Translated material
Rupor in a stupor
What do RT channel actually convict in the United States and what threatens its team
Photo: Sott.net
On October 9, on the e -mail of the presentation television channel and other media included in the American broadcasting corporation Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Liberty and the IDEL. Radio website, telling about events in the Russian regions*, received a notification signed by the Director of the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation for non -commercial organizations of Vladimir Titov: the work of journalists The territory of Russia can be limited. In a letter, Titov referred to the Russian Law “On Mass Media”, the 55th article of which is allowed to “establish restrictions for media correspondents of those states in which there are special restrictions for the professional activities of media journalists registered in the Russian Federation.” What kind of restrictions can be discussed in the law does not spell out. In addition, the Russian authorities never used this article “The Media Law” to foreign journalists.
The building of the headquarters "Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe" in Prague. Photo: minube.co.uk
From bad to worse
On October 5, exactly four days before the Ministry of Justice notification was in the electronic boxes of Radio Liberty, at a meeting of the Commission of the Council of the Federation Council for the Protection of State Council (the full name of the body sounds like this - “The working group to monitor external activities aimed at interfering in the internal affairs of the Russian Federation during the temporary commission to protect state sovereignty and prevent intervention in the internal affairs of the Russian Federation”) The editor -in -chief of the RT channel (former Russia Today) Margarita Simonyan performed. She told senators about the “infringement of rights” of the channel journalists by the American authorities who demanded that RT register in the United States as a foreign agent, as she clarified, until October 17. Simonyan did not rule out that RT could leave the American market. “With the worst development of events, we leave the US territory, we no longer broadcast there. - said Simonyan in the Council. - With the worst development of events, Russia meets the same in relation to the American media. What I would not want, because I am a journalist. ”
If RT is recognized as a “foreign agent”, Simonyan complained in the Council of Council, the channel employees will be obliged to publish their data, up to salaries and home phone numbers, which “put their safety under the blow”. According to Glavred, the scenario is not excluded that the American authorities will force RT to go on the air with a special -agent dick, and the distributors will stop broadcasting the channel in the United States.
The whole presidential army
The fact that the US Ministry of Justice demanded that RT America register as a foreign agent, the press service of the channel first reported on September 11. On the same day, Simonyan commented on this event as follows: “The war of the American establishment with our journalists is dedicated to all the beautiful people who still believed in freedom of speech. She was killed by those who invented her. "
For two and a half weeks, the RT management took to mobilize the entire presidential army for their defense.
On September 28, a detailed statement was made by the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova. According to her, the demand of the US Ministry of Justice is contrary to "the American principles of freedom of speech" and "is associated with risks for the security of employees." Zakharova strictly warned the American side: “When“ battles without rules ”begin, the law is perverted and turns into a tool for the destruction of the television company, then each step in relation to the Russian media will have an appropriate answer. And who he will have to, this should be well calculated in Washington. Time has gone. "
RT editor Margarita Simonyan comments on the demand of the US Ministry of Justice to register a company serving Russia Today as a foreign agent in America. Photo: RT in Russian
On September 29, the main caliber gun spoke. The issue was discussed at a meeting of the Security Council of the Russian Federation. “The topic of continuing and sometimes increasing pressure on Russian media in some countries was also touched upon,” the Kremlin press release reads. “The unacceptability of such actions in their regard is noted.”
After this guideline for the case, lawmakers took up the case. Who until recently loved the American law on foreign agents so much and constantly referred to it, composing their own!
By the way, in the mentioned meeting of the Council of Council of the Russian Federation, in addition to Simonyan and Zakharova, the former ambassador of the Russian Federation to the United States, and now the First Deputy Chairman of the Council of International Affairs Sergey Kislyak - all of them unanimously kept saying malicious discrimination and Herring of RT in America.
Simonyan doubts that the conflict will be able to resolve legal methods. “We have the best lawyers, and they believe that there can be no complaints about us in a legal, legal field,” said the editor -in -chief of RT in the Council of Council, making it clear that the American intelligence agencies organized an attack on RT in the United States. “The legal field does not work when intelligence is taken up for business,” said Simonyan.
In early October, Bloomberg reported that Google has removed the RT TV channel from the YouTube bonus packet that the company sells advertisers, Google Preferred. According to Bloomberg, YouTube, like Google, ended up in the focus of the investigation of the investigation of the investigation of the RT TV and other networks that were now in the US Congress, “which the US intelligence agencies defined as close to the Russian government,” could play in attempts to influence American public opinion during and after the US presidential campaign.
“The work of the English -language American media is already sufficiently regulated, but these ( “ Radio Liberty. ” - NT) still work as our ( Russian. - NT) media outlets, they gain state without restrictions, go where they want.”
According to the NT sources in the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation, on October 6, the day after Simonyan performed in the Council, the department received a recommendation from there to “prepare a warning for the American media working in the country (in Russia) in Russian”.
“The work of the English -language American media is already sufficiently regulated, but these ( “ Radio Liberty. ” - NT) still work as our ( Russian. - NT) media,” they gain a state without restrictions, go where they want, ”the NT interlocutor noted, bearing the nature of possible“ response measures ” - restrictions on working and freedom of movement.
However, the American side, apparently, is not interested in the fact that the media scandal spiral is spinning further. In particular, as it became known to NT, journalists of the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Corporation, unlike Russian mediaperson, are recommended not to give public comments on this topic.
A way to achieve transparency
So far, Simonyan and Zakharov said almost nothing on the merits of the question - what conflict actually arose between RT and the American authorities.
In an interview with NTV, Margarita Simonyan said that if RT does not register as a foreign agent: “Lawyers say that we must obey because if we do not obey and do not register, then our people will simply go to jail, we will be arrested by property.”
This frightening script requires clarification. But first, we note two important points. Firstly, the letter of the US Ministry of Justice has not been published anywhere, its content is known only from the words of Simonyan. From it, we know the deadline for registration - October 17. Secondly, which is even more strange, neither Simonyan, nor Zakharov, nor other officials stubbornly call the company, which received a demand.
What Margarita Simonyan means by disclosing personal data of employees is actually the disclosure of the organizational structure of RT America and its financing schemes. This is what Moscow does not want to allow
It is actually about two companies, RTTV America and RTTV Studios belonging to one person with dual citizenship and having the same legal address. It is they who produce all video materials for RT America and distribute the signal through cable broadcasting. Their owner is Alexei Yazlovsky, a classmate and friend of the deceased Kremlin media Magnate Mikhail Lesin.
In 2013, Yazlovsky was prosecuted in the United States for tax evasion, pleaded guilty and was sentenced to one year of a trial period, 640 hours of public work and a fine of $ 60 thousand.
Now a little more about the American Law on Registration of Foreign Agents (Fara). It was adopted in 1938 in order to counter Nazi propaganda, which then widely launched its offensive in the United States, generously paid by American branches of the largest German industrial companies. The law says that an individual or legal entity who agreed to represent the interests of a foreign government, a political party, a company, organization or a private person in the United States should register in this capacity within 10 days and submit its financial report to the American government every six months. All materials distributed by a foreign agent must have an appropriate mark. Lists of foreign agents and their financial statements are published for universal information on a special website of the Ministry of Justice.
Subsequently, amendments were made to the law, and after 1966 the emphasis was on the control of the activities of lobbyists, although the word “propaganda” remained in the full official name of the law. Smile violations of the law can lead to imprisonment for up to five years and/or a fine of up to $ 5 thousand. Criminal cases ending in a real term after 1966 are an exceptional rarity. Naturally, managers, not ordinary employees, are responsible. Fara's property does not provide for the arrest of property. There is not a word about any ban or broadcasting in the law.
It is in the opacity of the critics of RT who see the main problem: even the media with 100 percent public financing can remain independent, provided that his trusteeship and the board of directors include authoritative people known for their personal independence
What Margarita Simonyan means by disclosing personal data of employees is actually the disclosure of the organizational structure of RT America and its financing schemes. That is what Moscow does not want to allow. In particular, because it will then become clear: the channel broadcasting on the American audience and owned by American companies is almost completely funded by the federal budget of Russia.
The editor -in -chief of the RT is right when it claims that the media do not fall under the law on the registration of foreign agents. However, she forgets to add: they do not fall-if the company belongs to US citizens by at least 80%, is not controlled and not financed from abroad.
In order to bring RT from the law, and Alexei Yazlovsky was needed with his two companies. RT America does not produce any content - it only pays RTTV America and RTTV Studios for the product and services.
This loophole in the law is designed to close the draft amendments, which was introduced in June this year to the lower house of Congress Democrat David Chichillin and Republican Matt Gaita. According to the project, the Minister of Justice of the United States has the right even before the initiation of a civil or criminal case to demand from a suspect organization to reveal his structure.
“Foreign propaganda, disguised as a legitimate means of information, remains foreign propaganda,” the congressman Chichillin said, presenting his project. - In the era of social networks and a round -the -clock news cycle, Americans have the right to know that a hostile foreign state is engaged in propaganda directly in their house. This Bill will not allow Vladimir Putin’s regime to spread fake news with the previous ease. ”
One way or another, there is no question of any right to refuse distributors from RT contracts with RT, unless Ms. Simonyan does not mean any other bill, which is not known about anything yet.
It is in the opacity of the critics of RT who see the main problem: even the media with 100 percent public financing can remain independent, provided that his trusteeship and the board of directors include authoritative people known for their personal independence. This difference between BBC America or Deutsche Welle and RT America indicates in his report published in August 2017, the Atlantic Council - Atlantic Council: no one is disclosed, no one is a member of the RT board, nor how and by whom the editorial policy is determined.
However, on the basis of indirect evidence, the former US National Intelligence Director James Klepper makes an unequivocal conclusion: “RT, in fact, is a propaganda Rupor of the government, since the government comes from the government, and its management is close to the Kremlin.”
But you can’t get intelligence to the case, but registration in accordance with Fara is a legal way to achieve transparency.
Claim ratings
Among other things, Margarita Simonyan constantly repeats about the incredible popularity of RT in the United States and explains the pressure with competition: “In news cable television channels - CNN, BBC and others - ratings are falling for many years, numbers are falling. It is clear that they are all connected with the establishment ... They do not need another player, they see where the audience flows ... "
According to the press secretary of RT, Anna Belkin, The Daily Beast , today's Global Audience RT is 700 million people in more than 100 countries, including 85 million in the United States. Belkina also referred to a survey of the Nielsen marketing company, conducted by RT in 2014, which showed that the weekly audience of RT in the 7 largest urban agglomerations of the United States (Washington, New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and San Diego) is 2.8 million people. Meanwhile, officially the results of the survey that Belkin referred to, as the Daily Beast indicates, was never published.
According to other sources that the IPSOS marketing company published in 2015, the RT weekly audience in the United States is 8 million people.
Where does RT come from from the “numbers”, which is included in the five most popular news television companies in the United States, it is approximately clear: its programs are included in cable broadcasting packages as free - for the viewer - application. For this, RT pays to distributors and writes the entire audience of a cable of 200-300 channels into the asset.
So the “incredible popularity”, which Simonyan refers, has a completely rational explanation. But what you can’t take from RT, this is its extreme aggressiveness. They behave more correctly, thinner, more spent - maybe today would not have to scream about the strangulation of freedom of speech in the United States.
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"Foreign Agent with many unknown"
"The US Ministry of Justice confirmed the registration of the RT channel as a foreign agent"
* The central office of all three editions is in Prague. The project “Present” was launched in October 2014 in partnership with the Voice of America, another public broadcaster financed from the US State budget. The regional Bureau "Radio Liberty" was opened in Moscow in 1991 by decree of President Boris Yeltsin. In 2002, Vladimir Putin recognized this decree as lost, but without organizationals for Radio Liberty.