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> RT is quite clearly seen by the Russian government as a useful propaganda tool, and not a news outlet that would ever challenge the current Russian government

> RT is quite clearly seen by the Russian government as a useful propaganda tool, and not a news outlet that would ever challenge the current Russian government's malfeasance. Well I don't think we're likely to see the NYT or Fox or CNN challenging the US Government in any significant way. They are actually all consistently doing the US's bidding by helping sell various war efforts to their fans/viewers. > Russia has long played up domestic strife in the US to disprove the notion of American exceptionalism. So an editorial stance that rejects American Exceptionalism is now suspect? In my view the litmus test for RT is if the content stops at rejecting American Exceptionalism, or whether it goes further and attempts to make Americans believe things that are actually not true. Considering how much content in a typical issue of the NYT reinforces American Exceptionalism, it's quite refreshing to read something now and then that dispenses with that. The idea of American Exceptionalism is very harmful to the democratic process in America and to the world in general. I think it's among the most devastating and harmful ideas ever if measured by the suffering it has caused. The problem is that our own papers offer American Exceptionalism in high doses every single day.

dredmorbius 9y ago
We've literally just come off 8 years of Fox challenging the U.S. administration at every turn. The Pentagon Papers is a rather historical example, but stands. I'd be interested in what you'd consider a refutation of your claim. The issue with RT isn't that it challenges American Exceptionalism. You can find that natively, largely in the left and alterative press, or critics such as Chomsky or Hedges or Naomi Klein, among many others. (They also, typically, do argue that the NYT and Post are establishment organs. It's possible to make that claim without descending to RT's depths. Quite easily.) It's that it has no interest in either the truth or advancing a positive alternative in doing so. Your litmus test is bogus.
- grandalf 9y ago
  > It's that it has no interest in ... the truth Of the major US news media outlets, which do you think care about truth? It is rare for any to publish corrections, and in fact a NYT public editor recently resigned over the paper's unwillingness to be honest about its mistakes. > We've literally just come off 8 years of Fox challenging the U.S. administration at every turn. The two-party back-and-forth is importantly not at all threatening to the status quo, because the two parties share power. The role of Fox and MSNBC are to keep the public focused on silly, partisan issues like the validity of Obama's birth certificate. What endangers the status quo is that the public might actually realize that there are much more important things to worry about and much different things the government should be spending money on. Hence, third party candidates are not invited to the debates, and issues for the public to become outraged about are offered as entertainment: Big storms, white girls being kidnapped, female teachers having sex with students, the personal lives of celebrities, and generally bad things about living in other countries. > The Pentagon Papers is a rather historical example, but stands. I'd be interested in what you'd consider a refutation of your claim. The press has had varying degrees of quality and independence since the days when the NYT was indistinguishable from the local gossip rag. The pentagon papers is one of the high points of American journalism, but we should not assume that American journalism is still the same. When Edward Snowden wanted to leak information about massive dishonesty and conspiracy by the NSA in domestic surveillance, he did not go to the NY Times. That tells us all we need to know. As it was, he went to journalists who ended up breaking the story in The Guardian, but who were fairly quickly made to know that the Guardian would not support the continued adversarial stance with the US Government needed to follow through with the analysis and selective publication of the bulk of the documents. The journalists were reluctant to return to the US after reporters had been threatened and jailed. Among the most notable examples is the way that the NYT distanced itself from Julian Assange after the allegations of rape from Sweden were publicized. It turns out that in Sweden if someone has consensual sex and then days later decides that he or she revokes consent, that falls under the definition of rape. Oddly in all of the coverage of Assange amid these allegations, the NYT did not think it relevant to mention this very important difference in the legal meaning of the word rape in Sweden vs the US. I have no idea whether Assange acted improperly with those women, but we did not get a clear and accurate accounting of the nature of the alleged act from the NYT, as leaving that information out was helpful in the character assassination campaign the paper had undertaken against him, after determining that the Iraq War Logs, diplomatic cables, and Afghanistan War Logs contained virtually no relevant information and that the officials involved did not deserve any accountability for the revelations that the NYT's thorough coverage might have led to.
  - muglug 9y ago
    > It is rare for any to publish corrections It happens all the goddamn time, but there are also reasonably stringent editorial controls that prevent blatant mistruths from getting through. RT never corrects the record after it has been shown to publish government-manufactured stories. > When Edward Snowden wanted to leak information about massive dishonesty and conspiracy by the NSA in domestic surveillance, he did not go to the NY Times. That tells us all we need to know. No it doesn't - it just describes the very particular evidence (the possession of which constituted a federal crime) and the knowledge that it was safer in the hands of journalists overseas. > Oddly in all of the coverage of Assange amid these allegations, the NYT did not think it relevant to mention this very important difference in the legal meaning of the word rape in Sweden vs the US. > we did not get a clear and accurate accounting of the nature of the alleged act from the NYT That's bollocks. If you bother to look, they're there: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/world/europe/29iht-letter29.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/world/europe/29iht-letter2... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/world/europe/19assange.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/world/europe/19assange.htm...
    - grandalf 9y ago
      You left out the dozens of other articles that omitted the details.

dredmorbius 9y ago

We've literally just come off 8 years of Fox challenging the U.S. administration at every turn. The Pentagon Papers is a rather historical example, but stands. I'd be interested in what you'd consider a refutation of your claim. The issue with RT isn't that it challenges American Exceptionalism. You can find that natively, largely in the left and alterative press, or critics such as Chomsky or Hedges or Naomi Klein, among many others. (They also, typically, do argue that the NYT and Post are establishment organs. It's possible to make that claim without descending to RT's depths. Quite easily.) It's that it has no interest in either the truth or advancing a positive alternative in doing so. Your litmus test is bogus.

grandalf 9y ago
> It's that it has no interest in ... the truth Of the major US news media outlets, which do you think care about truth? It is rare for any to publish corrections, and in fact a NYT public editor recently resigned over the paper's unwillingness to be honest about its mistakes. > We've literally just come off 8 years of Fox challenging the U.S. administration at every turn. The two-party back-and-forth is importantly not at all threatening to the status quo, because the two parties share power. The role of Fox and MSNBC are to keep the public focused on silly, partisan issues like the validity of Obama's birth certificate. What endangers the status quo is that the public might actually realize that there are much more important things to worry about and much different things the government should be spending money on. Hence, third party candidates are not invited to the debates, and issues for the public to become outraged about are offered as entertainment: Big storms, white girls being kidnapped, female teachers having sex with students, the personal lives of celebrities, and generally bad things about living in other countries. > The Pentagon Papers is a rather historical example, but stands. I'd be interested in what you'd consider a refutation of your claim. The press has had varying degrees of quality and independence since the days when the NYT was indistinguishable from the local gossip rag. The pentagon papers is one of the high points of American journalism, but we should not assume that American journalism is still the same. When Edward Snowden wanted to leak information about massive dishonesty and conspiracy by the NSA in domestic surveillance, he did not go to the NY Times. That tells us all we need to know. As it was, he went to journalists who ended up breaking the story in The Guardian, but who were fairly quickly made to know that the Guardian would not support the continued adversarial stance with the US Government needed to follow through with the analysis and selective publication of the bulk of the documents. The journalists were reluctant to return to the US after reporters had been threatened and jailed. Among the most notable examples is the way that the NYT distanced itself from Julian Assange after the allegations of rape from Sweden were publicized. It turns out that in Sweden if someone has consensual sex and then days later decides that he or she revokes consent, that falls under the definition of rape. Oddly in all of the coverage of Assange amid these allegations, the NYT did not think it relevant to mention this very important difference in the legal meaning of the word rape in Sweden vs the US. I have no idea whether Assange acted improperly with those women, but we did not get a clear and accurate accounting of the nature of the alleged act from the NYT, as leaving that information out was helpful in the character assassination campaign the paper had undertaken against him, after determining that the Iraq War Logs, diplomatic cables, and Afghanistan War Logs contained virtually no relevant information and that the officials involved did not deserve any accountability for the revelations that the NYT's thorough coverage might have led to.
- muglug 9y ago
  > It is rare for any to publish corrections It happens all the goddamn time, but there are also reasonably stringent editorial controls that prevent blatant mistruths from getting through. RT never corrects the record after it has been shown to publish government-manufactured stories. > When Edward Snowden wanted to leak information about massive dishonesty and conspiracy by the NSA in domestic surveillance, he did not go to the NY Times. That tells us all we need to know. No it doesn't - it just describes the very particular evidence (the possession of which constituted a federal crime) and the knowledge that it was safer in the hands of journalists overseas. > Oddly in all of the coverage of Assange amid these allegations, the NYT did not think it relevant to mention this very important difference in the legal meaning of the word rape in Sweden vs the US. > we did not get a clear and accurate accounting of the nature of the alleged act from the NYT That's bollocks. If you bother to look, they're there: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/world/europe/29iht-letter29.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/world/europe/29iht-letter2... http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/world/europe/19assange.html http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/world/europe/19assange.htm...
  - grandalf 9y ago
    You left out the dozens of other articles that omitted the details.