By Caleb T. Maupin
The fact that RT America has been shut down and no longer functions in the United States reveals a great deal of hypocrisy on the part of US leaders and their rhetoric about "freedom of the press" and "freedom of information." It is, of course, no secret that RT America was the US division of RT, a TV network based in Moscow and it received Russian funding. However, foreign media is found all across the United States.
Foreign Media in America
BBC from London is watched by millions of Americans. France24 also has a substantial US audience. The Middle Eastern TV network AlJazeera has an audience across the USA as well. In addition to these foreign networks, many US networks have international financial ties. FOX News, the most popular cable news channel in the United States is owned by Australian billionaire Rupert Murdoch as a division of News Corporation. At one point a number of citizens of autocratic Saudi Arabia held a significant amount of stock ownership in FOX news.
The Washington Times, the second-largest newspaper in the US Capitol was founded in 1982 by controversial Korean religious leader Reverend Sun Myung Moon. Moon, who was investigated for illegally lobbying and eventually imprisoned for tax fraud, controlled the newspaper until his death. The Washington Times remains financially tied to right-wing Korean and Japanese organizations.
The examples of foreign-funded or foreign-based media organizations in the United States are far too numerous to list. However, from the moment RT America began broadcasting in Washington DC, it was subject to obsessive demonization. It was declared to be "foreign propaganda." Those who worked at the network were subject to social media harassment and stigmatization. Lengthy articles in the New York Times and other publications presented the very existence of the network as somehow criminal.
Expanding American Discourse, Highlighting Important Issues
The allegations against the network did not match reality. While propaganda is usually defined as pushing a single viewpoint or interpretation of events, RT America did the opposite. It featured TV programs led by liberals such as Ed Shultz and Thom Hartmann, conservatives such as Steve Malzberg and Scottie Nell Hughes, Libertarians, legal experts, and well-known longtime media personalities such as Larry King and William Shatner. To say that RT was pushing "the Kremlin line" would be an extreme generalization, as host Abby Martin opposed Crimea joining with Russia in 2014 and the program "Politicking" hosted by Larry King featured many mainstream political figures in the United States who spoke harshly against Russia.
What infuriated mainstream voices about RT was not that it put forward the Russian perspective, but that it did not confine itself to the narrow terms of acceptable discourse in mainstream US media. A large audience was able to hear criticism of US society and US foreign policy that is largely blocked out of debate on mainstream networks. RT had a significant impact on debate in the USA, expanding discourse and bringing new ideas into the spotlight.
When RT America featured a debate of the Libertarian and Green Party candidates during the 2016 elections, expanding politics beyond just Democrats and Republicans, CNN followed up had a Town Hall broadcast with these two smaller parties as well.
Over the course of RT America's existence, issues that the network highlighted such as the failures of the war on drugs, crumbling infrastructure, the opioid epidemic, and rising anti-war sentiments among the military crept into mainstream discussion. RT America reported in detail on the problem of police brutality long before mainstream US media started catching up during the Ferguson protests in 2014, the Baltimore riots of 2015, or the 2020 killing of George Floyd. If anything mainstream US media should be embarrassed about how far ahead RT America was in covering an issue that is not universally recognized to be so important.
Shut Down Amid Hysterical Russophobia
The efforts to silence RT culminated in 2017 decision to force the network to register as a foreign lobbyist under the Foreign Agents Registration Act. This was done under threat of arrest and significantly weakened the ability of the network to function in the United States. Capitol Hill press credentials were denied. Private and internal communications among employees were handed over to the US Department of Justice and an atmosphere of intimidation caused many employees to resign. Even though the Foreign Agents Registration Act specifically excludes media outlets, RT was selectively forced to register as if it were a lobby group.
A law was specifically passed allowing TV broadcasters and cable networks to break their contracts with companies tied to Russia, and one by one RT America was dropped by providers. Ultimately in 2022 amid the Ukraine crisis, RT America shut down. Those who worked there are now unemployed.
The shutting down of the network was celebrated as justice by critics of Russia's intervention in Ukraine. However, US media outlets were not shut down after the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. Saudi-linked media outlets continue to function as it wages a war against neighboring Yemen. Israeli media companies continue to function despite widespread condemnation from the international community over its foreign interventions and treatment of Palestinians. The idea that Russian media should be stigmatized is selective, and linked to a hysterical anti-Russian campaign currently being mobilized by the American elite.
It comes as Russian musicians, Chess champions, athletes and others are also facing a wave of suppression. All things associated with Russia in the United States are being castigated and viewed with suspicion based on some supposed moral outrage about war in Ukraine.
However, few Americans even know the facts about the conflict and how it originated. Many Americans have been led to believe the war is simply a random act of aggression by Russia. The reality of what has faced the people of Donetsk and Lugansk since 2014, the 14,000 Russian-speaking people dead, the Pentagon linked bio-labs, the threats of Ukraine to join NATO and acquire nuclear weapons are all blocked out of public discourse.
RT America existed to present such facts about international events so that Americans could analyze events for themselves with more information than simply what Pentagon aligned analysts deemed worth telling them. RT America's slogan was "question more" and its practice seemed to be very much in line with the liberal ideology western leaders espouse, seeing that the public should be informed and a market place of competing narratives should be tolerated in order to maintain healthy discourse.
The abrupt end of RT America on March 3rd, 2022 indicates that US leaders are not sincere in their words about freedom and broad discourse. US media is carefully directed and controlled in order to serve the Pentagon and its Wall Street allies, and voices that challenge their worldview are indeed suppressed. By preventing RT America from functioning in the United States, US leaders are proving what many voices on RT dared to say all along. The USA isn't a land of freedom of opportunity where all views and ideas are tolerated. US society is not a "free market place of ideas." The US foreign policy establishment may exercise a looser hand than elsewhere, at least for now, but it is just as one-sided and threatened by criticism as other countries it demonizes across the globe.
Suppressing RT America not only proved the hypocrisy of US leaders, but ultimately showed the very reason why those concerned about truth and healthy discourse should want an entity like it to exist, regardless of their own perspective.
The views do not necessarily reflect those of DotDotNews.
Comment