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I am curious what other people think of the rt.com channel. It is a Russian funded news organization and I have heard that it is just a propaganda tool, but a l

by ldehaan 14y ago

I am curious what other people think of the rt.com channel. It is a Russian funded news organization and I have heard that it is just a propaganda tool, but a lot of the news seems very legit especially the coverage of all things our mass media ignores or hides. I used to watch it slot but found myself increasingly aware of even more crap I didn't know or government was doing. I found myself wondering if it is just a spin, true to the information but spun in just the right way so as to bring the most negative light to bear on events. I crave a real news source untrained by politics and corporations, but I have as yet found none, so I instead piece the events together by reading opposing news sources and grok from the diff. Would anyone here know the validity or the restrictions with which the news people are constrained to tell the whole story?

digitalengineer 14y ago
Watching RT every now and than certainly gives you another perspective on the news. Yeah, they're Russia-funded, but s what? They don't make the news, they just use a different filter. Check out their America channel as well: http://www.youtube.com/rtamerica http://www.youtube.com/rtamerica
- jewbacca 14y ago
  I generally trust their reporting on most topics outside the CIS. But I watched an RT stream the day of last year's Domodedovo Airport bombing: for every single new expert or witness they brought in, every other question out of the anchor's mouth was "How very comforting is it to the entire Russian people to hear from the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev so soon?" It is hard not to believe the popular charges against RT after this.
guscost 14y ago
100% propaganda. Just my take, but then a lot of these bullshit "authority" news sources are entirely propaganda when you start thinking about it.
jlgreco 14y ago
"funded news organization and I have heard that it is just a propaganda tool, but a lot of the news seems very legit especially the coverage of all things our mass media ignores or hides." This has also been my experience with Al Jazeera English. This sort of thing makes me wonder what other sorts of things are not as portrayed to us in the 'free' world.
- jewbacca 14y ago
  I still think largely well of AJE, and check it almost every day mostly for its editorial emphasis on major African and Asian political events that even the BBC tends to bury. But their reporting on some topics that I know well enough to read critically (some scare pieces they did on Anonymous, prior to the Arab Spring, come to mind[0]) can be awful, and stink of the same sloppy bias it is the popular perception that Al Jazeera is superior for being free of. It was disillusioning to read. I know such stories are probably handled by a different bureau, and that pretty much every major news organization is bad at understanding/presenting the internet (especially as of several years ago). But it makes me wonder what else might be off in their coverage of topics I don't know as well. ----- [0] Sorry, I cannot readily find a link, so this is just my personal libel for now.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    I can definitely believe that, though to be fair I'm not really aware of any major news outlet that gives sensible coverage to Anonymous. Nobody is perfect I suppose. I mostly stick to getting world news from AJE/BBC type sources and try to get closer to the horses mouth for anything tech related in the slightest.
runn1ng 14y ago
They are OK if they are not reporting about Russia and/or former Soviet Union republics. Once they report about Russia, it snaps to "Putin is God, anyone not agreeing with him should be put to jail" mode.
- geoka9 14y ago
  They are OK if they are not reporting about Russia and/or former Soviet Union republics. And the US, sometimes. It seems that "sticking it to America" is the main reason RT was created in the first place, so it shows in some of their US coverage. Nevertheless, we don't live in an ideal world and I think it's good to have both RT and Western media, and all those news sources in between.
lars 14y ago
I can't speak about RT, but there is definitely a truth to American news simply being bad. Some friends who moved to the US for a period described it as being "a country without news". A pretty clear example of this was the time leading up to the latest invasion of Iraq. At the time, a majority of Americans seemed to literally believe that Iraq was a threat to the US. I remember a survey at the time saying that the majority of the population in every other country in the world was opposed to the invasion. The US was going to war based on the claim that Iraq was a threat to US, which most commentators in my end of the world doubted. A different picture was apparently presented to US audiences.
nextparadigms 14y ago
That's exactly why I disagree with US banning Twitter accounts that "spread propaganda", even if I have no interest in them myself. But imagine US being at war with UK, and then banning any communication from UK because they are "spreading anti-US propaganda" about the war. But I'd much rather see what both sides have to say about the war then just believe the US lies or half-truths. Perspective is good. People should be able to tell if it was the US that caused the war or UK, and how it all came to be. Now, the US-UK war scenario may be very unlikely, but you can replace UK with any Middle East country, and I believe the same is true.
- digitalengineer 14y ago
  Yeah a US and UK war does sound rather stupid... Oh wait...
cheesefunnel 14y ago
When I first saw RT I thought 'this could be interesting', however after watching it for a few days it became obvious that it is hilariously bias. Every time I turn it over they are busy flogging the OWS dead horse as if it's some virtuous world-wide freedom movement whilst maintaining an almost total silence on the anti-Putin protests. Their moralizing on Afghanistan is also pretty hypocritical, they must think we have short memories. Hilariously it's also produced in the US. Wouldn't it be good to have an unbiased news channel?
- jahmed 14y ago
  Bias is fine so long as its clear as their editorial policy. Its when news tries to be 'fair' that we get problems. I consider The Economist to be a perfect example of this. They are quite openly biased to supporting the virtues of free trade and free markets. No one thinks this is a bad thing and allows them to present that position quite freely. We all have biases and pretending that you can report on news impartially is silly and deceptive.
ticks 14y ago
All news channels are skewed one way or another, RT is no different. I suggest that it's a step up from CCTV though. Either way, if you plan to watch a rolling news channel, watch as many different ones as you can.
davidhollander 14y ago
> Would anyone here know the validity or the restrictions with which the news people are constrained to tell the whole story? Only the rules of validity that restrict all statements, such as the law of non-contradiction. Individuals such as yourself are the only agent of restriction for all sources of news. You might enjoy the interviews of Jan Helfeld, who attempts to hold journalists and foreign policy officials to the law of noncontradiction: http://www.youtube.com/user/janhelfeld http://www.youtube.com/user/janhelfeld
Tycho 14y ago
I actually like this channel. British news channels have got a bad habit of either depressing the viewers with endless stories about murder and child abuse etc., or bombarding you with 'high-brow' political commentary which is actually devoid of usefulness. RT gives an interesting cross-section of the world news and their panelists are a bit more lively.

by ldehaan 14y ago

digitalengineer 14y ago

Watching RT every now and than certainly gives you another perspective on the news. Yeah, they're Russia-funded, but s what? They don't make the news, they just use a different filter. Check out their America channel as well: http://www.youtube.com/rtamerica http://www.youtube.com/rtamerica

jewbacca 14y ago
I generally trust their reporting on most topics outside the CIS. But I watched an RT stream the day of last year's Domodedovo Airport bombing: for every single new expert or witness they brought in, every other question out of the anchor's mouth was "How very comforting is it to the entire Russian people to hear from the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev so soon?" It is hard not to believe the popular charges against RT after this.

guscost 14y ago

100% propaganda. Just my take, but then a lot of these bullshit "authority" news sources are entirely propaganda when you start thinking about it.

jlgreco 14y ago

"funded news organization and I have heard that it is just a propaganda tool, but a lot of the news seems very legit especially the coverage of all things our mass media ignores or hides." This has also been my experience with Al Jazeera English. This sort of thing makes me wonder what other sorts of things are not as portrayed to us in the 'free' world.

jewbacca 14y ago
I still think largely well of AJE, and check it almost every day mostly for its editorial emphasis on major African and Asian political events that even the BBC tends to bury. But their reporting on some topics that I know well enough to read critically (some scare pieces they did on Anonymous, prior to the Arab Spring, come to mind[0]) can be awful, and stink of the same sloppy bias it is the popular perception that Al Jazeera is superior for being free of. It was disillusioning to read. I know such stories are probably handled by a different bureau, and that pretty much every major news organization is bad at understanding/presenting the internet (especially as of several years ago). But it makes me wonder what else might be off in their coverage of topics I don't know as well. ----- [0] Sorry, I cannot readily find a link, so this is just my personal libel for now.
- jlgreco 14y ago
  I can definitely believe that, though to be fair I'm not really aware of any major news outlet that gives sensible coverage to Anonymous. Nobody is perfect I suppose. I mostly stick to getting world news from AJE/BBC type sources and try to get closer to the horses mouth for anything tech related in the slightest.

runn1ng 14y ago

They are OK if they are not reporting about Russia and/or former Soviet Union republics. Once they report about Russia, it snaps to "Putin is God, anyone not agreeing with him should be put to jail" mode.

geoka9 14y ago
They are OK if they are not reporting about Russia and/or former Soviet Union republics. And the US, sometimes. It seems that "sticking it to America" is the main reason RT was created in the first place, so it shows in some of their US coverage. Nevertheless, we don't live in an ideal world and I think it's good to have both RT and Western media, and all those news sources in between.

lars 14y ago

I can't speak about RT, but there is definitely a truth to American news simply being bad. Some friends who moved to the US for a period described it as being "a country without news". A pretty clear example of this was the time leading up to the latest invasion of Iraq. At the time, a majority of Americans seemed to literally believe that Iraq was a threat to the US. I remember a survey at the time saying that the majority of the population in every other country in the world was opposed to the invasion. The US was going to war based on the claim that Iraq was a threat to US, which most commentators in my end of the world doubted. A different picture was apparently presented to US audiences.

nextparadigms 14y ago

That's exactly why I disagree with US banning Twitter accounts that "spread propaganda", even if I have no interest in them myself. But imagine US being at war with UK, and then banning any communication from UK because they are "spreading anti-US propaganda" about the war. But I'd much rather see what both sides have to say about the war then just believe the US lies or half-truths. Perspective is good. People should be able to tell if it was the US that caused the war or UK, and how it all came to be. Now, the US-UK war scenario may be very unlikely, but you can replace UK with any Middle East country, and I believe the same is true.

digitalengineer 14y ago
Yeah a US and UK war does sound rather stupid... Oh wait...

cheesefunnel 14y ago

When I first saw RT I thought 'this could be interesting', however after watching it for a few days it became obvious that it is hilariously bias. Every time I turn it over they are busy flogging the OWS dead horse as if it's some virtuous world-wide freedom movement whilst maintaining an almost total silence on the anti-Putin protests. Their moralizing on Afghanistan is also pretty hypocritical, they must think we have short memories. Hilariously it's also produced in the US. Wouldn't it be good to have an unbiased news channel?

jahmed 14y ago
Bias is fine so long as its clear as their editorial policy. Its when news tries to be 'fair' that we get problems. I consider The Economist to be a perfect example of this. They are quite openly biased to supporting the virtues of free trade and free markets. No one thinks this is a bad thing and allows them to present that position quite freely. We all have biases and pretending that you can report on news impartially is silly and deceptive.

ticks 14y ago

All news channels are skewed one way or another, RT is no different. I suggest that it's a step up from CCTV though. Either way, if you plan to watch a rolling news channel, watch as many different ones as you can.

davidhollander 14y ago

> Would anyone here know the validity or the restrictions with which the news people are constrained to tell the whole story? Only the rules of validity that restrict all statements, such as the law of non-contradiction. Individuals such as yourself are the only agent of restriction for all sources of news. You might enjoy the interviews of Jan Helfeld, who attempts to hold journalists and foreign policy officials to the law of noncontradiction: http://www.youtube.com/user/janhelfeld http://www.youtube.com/user/janhelfeld

Tycho 14y ago

I actually like this channel. British news channels have got a bad habit of either depressing the viewers with endless stories about murder and child abuse etc., or bombarding you with 'high-brow' political commentary which is actually devoid of usefulness. RT gives an interesting cross-section of the world news and their panelists are a bit more lively.