nuclear energy will set back turning EU green. Transgender woman becomes head of Russian political party branch. US diplomat flees after hit-and-run, hides at military base — police. EU predicts when high energy prices will decrease. The US government requires all agencies, individuals and organisations controlled or funded by international governments and undertake political activity, to be registered with the justice department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act Fara.

Fara began as a reaction to attempts by Nazi Germany to spread propaganda inside the US. Since the law was enacted, Russian companies have registered as foreign government agents, including a travel agency, a postal service and numerous financial institutions.

RT claims that it is a "publicly funded" media outlet, similar to the BBC or Germany's Deutsche Welle and would qualify for an exemption.

But to prove the exemption, the Atlantic Council writes, RT would need to disclose its finances, board members and show evidence of editorial independence from the Russian government.

Registering as a foreign agent doesn't mean RT will be forced to stop broadcasting, but it will need to label all US material "on behalf of" the Russian government. Image source, Getty Images. What is RT? Image source, AFP. Dmitry Kiselev and three other presenters interviewing Prime Minister Medvedev in The channel, which is produced online from Moscow, has sought a license from German regulators for a regular broadcast channel, but some lawmakers and government agencies have blocked the effort.

RT also has a video agency based in Germany called Ruptly, which in turn has invested in a California media company called Maffick, which produces catchy digital content for social media, like short explainer videos, as well as podcasts. The Open Secrets figures come as Russia itself has stepped up enforcement of its own "foreign agent" law, targeting a growing number of media outlets and nongovernmental organizations.

The law is set up to target media, NGOs, and individuals that receive funding from outside of Russia. On August 20, TV Dozhd, an independent news channel, and Vazhniye Istoriye, an investigative news site, were added to the list. However, Dozhd, which says its advertisers are wholly Russian, not foreign, was targeted because it printed, or broadcast, material from other designated foreign agents, according to Meduza , a Latvian-based news site that has also been designated a foreign agent. Intrusive Disclaimer The Russian law, first passed in , now requires designated media to label their all content with an intrusive disclaimer.

Some media have complied, even amid fears that the labels would scare off advertisers. At least one designated Russian news outlet has closed.

Meduza has resorted to crowdfunding to continue operating.