The Russia Today network (aka: the latest propaganda arm of the Putin plutocracy) lost a pair of anchors this week over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Former RT-America anchor, Liz Wahl:
“As a reporter on this network I face many ethical and moral challenges especially me personally coming from a family whose grandparents came here as refugees during the Hungarian revolution, ironically to escape the Soviet forces,†she told network viewers, immediately following a report claiming that the new Ukrainian government, which ousted pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych, is composed mainly of fascists and neo-Nazis. “I’m very lucky to have grown up here in the United States. I’m the daughter of a veteran. My partner is a physician at a military base where he sees every day the first-hand accounts of the ultimate prices that people pay for this country. And that is why personally I cannot be part of a network that whitewashes the actions of Putin. I am proud to be an American and believe in disseminating the truth and that is why after this newscast I’m resigning.â€
Former RT-America anchor, Abby Martin:
A TV presenter working for a Kremlin-funded channel who spoke out against Russia’s military invasion in Ukraine live on air could be sent by the broadcaster to Crimea to “better her knowledge” of the situation.
In an off-message tirade, Abby Martin, a Washington-based American news anchor for Russia Today, shocked mostly pro-Russian viewers by announcing she “cannot stress enough” how strongly she felt about presence of its troops in Crimea, saying “Russia was wrong”.
The host addressed the camera in unscripted remarks at the end of the station’s Breaking the Set segment, saying: “Just because I work here, for RT, doesn’t mean I don’t have editorial independence and I can’t stress enough how strongly I am against any military intervention in sovereign nations’ affairs.
“I will not sit here and apologise or defend military aggression,” she went on.
The English-language Russia Today is widely perceived as the voice of the Kremlin, with Reporters Without Borders describing it as a “step of the state to control information.”
The shameful part of this post is that I have to tell you that I found the links above at leftosphere sites. The reason I use the word shameful is that those very same sites were linking heavily to RT-America (almost as often as they link to Al Jazeera America) until just before the invasion.
Anyone think that they will take advantage of their new found knowledge and change their behavior when linking to anti-US news reports from foreign sources?
Didn’t think so.