Petar Tumbov / June 5, 2022 ABOUT RT RT (launched as Russia Today, and still known by that name to most people) is a well-known television network and website controlled by the Russian government. It is present in many countries around the world. It was launched in 2005 by the RIA-Novosti media agency. Since 2005 it’s been used as a propaganda arm of the Russian government. The fact that it is a state-owned agency is a sign that we should be careful while consuming its content. INTRODUCTION However, I have been watching and reading RT for almost six years. There is a misconception that it broadcasts lies that are very close to fantasies. My experience tells me that, on the contrary, RT is useful. It is useful if you are aware of the propaganda and of the tactics that its journalists use. Many of them are disdained among their profession because of their affiliation. However, they are very good at their job. They do everything to make you believe their narrative and to get you like a fish on a fisherman's hook. This has become even more noticeable since 24 February this year, i.e. since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. However, being located in the EU, it is now almost impossible to watch RT and even to access the RT.com site. WHY? Being highly sceptical, I never believed in the words of the media. In the beginning, I aimed to understand international politics from the Russian perspective. However, later I started to compare and evaluate RT with other sites such as BBC, and CNN. I was also comparing their narratives and claims with those presented on Macedonian news sites. It is very difficult to distinguish between those news articles which are pushed with a narrative and those that are innocent, neutral articles. To be honest, neutral articles are very rare on RT. The lack of neutral articles is the main reason why it is hated and disregarded, not because of its fake or misleading articles. Nevertheless, I can’t emphasize enough how much they are crucial for us. We need them to know and understand the Russian perspective. It is of vital necessity for our generation to be as aware as one can be of those articles. Mostly this is because, in my experience as a news consumer, everyone is pushing some narrative. BBC is pushing its narrative; some CNN articles are even far worse than those on RT. To fully understand a perspective, it is crucial to know both sides. We are maybe inclined or fully sold to one narrative, however, we need to know the other perspective. Do not judge only by watching and reading about one side of the political discourse. People are often lied to by their judgment and by their own willingness to believe only one source. Later, the same people tend to blame news channels, articles, or journalists for their own misjudgements. ACCESSIBILITY Just as a criminal court judge who has a hundred pieces of evidence against a person accused of murder needs to hear out the defence, so we also need to hear from the side we know is wrong. However, recently we have been reaching for a gag and completely silencing the defence. RT is known for pushing its narrative a “little” bit too explicitly and a “little” bit too often, but this is not an excuse for censoring it. As a democratic society, we should never silence the media, no matter how wrong, untruthful, misleading and one-sided it may seem. It is Machiavellian in the full term of the world to erase RT.com from my internet and RT from my TV subscription. I understand that is a private thing that a private owner is deciding on. However, it is politically motivated. Recently I had a hard time accessing the RT.com website from all over the world, using a VPN of course. Ironically, I found out that in the USA it is 100% accessible. This is not the weirdest thing about censorship. My smartphone data is not able to access the site. My whole family, while connected to my home Wi-Fi, are unable to access it. However, I can get access to RT.com through my school’s Wi-Fi. There are two theories that I am considering to be the reason for this weird censorship. Either they are tracking my IP address, since it is showing different firewalls and restrictions as soon as I change my internet connection. The second theory is that the internet providers are out of tune. RT IN TIMES OF WAR However, it does not change the fact that there are one-sided propaganda articles. After all, we are talking about a media agency that is state-owned. I have always had my doubts while reading their articles. However, I have my doubts when reading BBC articles, especially those written in this age of war. Europe is at war and BBC, CNN, France Today, DW, and their respective countries are indirectly involved in the war against RT's state. It is only logical to read about two different perspectives and two different narratives. They are not only physically at war, but they wage a war through the media. Even way before the invasion of Ukraine I was filtering the articles and the words used in them. It was especially interesting to compare the BBC with RT.com. However, most of the people who are voicing their concern over the manipulation of RT.com journalists never actually read more than two articles. People tend to forget about the other perspective. They forget about the possibility of their ignorance as soon as they are hit by a different perspective. Therefore it is of vital importance for those who are actually interested in knowing the real truth to consider using a VPN in order to access and read RT.com. With that, they would be able to fully understand the other perspective. If nothing else, we would know what mistakes not to repeat. It is unbelievably hard to deliberately confront your own contradictions. It is enormously difficult to intentionally put yourself into your opponents’ shoes. Trying to do that without access to Russian state-owned media makes it even harder
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