Don’t watch RT!
Neil Clark is a journalist, writer and broadcaster. His award winning blog can be found atwww.neilclark66.blogspot.com. Follow him on Twitter
As RT UK launches, attacks on the channel in the British media have stepped up…
The latest is a piece by Mr. Cyril Waugh-Monger, a very important newspaper columnist for the NeoCon Daily, a patron of the Senator Joe McCarthy Appreciation Society and author of 'Why the Iraq War was a Brilliant Idea' and 'The Humanitarian Case for Bombing Syria.'
Dear socially inferior person reading this article. My name is Cyril Waugh-Monger (I'm called 'Mr Terribly Pompous Neo-Con' by my friends) and I’m here to tell you why on no account should you watch RT and why you should be making complaints to Ofcom about this dreadful channel so that in the interests of 'free speech' and 'democracy' we can get it off air.
1. RT doesn’t peddle Russophobia
Outrageously, RT doesn’t compare Vladimir Putin to Adolf Hitler. It doesn‘t join in with the demonization of Russia and its leader. How can we have a channel which is watched by people in Britain, which doesn’t do that? We neocons say that demonization of Russia and its leader is compulsory. How dare RT not do as we say!
2. RT is sometimes rude to bankers
There’s a man on RT called Max Keiser and he is often very rude to bankers. Why, he has even called for them to face the death penalty. Such disrespect to our financial elites is shocking and should not be allowed in a free society.
3. Its coverage of the MH17 crash
Shockingly, RT commentators didn’t rush to blame Vladimir Putin for the air disaster within seconds of the news breaking. Some even said that we should wait for the forensic evidence before any statements apportioning guilt were made. Others said that we couldn’t rule out that the plane was downed by an another aircraft. This failure to come and say loud and clear “Putin personally shot down the plane with a missile he made and fired with his own hands” within minutes of the crash is clear evidence of RT’s bias and why it must be taken off the air.
4. RT’s ‘pundits’ include people who aren’t neocons and ‘liberal interventionists’
This is truly scandalous: RT gives airtime to people who don’t support the West’s policy of endless war and who opposed airstrikes on Syria last year. Why, it’s even broadcast interviews with the convener of the Stop the War coalition – and has a regular weekly show fronted by George Galloway! This is unconscionable. Only people who support Western foreign policy should be allowed to express their views on international affairs on television, not 'cranks' and 'fanatics' who oppose attacking a sovereign state in the Middle East on deceitful grounds every couple of years. Why, if RT had been around in 2003, it would no doubt have given airtime to anti-war ‘conspiracy theorists’ who would have told viewers that Iraq had no WMDs – and claimed, fantastically – that Bush and Blair were making it all up.
5. RT provides airtime to genuine socialists and genuine conservatives
This is really terrible: RT interviews people who oppose neo-liberalism and globalization, from both the left and the right. It’s given the microphone to socialists, communists, greens, and 'extremists' on the right, like Ron Paul. These people should not be allowed to express their views on television; they are 'cranks' and should be totally marginalized. Only those who support the hegemonic consensus should be allowed on TV. It's very important that in order to protect free speech and democracy, alternative opinions are not heard.
6. RT pundits have ‘extremist’ links
I monitor the people who appear on RT very, very closely and I can tell you that there was once a case of an RT interviewee who had a link on his website to another website which had a link to another website which had a link to another website – which denied the Holocaust and said that little green men from Mars were ruling the US.
After considerable research I also found that another RT pundit once attended a conference where a fellow invitee had once sat at a restaurant table, a few days after another person who had actually praised Adolf Hitler, Chairman Mao, and Josef Stalin in a magazine article published in North Korea in 1962.
7. RT is anti-semitic
Ok, I’ve got no evidence of this, but I’ll bung it in anyway as it sounds good.
8. RT has broadcast documentaries on the wars in Yugoslavia which don’t blame the Serbs for everything
This is totally unacceptable.
9. RT has had ‘experts’ on its programs who have made some very strong criticisms of Israel
This too is totally unacceptable.
10. RT pundits have often ridiculed leading American policy makers
For instance, when the US Secretary of State John Kerry said that “you just don't in the 21st century” invade another country on “completely trumped up pretext,” some people on RT had the audacity to say “What about Iraq?” This lack of respect towards a leading American politician is appalling, and in a free society ought not be allowed. The correct procedure whenever a leading US political figure speaks is to tug one’s forelock.
11. RT’s coverage of the conflict in Syria
In 2011-13, we had so-called ‘experts’ on Syria telling us on RT that some of the freedom-fighting pro-democracy rebels were actually fanatical terrorists who were guilty of committing atrocities. This was obviously a clear lie. Islamist terrorists like ISIS have only been active in Syria since 2014 and of course it’s all the fault of President Assad and Russia.
12. RT interviews lots of people whose views I do not share
It ought not to be allowed! Aren’t we supposed to live in a democracy?
13. The most important reason: RT is a threat
More and more people are watching it – which is why me and my little group of neocons and ‘liberal interventionists’ are so worried and stepping up our attacks on the station and denigrating those people who appear on it.
The next big war is going to be much harder for us to ‘sell’ to the plebs, because we are no longer in control of the narrative as we were in 2003, before the Iraq war. Oh, what happy days those were!
Don’t watch RT because we really don’t want you to 'question more.' We want you to question less. It's much easier for us that way.
The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.
http://rt.com/op-edge/201307-rt-uk-launch-media-criticism/
posted by Satish Sharma at
03:53
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