Men in Hats
I've been watching some of the coverage of Flight MH17 on Russia Today and it is indeed a poor excuse for a TV Channel - one that makes a station like Fox News look 'fair and balanced' because they at least have the occasional 'liberal' to balance their famously pro-Republican political slant.
If you ask me, Russia Today acts more like a fan club for President Putin so here's a fetching photo of the man himself wearing a rather nice hat.
Which is about as tough as it gets for the Russian leadership, if my recent viewing experience is anything to go by.
Plane disaster is met with a sheepish silence from Russian media
President Putin met Russian Orthodox church leaders yesterday at the St Sergius Monastery, northeast of Moscow - Photo Ria Novosti/EPA
By Helen Womack - The Times
After weeks of strident anti-Ukrainian propaganda, there was a sheepish silence from much of the Russian media yesterday as the possibility grew that pro-Russian rebels would be found to have shot down Flight MH17.
Allowing the pictures to speak for themselves, the pro-Kremlin news site LifeNews showed plenty of footage of the wreckage, with little commentary.
RT (Russia Today) led its news with a statement from the Russian defence ministry that a Ukrainian anti-aircraft missile battery had been operational in the area at the time of the crash, before going on to cover Gaza and Edward Snowden, the American whistleblower.
President Putin was defensive. “Without doubt, the government of the territory on which it happened bears responsibility for this frightening tragedy,” he said in initial comments that blamed Kiev for abandoning a truce. Yesterday his tone changed slightly when he called for an urgent settlement of the crisis in Ukraine.
On the Echo of Moscow website, which prides itself on giving a platform to various voices, Vitaly Tretyakov, a famous newspaper editor during Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika reforms and now a trainer of Russian TV journalists, gave a Kremlin-loyal analysis.
Only three possible culprits could be responsible for bringing down the plane, he said: Kiev, because of its unprofessional military; self-defence units of New Russia (the pro-Russian separatists); or dark third forces, wanting to blacken Russia.
However, in another scathing blog, Alexander Minkin, an opposition journalist, took Mr Putin to task for his slow and inadequate response. “A passenger plane has been shot down, 298 dead, including children. The world is in shock. If it turns out that our weapons are involved, the world will soon start taking a very different tone with us.”
He added: “Obama has already spoken, Poroshenko [the president of Ukraine] also, and Putin is silent. On his official site at 20.20 [Thursday] appears the news: ‘Putin warmly congratulates [Angela] Merkel on her birthday.’ For two hours already, the world has been talking about this catastrophe.”
Mr Minkin added: “They [the Kremlin] say, ‘Well, nothing’s clear yet’. But the President should speak to the people not when all is clear . . . but straight away. Yes, we’re talking about Ukrainian territory but everyone understands that the weapons could well be ours. And it’s where we [unofficial volunteers] are taking part in fighting. But that’s Putin’s character. He kept silent for far too long about the Kursk and many other things.”
Mr Minkin’s mention of the Kursk submarine, which sank in 2000 with the loss of all her 118 sailors, was a reference to when Mr Putin, as a new, inexperienced leader, stayed on holiday too long and failed to show sufficient public concern. The curbs on Russia’s free media date back to the Kursk disaster, when Mr Putin was made to look weak and foolish by journalists who were still able to investigate and speak out.
Piles of flowers were laid at the Dutch embassy in Moscow yesterday, with a note in Russian saying: “Forgive us.”
A London-based correspondent working for Russia Today, the Kremlin-funded news channel, has resigned over its reporting of flight MH17. Sara Firth, 28, who has worked for the station — which is soon to expand its presence in the UK — for five years, called coverage of the tragedy “abysmal” in its attempt to pin the blame on Ukraine.
Ms Firth, who worked from the channel’s Moscow base before moving to London two years ago, said the coverage was “the final straw” in her decision to resign. “The truth for them is flexible,” she said.“The management are the Russian government. We are government-funded. RT is its own entity but it’s operating for the same agenda. It’s about promoting the Russian government.”
