Putin to Open RT Propaganda Office in Ireland to Combat "Anglo-Saxon" News
Russia’s worst economic slump in at least six years may have forced President Vladimir Putin to trim his propaganda budget, but he won’t let it curb his reach. RT, the Kremlin-backed television channel that broadcasts and publishes stories in six languages, is planning to open an office in Ireland by November, according to two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the plans aren’t public. The station, formerly known as Russia Today, intends to hires as many as 12 native English writers for its website, one of the people said.
An executive from RT has already met with officials from IDA, the Irish agency charged with luring foreign investment, helping to coordinate the expansion, according to the people. Kevin Sammon, a spokesman for the IDA, said in an e-mailed statement that the agency doesn’t comment on discussions with companies potentially locating in Ireland. RT spokesman Pavel Raskhodov declined to comment on the plans.
RT’s goal is to “break the Anglo-Saxon monopoly” on the global flow of news, Putin said when he visited the company’s headquarters in Moscow in 2013. The rapid development of electronic media has made news a “menacing weapon,” Putin said last October, after RT’s Spanish service started broadcasting in Argentina.
U.K. regulators in November said RT’s coverage of the crisis in Ukraine had broken impartiality rules and that any further breaches could result in license revocation. RT, whose slogan is “Question More,” began broadcasting a decade ago and last year started a dedicated channel “to challenge dominant power structures in Britain.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-07-30/putin-said-to-open-irish-front-against-anglo-saxon-news
= new reply since forum marked as read
