page_title: RT (TV network)
section_title: 2008–2012
hierarchical_section_title: RT (TV network) / Assessments and responses / Other responses to RT's news coverage / 2008–2012
caption_attribution_description: English: Russia Today team covering protests on Bolotnaya square in Moscow on 10/12.
context_page_description: RT is a state-controlled international television network funded by the Russian federal tax budget. It operates pay television channels directed to audiences outside of Russia, as well as providing Internet content in English, Spanish, French, German, Arabic, and Russian.
  RT operates as a multilingual service with conventional channels in five languages: the original English-language channel was launched in 2005, the Arabic-language channel in 2007, Spanish in 2009, German in 2014 and French in 2017. RT America, RT UK and other regional channels also offer some locally based content.
  RT is a brand of "TV-Novosti", an "autonomous non-profit organization", founded by the Russian news agency, RIA Novosti, on 6 April 2005. During the economic crisis in December 2008, the Russian government, headed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, included ANO "TV-Novosti" on its list of core organizations of strategic importance of Russia.
  RT has been described as a propaganda outlet for the Russian government and its foreign policy. RT has also been accused of spreading disinformation by news reporters, including some former RT reporters.
context_section_description: During the 2008 South Ossetia War, RT correspondent William Dunbar resigned after the network refused to let him report on Russian airstrikes of civilian targets, stating, "any issue where there is a Kremlin line, RT is sure to toe it." According to Variety, sources at RT confirmed that Dunbar had resigned, but rejected that it was over bias. One senior RT journalist told the magazine, "the Russian coverage I have seen has been much better than much of the Western coverage... Russian news coverage is largely pro-Russia, but that is to be expected."
  Shaun Walker, the Moscow correspondent for The Independent, said that RT had "instructed reporters not to report from Georgian villages within South Ossetia that had been ethnically cleansed." Julia Ioffe wrote that an RT journalist whose reporting deviated from "the Kremlin line that Georgians were slaughtering unarmed Ossetians" was reprimanded. Human Rights Watch said that RT's claim of 2,000 South Ossetian casualties was exaggerated.
  In 2012, Jesse Zwick of The New Republic criticized RT, stating it held that "civilian casualties in Syria are minimal, foreign intervention would be disastrous, and any humanitarian appeals from Western nations are a thin veil for a NATO-backed move to isolate Iran, China, and Russia." He wrote that RT wants to "make the United States look out of line for lecturing Russia." Zwick also wrote that RT provided a "disproportionate amount of time" to covering libertarian Republican Ron Paul during his 2012 presidential campaign. Writing after her 2014 on-air resignation, Liz Wahl suggested the reason for this "wasn't his message of freedom and liberty but his non-interventionist stance and consistent criticism of U.S. foreign policy. His message fit RT's narrative that the United States is a huge bully." In a June 2011 broadcast of Adam vs. the Man, host Adam Kokesh had endorsed fundraising for Paul, leading to a complaint to the Federal Election Commission charging a political contribution had been made by a foreign corporation. Kokesh denied his cancellation in August was related to the complaint, but said it did involve Paul's aide Jesse Benton.
  In September 2012, UK broadcast regulator Ofcom found that two Libyan dispatches broadcast by RT's Lizzie Phelan in a year earlier were in breach of its code on accuracy and impartiality. The following November, RT was again found in breach of impartiality rules in relation to its coverage of the Syrian conflict. An August 2013 story concerning unverified reports of the killing of 450 Kurdish civilians near the Turkey-Syria border was also found to have breached Ofcom's rules. That December, Ofcom found RT in breach of its standards in relation to the impartiality of a documentary entitled "Syrian Diary" broadcast the previous March. Speaking in 2014 former RT reporter Sara Firth said that there had previously been examples of senior editorial interference, and that she had been pulled out of Syria after some "very heated discussions" about the channel's coverage.
caption: RT team covering protests in Bolotnaya Square in Moscow on 10 December 2011
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