Simonyan’s parallel is false. The BBC Charter focuses on culture and values, not government policies. The values themselves — accuracy, impartiality and fairness — are core attributes of bona fide journalism. The themes focus on the United Kingdom as a whole, not, again, government policies. This is light years away from Simonyan’s description of RT as “waging the information war” on behalf of the Russian government.

Her words also reveal a particular desire for fluent English-speaking “talking heads” to present and defend the Kremlin’s point of view on air — one of the main failings of Russian information warfare in 2008, according to Simonyan.

If in conflict, leave it out

This approach — build an audience in peace, propagandize it in war — explains the paradox of RT’s approach. Some of its coverage has been genuinely innovative, and has won professional prizes, notably its coverage of the “Occupy” movement.

Repeatedly, however — most blatantly in “critical moments” — it has failed to observe basic journalistic standards, targeting perceived enemies of Russia with one-sided coverage, in very much the style of the blunt instrument characterized by Kommersant.

For example, Russia’s occupation of Crimea in March 2014 was clearly a “critical moment”, in Simonyan’s use of the phrase. RT repeatedly ran news bulletins in which the Ukrainian government was accused of atrocities, and in which Ukrainian demonstrators were accused of Nazi sympathies, without providing adequate coverage of the Ukrainian government’s and demonstrators’ point of view.

RT headline from March 2, 2014. The article interviewed an “international affairs writer” who portrayed Ukraine as being run by “neo-fascists from Lvov”, a “mobocracy”, and an “illegal and unconstitutional” government. The interviewer did not challenge that portrayal, or reference the point of view of the Ukrainian authorities, instead calling them the “self-proclaimed authorities in Kiev”. This effectively adopted, unchallenged, the Russian government’s portrayal of events, and left out that of the Ukrainian government. (Source: RT)

The role of a genuine news outlet practicing journalism in such a situation would have been to report both sides’ perspectives on the conflict, together with contextual information, such as the actual, small proportion of Ukrainian demonstrators with far-right sympathies.

RT’s behavior was different. According to a ruling by the United Kingdom’s telecoms regulator, Ofcom, which is tasked with upholding standards of broadcast accuracy and impartiality, four successive RT bulletins on the Crimean crisis in early March 2014 failed to provide adequate coverage of the Ukrainian government’s point of view, and thus failed to adhere to basic journalistic standards:

Across the four news bulletins broadcast between 1 March 2014 and 6 March 2014, Ofcom noted there was one brief example that could be reasonably characterised as the view of the interim Ukrainian Government being reflected to some degree and with due weight. We did not however consider this was sufficient to balance the many other viewpoints within these news bulletins criticising (some seriously so), or in opposition to, the interim Ukrainian Government and its policies and actions.

This is by no means the only time RT failed in its journalistic duty. In July 2016, Ofcom found RT guilty of similar violations, this time ignoring the Turkish government’s position in interview shows on the plight of the Kurds.

In this case, two successive ten-minute interviews featured pro-Kurdish activists accusing the Turkish government of genocide or ethnicide. The only direct reference to the Turkish government’s stance was a banner at the end of the first interview with a voice-over, which stated RT had contacted the Turkish Embassy in London and received no response.

The end of the RT interview, showing the Turkish flag and voiceover. (Source: YouTube)

RT’s explanation to Ofcom included the point that it had not been able to find a comment from the Turkish government, but had included other comments critical of the Kurds. Ofcom did not accept this excuse:

If a broadcaster cannot obtain an interview or a statement on a particular viewpoint on a matter of political controversy then it ‘MUST find other methods of ensuring that due impartiality is maintained [emphasis added]’ (…) The Licensee was still obliged to ensure that due impartiality was preserved by reflecting the viewpoint of the Turkish Government in the programmes but failed to do so.

Ofcom’s rulings show that RT has repeatedly failed the test of impartiality in its coverage of conflicts or disputes in which Russia is involved. Yet another finding concerned RT’s failure to provide balance in its commentary on the 2016 NATO summit. On this occasion, a twelve-minute discussion featured four different commentators attacking NATO, with comments such as these:

Peter Lavelle: This is the backdoor, the ultimate back door for American hegemony in Europe and this is a finger being thrown at Brexit. Mark Sleboda: France traditionally plays the part of good cop trying to lure Russia into dialogue and accepting the status quo, in particular here in Ukraine and, you know, the new confrontational status, while the US and previously the United Kingdom hammered home the bluster and rhetoric. Dmitry Babich: I think that it’s like two robbers coming to a house and one of them says ‘Let’s just break in and intimidate the owner’ and the other one says ‘no, let’s first have a dialogue with the owner.’ Rory Suchet: We have a minute group of megalomaniac powerbrokers hell bent on sending us into a third world war.

The only reflection of NATO’s point of view was a caption quoting the Chair of the NATO Military Committee as doubting that Russia intended to invade Europe. On this occasion, TV-Novosti acknowledged that it had violated the obligation to preserve due impartiality, but asked that Ofcom not find it guilty, blaming the violation, in part, on ‘technical problems’:

The Licensee stated that ‘technical problems’ on the day of recording caused pre-prepared ‘caption comments’ to fail to appear on-screen during the recording. TV Novosti said this resulted in disruption during recording, and that the programme required heavy editing afterwards and the comments were then ‘inadvertently omitted’.

Again, Ofcom decided that that explanation was insufficient:

Ofcom did not consider that these factors were sufficient to merit resolving this matter. The breach of the Code in this case resulted, by the Licensee’s own admission, from a series of mistakes that would have been evident to its staff. Ofcom also noted that TV Novosti did not identify the issue itself before or on broadcast.

RT’s violation on this occasion could have been the result of incompetence; however, it fits a broader, and well-established, pattern. In each of the above cases, RT’s coverage was nakedly partial and biased, missing out the voices of the Russian government’s opponents. It reported accusations against Ukraine, without giving the Ukrainian government’s position due coverage; it reported accusations against Turkey, without giving the Turkish government’s position due coverage; it carried attacks on NATO, without giving NATO’s position due coverage.

All these violations were committed at times when Russia was in conflict — in March 2014, with Ukraine; in March 2016, with Turkey, over the latter’s downing of a Russian aircraft. In July 2016, Russia’s relationship with NATO was extremely tense, not least because of NATO’s decision to reinforce its presence in Eastern Europe.

“Aggressive NATO”: headline of another RT talk show around the NATO Warsaw summit. The episode highlighted by Ofcom has been taken offline. (Source: YouTube)

This repeated failure to uphold basic standards of journalism (hence Ofcom’s findings) exposes RT as the very “information weapon” that Simonyan described. Its purpose is to serve the Russian government’s tactical and strategic interests, by attempting to manipulate Western public opinion in ways that benefit the Kremlin’s policies.

It cannot be viewed as bona fide journalism.

Jumping ship

The binary approach — building an audience through alternative reporting, then targeting it with propaganda at “critical moments” — also explains the high-profile resignations which RT has endured since the annexation of Crimea.

First, on March 5, 2014, RT America anchor Liz Wahl spectacularly resigned on air in protest at RT’s coverage of the Crimean crisis, and said, “I cannot be part of a network funded by the Russian government that whitewashes the actions of Putin.”