{"id":4243,"date":"2014-07-19T14:43:21","date_gmt":"2014-07-19T14:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/?p=4243"},"modified":"2014-07-19T14:43:21","modified_gmt":"2014-07-19T14:43:21","slug":"sara-firth-quits-rt-over-lies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/2014\/07\/19\/sara-firth-quits-rt-over-lies\/","title":{"rendered":"Sara Firth quits RT over &#8220;lies&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"superlist_3393209_3420125\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p>This is yet another case of a defector from RT, the Russian news media organisation. Liz Wahl recently quit over the Crimea conflict and demands on her journalistic integrity in the context of what management and Putin were demanding of the network and its conclusions:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"RT Anchor Quits on Air\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/55izx6rbCqg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Well, lightning does strike twice, this time hot on the heels of a Buk surface-to-air missile striking a civilian Malaysian Airlines plane carrying about 300 people. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/blogs-the-papers-28381514\">The sky<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/world\/europe\/malaysia-airlines-crash-former-bbc-journalist-and-two-newcastle-united-fans-believed-to-be-among-british-mh17-passengers-9614303.html\">rained bodies<\/a>. The fact that simple militia men would not have been able to afford let alone properly operate such a military piece of kit goes to show that the Russian military are deeply involved in the goings on in Ukraine and are at least partially to blame for this horrific event.<\/p>\n<p>http:\/\/youtu.be\/k2Qq-4Zx3cc<\/p>\n<p>The writing is on the wall as far as Putin is concerned. But, apparently, the more the West berates him, the more popular he becomes. It seems that no one has the guts to take them to task, for obvious reasons.<\/p>\n<p>RT has had the opportunity to become a beacon of balance in the world of media. But that beacon has been extinguished by the demands of Putin and the media channel&#8217;s management. As such, the journalists themselves are starting to leave, it seems.<\/p>\n<p>Here is <a href=\"http:\/\/www.theblaze.com\/stories\/2014\/07\/18\/russia-today-correspondent-resigns-over-stations-total-disregard-of-facts-surrounding-malaysian-airlines-crash\/\">The Blaze<\/a> article on Sar Firth, the latest casualty to integrity:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3 itemprop=\"headline\">Russia Today Correspondent Abruptly Quits Over Malaysian Crash Coverage and Levies Big Charge<\/h3>\n<p>A London-based correspondent for Russia Today resigned Friday over what she called the Kremlin-funded\u00a0network\u2019s \u201ctotal disregard\u201d of the facts surrounding Thursday\u2019s\u00a0Malaysia Airlines crash, saying RT is \u201cspreading lies\u201d for Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theblaze.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/sarah-firth.jpg\" rel=\"attachment\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" itemid=\"http:\/\/www.theblaze.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/sarah-firth.jpg\" itemprop=\"associatedMedia\" itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\" alt=\"Sarah Firth (Image source: Twitter)\" src=\"http:\/\/www.theblaze.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/sarah-firth.jpg\" width=\"501\" height=\"386\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sara Firth resigned from Russia Today. (Image source: Twitter)<\/p>\n<p>Sara Firth said in her resignation announcement that while she has respect for \u201cmany on the team,\u201d she\u2019s \u201cfor the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theblaze.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/sarah-firth-3-e1405691893160.jpg\" rel=\"attachment\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" itemid=\"http:\/\/www.theblaze.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/sarah-firth-3-e1405691893160.jpg\" itemprop=\"associatedMedia\" itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\" alt=\"Image source: Twitter \" src=\"http:\/\/www.theblaze.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/sarah-firth-3-e1405691893160.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"550\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Image source: Twitter<\/p>\n<p>Firth\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.buzzfeed.com\/jimwaterson\/russia-today-correspondent-resigns-over-coverage-of-ukranian?bftw=main\" target=\"_blank\">told BuzzFeed<\/a>\u00a0she believed RT was \u201cdisrespectfully\u201d trying to blame the crash on the Ukrainian government.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen this story broke I ran back into the newsroom and saw how we were covering it already and I just knew I had to go,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u201cIt was the total disregard to the facts. We threw up eyewitness accounts from someone on the ground openly accusing the Ukrainian government (of involvement in the disaster) and a correspondent in the studio pulled up a plane crash before that the Ukrainian government had been involved in and said it was \u2018worth mentioning\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s not worth mentioning. It\u2019s RT all over, it\u2019s flirting with that border of overtly lying. You\u2019re not telling a lie, you\u2019re just bringing something up. I didn\u2019t want to watch a story like that where people have lost loved ones and we\u2019re handling it like that,\u201d she said.\u00a0\u201cI couldn\u2019t do it any more, we\u2019re lying every single day. Every single day we\u2019re lying and finding sexier ways to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>She added a quip on Twitter referring to RT\u2019s \u201cstyle guide\u201d:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theblaze.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/sarah-firth-4-e1405692084838.jpg\" rel=\"attachment\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" itemid=\"http:\/\/www.theblaze.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/sarah-firth-4-e1405692084838.jpg\" itemprop=\"associatedMedia\" itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\" alt=\"Image source: Twitter \" src=\"http:\/\/www.theblaze.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/sarah-firth-4-e1405692084838.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"243\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Image source: Twitter<\/p>\n<p>Firth\u2019s resignation came about two hours after she said on Twitter that RT anchors \u201cdo work for Putin\u201d and spread \u201clies\u201d in a conversation with RT London correspondent Polly Boiko, the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/2014\/07\/18\/sara-firth-resigns-russia-today-lies-anchor_n_5598815.html\" target=\"_blank\">Huffington Post<\/a>\u00a0noted.\u00a0Firth alleged that the network asks its anchors to \u201cobscure the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theblaze.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/sarah-firth-2-e1405691685849.jpg\" rel=\"attachment\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" itemid=\"http:\/\/www.theblaze.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/sarah-firth-2-e1405691685849.jpg\" itemprop=\"associatedMedia\" itemscope=\"\" itemtype=\"http:\/\/schema.org\/ImageObject\" alt=\"Image source: Twitter \" src=\"http:\/\/www.theblaze.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/sarah-firth-2-e1405691685849.jpg\" width=\"500\" height=\"339\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Image source: Twitter<\/p>\n<p>RT made similar headlines in March when anchor\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theblaze.com\/stories\/2014\/03\/05\/going-viral-russia-today-anchor-quits-her-job-at-state-owned-tv-network-live-on-the-air\/\" target=\"_blank\">Liz Wahl\u00a0<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theblaze.com\/stories\/2014\/03\/05\/going-viral-russia-today-anchor-quits-her-job-at-state-owned-tv-network-live-on-the-air\/\" target=\"_blank\">resigned live on air<\/a>, saying she could not \u201cbe part of a network that is funded by the Russian government that whitewashes the actions of (Vladimir) Putin.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"ad-300x250-instory-1\" style=\"text-align: justify;\" data-cb-ad-id=\"instory_300x250-1\"><\/div>\n<div id=\"superlist_3393209_3420148\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p>Firth said inexperienced RT staffers would be assigned to important stories so they wouldn\u2019t veer away from the company line.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe way it works with a story like this is first of all the people who are assigned are the very obedient. The second you start to question or report honestly then you\u2019re a problem,\u201d she told BuzzFeed.\u00a0\u201cThe first thing that happens is they assign the usually least experienced in RT, the second is everyone else who\u2019s involved [starts] phoning guests that have a particular viewpoint and are going to say a particular thing.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"superlist_3393209_3420149\" style=\"text-align: justify;\">\n<p>More from BuzzFeed:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>She insists she never lied in any of her reports but became concerned about the airtime given to her journalism and was concerned her reports were \u201clending credibility\u201d to the channel\u2019s other output. She alleges she was pulled out of Syria by channel bosses the day after filing a report highlighting the suffering of civilians in areas opposed to the Assad regime, which is backed by President Putin.<\/p>\n<p>Firth said she had immense respect for her \u201ctalented\u201d colleagues and said the vast majority of journalists at the channel were working hard to tell the truth but the management \u201cignore that and push the rubbish.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s great team, so talented. But at the heart of that organisation it\u2019s rotten. Until they have people operating at the top level who want to tell the truth and tell the facts then it\u2019s not going to change.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Russia Today spokeswoman Anna Belkina said in a statement to TheBlaze that Firth had \u201crecently informed us that she was likely to take an offer from another firm.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe plane crash is an absolutely terrible tragedy, there are a lot of questions that surround it and everybody is looking for answers. More than 15 RT journalists are working on this story \u2013 from Moscow, from the Russian-Ukrainian border, London, Berlin, Washington. RT Spanish journalist Francisco Guaita was one of the first TV correspondents to get to the scene late last night. Our reporters are in the Netherlands and Malaysia. Sara was never involved in reporting on this event,\u201d Belkina said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSara has declared that she chooses the truth; apparently we have different definitions of truth,\u201d she continued. \u201cWe believe that truth is what our reporters see on the ground, with their own eyes, and not what\u2019s printed in the morning London newspaper. In our coverage, RT, unlike the rest of the media, did not draw conclusions before the official investigation has even begun. We show all sides of the story, even if everyone else has already decided which side is to blame.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is yet another case of a defector from RT, the Russian news media organisation. Liz Wahl recently quit over the Crimea conflict and demands on her journalistic integrity in the context of what management and Putin were demanding of the network and its conclusions:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,26],"tags":[1380,1377,562,1379,101,1378],"class_list":["post-4243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-the-news","tag-crimea","tag-integrity","tag-media","tag-rt","tag-russia","tag-ukraine"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4243"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4245,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4243\/revisions\/4245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/tippling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}