Founded in 2005, Russia Today is part of a broad strategy to counter perceived Western media bias against Russia. Central to this feeling was the Russian belief that Western reporting on Russia’s involvement in the Ukrainian Orange Revolution was unfairly negative and
represented weakness in Russian “political technologies” of information management (Saari 2014). With these criticisms in mind, the Russian state threw its weight behind founding RT to cover “stories overlooked by the mainstream media to create news with an edge” and provide an “alternative perspective on major global events, and acquaint international audiences with a Russian viewpoint” (“About RT” 2016). RT is the foremost component of Russian plans to counter Western news; as Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesperson, said in 2016 “We are currently in a state of information warfare with the trend-setters in the information space, most notably with the Anglo-Saxons, their media” (RT 2016). The Kremlin has amply funded that war.
RT claims to use a combination of private and public funding, however, Geniets (2013) suggests that the reality is somewhat different. RT is largely state-funded, but its private funding originates from banks and commercial entities with close ties to Putin and his United Russia Party. The network is operated by RIA Novosti, the state owned and operated press agency, which was placed under the Press and Information Ministry by Presidential decree in 1991 (Geniets 2013). RT’s budget has gone from US$30 million in 2005 to US$300 million in 2013 and was expected to rise again for 2015 (Rawnsley 2015b). Studios in New York, London, and Moscow broadcast in English, Arabic, and Spanish.
RT’s funding and position in the Russian media system reflects their relatively high degree of political parallelism and government intervention. Vartanova(2012), using and
updating media systems theory,characterized this as a “statist commercialized” system in which high levels of commercialization and economic pressure coexist with a superior role for the state and the political-business elite who define the informal and formal rules that shape media
content. This means that both high levels of political parallelism, which means news aligns itself closely with Putin’s United Russia party, and media market development, which means a high degree of commercial pressure, particularly in television, combine in a state control apparatus. The state reportedly controls 80% of Russian media either through direct ownership, subsidy, or through the informal rules that govern the limits of acceptable political conversation in Russia (Sakwa 2014). These structural factors cause news outlets to self-censor; their content typically avoids criticism of the government. The role of Vladimir Putin in centralizing and constraining media activity in Russia is difficult to overstate.25 Indeed some of his first and most controversial
25 Vartanova (2012) is also careful to note that even Putin has not completely constrained political factionalism, merely severely restrained it. Media outlets exist who are willing to criticize Putin and the Russian state, but always mindful of the informal restrictions that guide such actions.
political actions involved punishing dissident oligarchs and placing media holdings under gas company, Gazprom (Sakwa 2014). Given their history as an autocratic and then communist state, Russia had late media market development and journalistic professionalism. This means that Russian journalists operate under twin pressures of the market and the state, with younger journalists sometimes eschewing a public service role (Erzikova and Lowrey 2010) and journalists’ work is tightly intertwined with the interests of the state (Roudakova 2009). RT’s journalists, however, appear to be mostly Western, specifically British and American, but features of the Russian media system do shine through, particularly the informal rules that keep Russia off the channel’s radar, the presence of younger journalists in key positions, and a focus on Russia’s geopolitical rivals.
Russia Today broadcasts it programming 24 hours a day and focuses predominantly on political news. Avgerinos (2009) and Rawnsley (2015b) note, and my subsequent analysis shows, that RT’s programming is fixated on North America and Europe, not typically reporting on Russia directly, except in the case of an ongoing news event like the Ukraine crisis (Price 2014) or relations with its “near-abroad” in the Baltic Sea region (Borchers 2011). Unlike AJE or CCTV, who have programing dedicated to specific geographic regions like 101 East or Spectrum Asia, RT’s programming does not directly focus on particular regions. In addition to political
debate and interview programming common on other networks, RT has political comedy
programs such as Redacted Tonight and News Thing as well as programs headed by recognizable British and American political or media figures. For example, former professional wrestler and Minnesota governor Jesse “the Body” Ventura hosts Off the Grid and former Respect Party British MP George Galloway hosts Sputnik, and venerable US interviewer Larry King hosts two programs. Despite the presence of Larry King, most RT journalists are actually young,
inexperienced,and Anglo-American. Editor in Chief Margarita Simonyan, for example, was only 25 when appointed to her post. She subsequently took out ads in the British Guardian newspaper and staffed RT with young British and American journalism majors, most of whom were straight out of graduate programs (Bullough 2013). It is not clear why RT’s Russian managers would hire Simonyan given her lack of experience, but this is indicative of the larger muddled structure of RT itself.
The actual organizational structure of RT is somewhat opaque, as is information on their journalism culture, and the majority of evidence either for or against the independence of its journalists is anecdotal. At its founding in 2005, the majority of RT on air talent came from the UK, and were often fresh out of advanced journalistic training (Bullough 2013), in turn
suggesting that they have low professional capital. Ioffe (2010), a vociferous critic of Putin, claims that RT reporter William Dunbar was reprimanded for reporting rumors that Russian forces had inadvertently bombed Georgian territory during the South Ossetia War in 2008. Dunbar subsequently tendered his resignation. Ioffe has also claimed that Simonyan has regular, maybe daily, meetings with Kremlin officials. On the other hand, correspondent Abby Martin, who criticized Russia’s policies live on air during the Ukraine crisis, defended her editorial independence and freedom of action while working at the network. During an interview for On the Media, Martin claimed she worked with “passionate American journalists,” who, “can speak out against different things that other corporate entities can't speak out against that are beholden to their advertisers or parrot the establishment line” (Mayer 2014). She also argued that speaking positively about Russia was the price one paid to work in media, where money comes from “questionable entities” that limit a reporter’s ability to speak truth to power (Mayer 2014).26
26 Despite Martin’s claim during the interview that her bosses accepted her on air editorializing, her program Breaking the Set last aired on February 28, 2015, just shy of one year after her on air statements.
Whoever’s interpretation one chooses to believe, the precise relationship between individual journalists and RT’s executive structure remains unclear, however, it is possible that the same informal rules of self-censorship that pertain in domestic Russian television (Vartanova 2015) also apply to RT’s staff. However, Martin’s statements hint that the American and British journalists who staff RT have made a calculation; to report on under covered American and British policies and issues they are willing to accept Simonyan’s and other managers’ mission to question Anglo-American news norms.
Russia Today developed out of Russia’s journalistic tradition where journalists work under conditions characterized by high levels of political parallelism, and thus deference to the state and its managers, while also lacking a clear tradition of journalistic professionalism. High levels of commercialization push journalism towards tabloidization while close connections between media oligarchs and Russian government leaders keep criticism of the state to a minimum. To be sure, the financial pressures Russian domestic media operate under are less important given RT’s state funding. In addition, RT journalists often come from the developed West and received training in the Western journalistic tradition and Abby Martin’s comments suggest that they see themselves not as dupes but as intrepid journalists unearthing
uncomfortable truths (Mayer 2014). RT’s management, however, comes out of the Russian media system and presumably expects an appropriate amount of deference to the interests of the Russian state. These countervailing pressures may account for various on air resignations by RT journalists. While on the ground interviews are needed to test manager to journalist relations, RT clearly relies on Putin and his regime to set a tone for journalists to follow and self-censor, giving RT latitude to frame news according to Russia’s political interests.