Report Casts Light on TV Channel's Role in Russia's Propaganda Efforts

[Charlie Brown]

By Lukas I. Alpert
Updated Jan. 6, 2017 9:29 p.m. ET

A declassified U.S. intelligence assessment of Russia’s alleged attempts to influence the American presidential election focuses heavily on RT, a Kremlin-financed international news channel that the report says played a key role in Moscow’s efforts.

But it also shined a light on what it characterized as Russia’s bigger propaganda efforts, especially RT, formerly known as Russia Today. Seven pages of the 25-page report detail the growth of the media outlet, its alleged ties to the Kremlin and how it has been a platform for criticizing the U.S. and the West.

RT actively collaborated with WikiLeaks, which released information obtained through cyberattacks, by giving its editor in chief Julian Assange “sympathetic coverage and [providing] him a platform to denounce the United States,” the report said.

The network has often featured voices from the extremes of the U.S. political scene and has been accused of trafficking in conspiracy theories. But RT America also has become a landing spot for several well-known media personalities such as Larry King and Ed Schultz.

Mr. Trump’s choice for national security adviser, Michael Flynn, has been a regular guest on RT programs.

http://www.wsj.com/articles/report-casts-light-on-tv-channels-role-in-russias-propaganda-efforts-1483750398

[Squinch]

1. Ed Frickin' Schultz! Can you believe that shit?

[CentralMass]

2. It must have been the $$.

[2naSalit]

3. He went there after MSNBC shut him down

for calling out the coming disaster we now face... and he was bitter about it. I stopped watching/listening right after he got on RT.

[CentralMass]

4. Damn, better dead then red Ed

How Ed Schultz transformed from MSNBC lefty to the American face of Moscow media

www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle

"Schultz quickly threw to a recorded package, in which RT America reporter Alexey Yaroshevsky wondered how long the “spiraling downfall of sanity” over hacking in the U.S. media would continue. “Until the public sees forensic evidence, if such exists at all, these accusations should carry as much weight as online humor,” Yaroshevsky reported.

Next up: A Schultz-led panel discussion of Trump’s appointment of ExxonMobil chief executive Rex Tillerson as secretary of state and Tillerson’s ties to Putin.

“Why is [Tillerson’s] business relationships and successes with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the business world and in the energy industry, why is that a negative on Capitol Hill?” he asked the panel, almost pleading. “Isn’t that a positive thing that he knows Putin?”

***

RT, whose slogan is “Question More,” arrived in Washington in 2010, five years after being launched in Moscow by its founder, Margarita Simonyan, at the time a 25-year-old state journalist. Simonyan, who remains RT’s editor in chief, was also a member of Putin’s re-election staff in 2012.

Schultz, now 62, is one of several Americans who appear on the domestic channel. Others include former New York Times reporter Chris Hedges, who hosts “On Contact,” a weekly interview show featuring “dissident voices”; Max Keiser, who has a financial program; and Tyrel Ventura, co-host of public-affairs show called “Watching the Hawks” and the son of former Minnesota governor and RT personality Jesse Ventura.

RT America has broad distribution via the Internet, but virtually no presence on cable; only 19 cable systems (out of 5,208 nationwide) carry the channel. Nevertheless, RT claimed this year that it had a weekly TV audience of more than 8 million in the United States , a questionable figure given its limited cable carriage.

Schultz, who once said on MSNBC that Putin is “crippling” his country, now has a Russo-friendly, or perhaps American-skeptical, viewpoint on any number of issues on his RT program. So do most of the guests he interviews"

[Thinkingabout]

5. This is a place to follow those who has pushed hard against Hillary and now we have Trump

elected as president. RT is a propaganda source for Putin. I am for electing Democrats.

[otohara]

6. DemocracyNow is Worse

FOX contributor Glenn Greenwald is a regular all the way from Equador

Julian Assange is a favorite

Bill Curry, David Sirota, Lee Fang plus all the other HRC, Dem party haters.

[MineralMan]

7. Many on DU warned about this from the very early days of RT.

And yet, we continued to see link and stories from that Russian propaganda network here on a daily basis. Why are we so willing to listen to people who call themselves "progressives" without questioning them? I've never understood that.

Fool me once...