The Russian-backed, Washington DC-based propaganda channel RT America has been closed down, devastating its regular viewer:
The U.S. cable news network RT America informed its employees that it’s halting operations immediately and laying off almost all staff, according to a memo obtained by CNBC.
RT America is an English-language sister network of RT, the Russian state-owned news channel. It’s operated by Russia-backed T&R Productions, which sent a memo Thursday to more than 100 employees informing them their employment will end on May 3, according to a person familiar with the matter.
“As a result of unforeseen business interruption events, T&R Productions LLC will be ceasing production and, therefore, must lay off most of its staff who work at all its locations,” wrote Misha Solodovnikov, T&R Productions’ General Manager, in a note to employees. “We anticipate this lay off will be permanent.”
DirecTV, the largest U.S. satellite-TV operator, stopped carrying RT America earlier this week — a decision based on Russia’s attack on Ukraine. Roku followed DirecTV’s lead by removing the network from its Roku Channel Store.
Man, Tim Miller gets results fast. Well…that and a brutal sanctions regime that makes it more or less impossible for anyone at RT America to get paid at the moment. (Incidentally, as of last night, the RT channel on my Roku smart TV - yeah, I have it out of morbid curiosity, alongside China’s CGTN and Steve Bannon’s online home, “America’s Voice” - was still working, though the RT America feed is gone.)
Charlie Lewis of Crikey, an Australian site I’m deeply saddened to find out doesn’t use the slogan “That’s not a knoife,” actually watched RT for 24 hours and is still kind of weirded out by it:
First the obvious stuff. It is transparently a propaganda outlet and the “news” is just as you’d expect — talking points of Russian political and military leadership, unquestioningly repeated. There are images of grateful Ukrainians waving at Russian tanks, or children clambering on them like playground equipment. The homes of “good, happy” families in Donbass destroyed but for one suspiciously intact family photo or children’s book. The veracity of the “deNazification” premise of the invasion is not debated. And it is all delivered with the same patina of straight, serious news.
Much of the commentary has a tang of put-upon self-pity, which also animates a lot of Trump-adjacent conservatism, and I can’t believe that’s got nothing to do with the sympathy between the two groups. Vladimir Putin has, for most of his time in power, fostered a sense of humiliation and grievance in the Russian people — national glory sacrificed to foreign influence. No wonder Trump calls him a genius.
Still it’s strange hearing rants about the “US and its allies” from ALDI Fox News types, the same indistinguishable line-up of blonde women and shouty men in suits who would have been cheering US troops converging on Baghdad a few years back.
[…]
Almost every ad is entirely about how you can’t trust “corporate media”, mixed with a promise to tell you the truth. They are disorienting, assaulting to the senses and, in a way, surreally poetic, like phrases translated from English into several other languages and back again. “It sometimes seems that we are like mice squeaking against the avalanche,” intones Chris Hedges, a former journalist for The New York Times. “But squeak we must.”
Many of the talking heads make for a grim Google search. Take Omar Navarro, interviewed on the daily broadcast News Views Hughes. The guy is a serially failed candidate for Maxine Waters’ district, not to mention the recipient of two restraining orders from ex-partners, the violation of which helped land him in jail for six months. He also seems barely able to put a sentence together. None of which disqualifies him from being interviewed about US “freedom convoys”. They like COVID scepticism at RT.
Poor Chris. Hopefully TeleSUR is hiring.
The United States and Russia do have one thing in common: in both countries, Russian TV networks are being taken off the air.
The difference in this case, though, is that said “unforeseen business interruption events” mean that Putin will have them jailed or worse if they don’t kindly shut themselves down:
The number of independent media voices Russians can read and watch is dropping fast.
Russian authorities have restricted access to news publications including BBC Russia, Radio Liberty and Latvia-based Meduza, RIA Novosti reported on Friday. The media outlets have been added to a list of publications "containing appeals for mass riots, extremism, and participation in illegal mass rallies," according to the state news agency.
The move is part of a major media crackdown following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. On Friday, lawmakers approved a law criminalizing the spread of "fake" information that discredits the Russian armed forces or calls for sanctions against the country, state media agencies reported. Lawbreakers face fines of up to 1.5 million rubles ($13,877).
The crackdown has forced some outlets to shut up shop and their journalists to leave the country.
Znak.com on Friday became the latest publication to announce it was closing down, citing the "large number of restrictions that have recently appeared" in a statement on its Telegram account. On Thursday, Moscow-based Radio Echo said it had shuttered its radio channel and website.
Independent Russian news outlet TV Rain, also known as Dozhd, aired its last broadcast on Thursday. It was forced to shut down because of the Russian government's crackdown on local media outlets over their coverage of the war in Ukraine.
[…]
The station had already been forced off the air, but in a YouTube broadcast, staff signed off saying "no to war," before walking off the station's set.
The network then broadcast Tchaikovsky's ballet Swan Lake, a nod to the 1991 coup attempt against the government of then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. As the coup was happening, the ballet played repeatedly on television, an indication to viewers that something was wrong.
This isn’t because of Putin desperately trying to hide the military and humanitarian disaster in Ukraine from his people, though. It’s all about stopping “misinformation,” a power to which we should certainly entrust governments and could never possibly be used for political ends.
As Putin tightens his grip on electronic media, Russians might soon find themselves digging their parents’ Soviet-era shortwave radios out of storage.
Re: the demise of RT America...quivering lip, sniff, muffled sob. NOT!! Not even on 1A grounds. The ownership aren't Americans. So, effe 'em on all counts. All day, every day. Should have happened long ago.
The employees here that are Americans...well, there's that old saw about what you get up with after you lay down with dogs. Happy scratching...