Margarita Simonyan is one of those people who you feel privileged to call a friend, and one your ashamed to ask for a favor of for knowing how many she supports. And as sometimes happens, she’s the type that when you finally hazard a request, she delivers more than you expected. Now I leave you to ponder why Vladimir Putin chose this woman to create something compelling and amazing for Russia and the people of the world.
Reflecting on the Outward Voice of Russia
by Margarita Simonyan
For a very long time we had the same few outlets setting the news narrative about the entire world, for the entire world. They had the same people telling the same stories, often casting aside important issues and voices. But we know that the world is more diverse, more complicated than that, and that people across the globe have been hungry, for a long time, for a news source that truly reflects this diversity of stories and opinions. This is the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ of RT finding its space in a crowded news universe: by reporting on what the mainstream media ignores.
Our goal has never been to diminish anything or anyone else. Our mission isn’t to shout down other news sources — including those we consider ‘mainstream media’. Yet we do aspire to providing greater diversity in news at large, to serve the audiences by helping them break out of the mainstream media echo chamber. And yes, it is an echo-chamber. We have seen it time and time again: whatever internal politics may be a cause of disagreements between news outlets within any given country, whenever larger international stories become involved, most of these outlets sing in unison. There are predetermined good guys and bad guys, and the narrative becomes almost identical for nearly every paper and TV channel.
In Russia, there are a lot of media outlets that openly support the US and the West in their anti-Russian sanctions, many journalists who openly go on Russian TV to voice their support for any anti-Russian acts or restrictions, and even media organizations that openly oppose the Kremlin’s entire foreign policy. It’s a precedent unimaginable in, for example, the US news media — to see people supporting anti-American sanctions imposed by another country, or supporting a US adversary. In Russia it happens all the time.
Or take the presidential election in France. From the start, there was a clear media darling — Emmanuel Macron. He was by far the front-cover fix on most, if not all, newspapers and magazines. Perhaps there was some critical coverage of Mr. Macron when it came to internal debates. But when his team made entirely baseless statements that RT was spreading “fake news” about Macron, not a single major French newspaper or TV channel even bothered to ask for a sole example of the supposed transgression. Nor did they check RT content for any of these supposed “fake news” items. Of course, they wouldn’t have found any, if they did. And yet, French media outlets simply reprinted these libelous statements without question or scrutiny. Nobody challenged the establishment narrative. This isn’t something simply lamentable. Myopia in news and public discourse can be downright dangerous.
Instead of aiding in dialogue and mutual understanding, this news media is broadening the understanding gap and escalating tensions. Which is why alternative voices — on any story, any issue — are critical to a healthy public debate. Today, more than ever before.
About the Author
Phil Butler is a digital, media, and geopolitical analyst, who was first influential in the Web technology space. After joining a prominent digital public relations firm in Germany, Pamil Visions PR, he became an influential voice in internet media relations.
As a digital analyst and futurist, Butler examined new strategies and advised major web-based companies on leveraging online traditional and social media. His work during this time enabled technology startup companies to achieve success in a highly competitive market, providing forward-looking marketing services that promoted them to better understand the digital media landscape. As a result of his work in this field, Butler helped develop some of the most successful digital PR and marketing strategies in the field.
At the onset of the new “media war” in between the United States-EU actors and Russia, Butler served as an analyst to help independent media better understand the tools being arrayed against Russia and all opponents to the globalist narrative. A sought-after media analyst and speaker, Butler has been a guest on RTTV, Russia One TV, NTV Russia, and a cited authority by dozens of other major independent media outlets worldwide.
He now lives on the Island of Crete in Greece with his wife Mihaela, and their young son Paul-Jules.
Acknowledgements
I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge and thank the people who helped make telling this story possible. To the “Kremlin Trolls” I failed to frame here, and to those who must go unnamed, the world does truly owe a great debt. Were it not for the extraordinary diligence and consideration of these people, one of the greatest injustices ever suffered by humanity might not have been revealed. The fact that a very few rather ordinary people stood against the most powerful business, political, and media forces in history is epic in and of itself.
Thanks to a wonderful Russian lady whose name cannot be shared for fear of peer pressures from neighbors in southern California, the dissenting view on V.V. Putin took hold in social media more fervently. Were in not for an unnamed couple whose relatives live in Ukraine, the globalist narrative would surely have dominated in the professional and entertainment circles. People like these, with family still in devastated place of crisis, cannot be cited for the genuine danger of recriminations. And the journalists who’ve adopted pen-names in order to protect their jobs and families, they shall remain anonymous until the day comes when truth is not a liability.
Then there are the inspirational influencers I need to thank, for while they are not “Kremlin Trolls” in the perfect sense, they synthesized or amplified the alternative view on Putin, Russia, and the globalist cabal. People like award winning journalists Robert Parry, linguist and philosopher Noam Chomsky, economist Paul Craig Roberts, Princeton Professor Stephen F. Cohen, and Professor Michel Chossudovsky have all made an indelible mark on this moment in human history. These great minds, along with a score of other deep thinkers and researchers, they provided the much-needed authority required to rescue the truth for human kind.