RT was my go to channel for few days in the Syrian conflict. There seemed to be a news blackout on the other international channels (including French) about anything other that Russian air strikes whereas on RT they covered all the missions being flown and missiles launched by anyone. A few days later hte reporting on the other channels I watch rose to RT levels.

the only other politician I know who does this is Brown

You might want to look a little more closely at that….

jimjam – Member
If you want balanced and factually accurate news you need news from three sources.

yip, look at all the biased opinions then decide on your own biased opinion.

need news from three sources

Breitbart
Trump Tweets
Fox News

Sorted 😉

saxabar – Member

@seosamh77, where possible, it helps to get into specifics and facts, e.g. how often does RT ever say anything critical about Russia? How often is a Russian politician grilled on RT?

in a uk context RT isn’t really a local russian channel so hardly surprising that there’s not many russian politicians on it, it’s aimed at the western market, who don’t care about russian politicians all that much.

Anyhow, I’m not here to defend them, I’m just arguing against the idea that anything russian is the devil incarnate. I thought the cold war finished?

It’s pretty obvious they have an agenda, it’s fairly easy to see through though.

Junkyard – lazarus
need news from three sources

Breitbart
Trump Tweets
Fox News
Sorted

aye variety of source is important! 😆

scotroutes – Member

the only other politician I know who does this is Brown

You might want to look a little more closely at that…. [/quote]

YOu mean he doesn’t or others do? Brown certainly has put a lot of money he has earned outside parliament into charity.

I don’t know of any other politicians who do this but maybe more do

I’m just arguing against the idea that anything russian is the devil incarnate. I thought the cold war finished?

even you concede its litte more than pro russian govt propaganda – easy enough to see – so its not hard to see why folk dont rate it/object. The cod war restarted when putin won and wanted the Russain bear to be back on par with the US and be a world player again. this time he is, fantastically well, using disinformation and our freedom [ of the press and the interent]to propagate BS at every level of our society to destabilise us[ the west] whist being more of a dictator at home. I think we should all despise that.

I do not and will not watch it

I find it odd

Considering that prominent Tory & Labour Brexiters were on RT heavily in the run up to the referendum, im surprised jambs would be upset.
Galloway had no end of MPs lining up for his show and Farage was hardly off there, pushing Putins plan to get us out the EU.

I still think salmon is a dick for doing this

It’s pretty obvious they have an agenda, it’s fairly easy to see through though.

Whats the difference RT and bbc news is the question i’d ask, both are biased far as i can see, wouldn’t say one is much worse than the other.

In your case Seosamh77 it seems that RT has achieved exactly what it was created to do. You think that BBC news and RT are on a par – both spewing propaganda.

Junkyard you overstate how bad it is. It’s not that bad. Some interesting stuff n it from time to time.

Tom, my view of the BBC has nothing to do with rt. I came up with that opinion long before rt was on the airwaves.

So no.

But you think they are equally bad?

You know where Theresa May was last night, right after she fired Priti Patel? Having dinner with Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail.

Yep, got very little news coverage. Politicians should be banned from socialising with press barons / editors etc.

I don’t think the BBC is a propaganda organisation but I know in its coverage of Scotland it is very pro establishment biased and does not reflect the political balance in Scotland

you overstate how bad it is

you underestimate how good they are 😉

Seriously no one does propaganda like the Russians do and all of its output falls under this umbrella. I have never denied they are very very skilled at it ;if you want to partake of it then that is your choice.

Whats the difference RT and bbc news is the question i’d ask, both are biased far as i can see, wouldn’t say one is much worse than the other.

Do a piece on gay rights and watch what happens.

Do a piece on how rich Putin is (and where his money is), and see what happens.

I do not and will not watch it

Which shows your contribution to this thread is ideological rather than objective. Watch it and then get back to us.

Trump, Putin, May – all leading their countries in directions which are not in the interests of anyone but their elite citizens with the collaboration of those elite citizens and their media-mogul allies.

jambalaya – Member
Well you couldn’t make this up !!

Based on his Newsnight interview he seems to be happy to take the Russian Rouble in order to whine about the Tories and Westminster.

No you could make it up if you liked, happens to be the truth though so unlike lying Tories who manipulate news topics for their own political gain Alex is going to expose and kick the Tories in the balls over a worldwide News Feed.

Very happy with that Jamba, in fact couldn’t be happier.

Junkyard – lazarus
you underestimate how good they are

how would you know? 😉

Junkyard – lazarus
I do not and will not watch it

Which shows your contribution to this thread is ideological rather than objective

???
What is your point exactly?

I have never seen child porn – am i allowed an opinion on that or must I watch it first?

I dont watch Fox news either so I will assume that is also a bastion of impartiality until such time as I have watched enough of it to pass the edukator threshold of entitlement to have an opinion on it
It all depends sometimes one has to see things to be certain/form an opinion sometimes not. IMHO none of those scenarios above is one of them

EDIT: Oh and his was funnier as well as more relevant.

One does not have to go to the north pole to know its cold just like i dont need to watch RT or fox to know they are biased.

still think salmon is a dick for doing this

Yeah…that in a nutshell ^

shittest analogy ever junkyard, come on you’re usually better than this.

It’s fairly obvious that to form an opinion on a news service you need to actually watch it.

You don’t need to watch child porn to know that it’s wrong.

I dont read the daily Mai or Katie hopkins – its perfectly ok to form an opinion of them without reading their drivel – not reading does not equal not aware of/no knowledge/no understanding. You do not need to partake of it to know their agenda or bias.

Granted it was OTT and extreme but i dont think anyone will be trying to argue i need to watch it to form an opinion so it did , crudely, prove my point.

You’re not doing your point any favours there.

All you are doing is admitting you’re happy to take 2nd hand opinion as your own.

I’d rather find out for myself.

Do a piece on gay rights and watch what happens.

Do a piece on how rich Putin is (and where his money is), and see what happens.

You could also say try doing a piece on how mad Brexit is on the BBC…..

All news outlets have some bias.

and when you have found out for yourself we will still both agree its biased

and imo, Not really all that different from the bbc in that respect.

Junkyard – lazarus
you overstate how bad it is
you underestimate how good they are
Seriously no one does propaganda like the Russians do and all of its output falls under this umbrella. I have never denied they are very very skilled at it ;if you want to partake of it then that is your choice.

Just look up Maskirovka.

Junkyard – lazarus

I dont read the daily Mai or Katie hopkins – its perfectly ok to form an opinion of them without reading their drivel – not reading does not equal not aware of/no knowledge/no understanding. You do not need to partake of it to know their agenda or bias.

The problem there though is that you only become aware of what they do or say when someone shares something egregious on social media and that just deepens your bias. I don’t read the Daily Mail but I assume there must be some actual information in there. There have to be stories about ordinary people that don’t have a premeditated political subtext.

During the Las Vegas shooting I watched the Fox news live stream and it was eye opening really. I was very surprised at how “anti-gun” a lot of the commentators and analysts were. Obviously some of them were spinning their wheels but it wasn’t the thoughts and prayers fest you might imagine.

What I think RT is trying to achieve, and what Alex Salmond is helping them to achieve by selling them some of his legitimacy, is a consensus view where all news outlets are equally biased.
In this world view there are no facts, only opinions. The world is too confusing to make sense of and the mob can be moved by any charismatic leader.
This kind of world is much easier to command and control if you are a Putin or a Trump.

what news sources do you use tom?

Agree with point about 2nd hand opinion – I do watch RT as much of the global analysis is very good (often better than the Beeb). Disagree with claim that UK watchers do not care about Russian politics. Also, I take it you’re not arguing that they save the self-critical pieces for a home audience?

Lots to get into on the objectivity question (especially when considering misinformation over disinformation) and what a balanced news diet consists of. And there’s the question of responsibility – should citizens take responsibility for engaging in a news diet beyond what appears in Facebook filter bubbles?

A bit of Guardian and Independent, the Economist, some BBC news website, Private Eye, occasionally the Daily Telegraph for a laugh. Anything that interests me for more detailed analysis or which my normal sources haven’t covered I tend to have a look at the sources google news or wikipedia gives.

You could also say try doing a piece on how mad Brexit is on the BBC…..

All news outlets have some bias.

I suppose it comes down to how comfortable you are with that bias. I’d say the BBC has fairly minimal bias.

So almost an entirely British pov.

a consensus view where all news outlets are equally biased.

When you say this, it’s essentially true, world view is largely dependent on where you are look at it from.

I’d don’t agree with equally, as that’s absurd, some are worse than others, but bias is human nature.

peak whataboutery.
Russia wants to destabilise the west, break up the EU, emasculate NATO, and have America turn inwards and take less interest in the world outside its own borders.
Trumps election, the EU vote in the UK, are so far the most successful parts of this strategy.

There are many weapons used to achieve their aims;
The use of RT as a Russian Government mouthpiece.
The hacking deployed against Clinton via wikileaks (which weirdly never publishes things embarassing to the Russians?)
The direct funding and implicit support of Nationalist groups throughout Europe and the UK.

There was even a recent attempt to set up a California independence movement (Calexit, after Trumps election) by a guy who later moved to … Russia. The attempt failed, but was largely pushed online by (later found to be) russian social accounts. They even had a few rallies and gained the support (and visit/speech/fundraising) from one Nigel Farage .. who, in other news, also paid at least one secret visit to the Ecuadoran embassy.

I’m about the furthest from a conspiracy theorist that you could get, but theres a lot of cash and influence being pedalled towards Russias ends.

If you know that and you still think that a briton being paid to appear on RT (and that includes tories, labour, SNP anyone) is a harmless thing and equivalent to the BBC? Then thats what I meant (up there) by peak whataboutery.

@ben I am a supporter of Hacked Off, have had meetings with my MP about the campaign and told her face to face in no uncertain terms that the 2017 manifesto commitment to NOT hold Levenson 2 was a disgrace.

The fact May went to the Daily Mail celebration thing likewise.

I am delighted that Fox / Sky bid has been referred. IMHO Murdoch and sons are not fit and proper people to be invokved in UK media full stop.

Anyway on Salmond it’s very bizarre he’ll take Russian state money. As I have said before if they where helping to fund say an iS campaign there’d be uproar.

I imagine Salmond’s expenses bill is double or treble his £60k “enough to live on” salary. Easy to live on a relatively low salary when you are eating out on expenses regularly and not paying any travel.

It’s amazing how Russian evil genius-ism 😆 seems to increase the more incompetent western leaders become.

if i was a cynic I’d think there might be some correlation there!

seosamh77
Its certainly given then something to work with. Either way the election of Trump and the Brexit vote have hardly strengthened any of us internationally.