Here
German media (unlike Ebnglish-language corporate media) is according
RT with the respect it is due.
Russia
Today's Editor-In-Chief: 'The West Never Got Over the Cold War
Stereotype'
Margarita
Simonyan, 33, is the editor-in-chief of the state-funded satellite
news network Russia Today. In a SPIEGEL interview, she contends that
Western journalists prefer to paint Russia as an evil aggressor and
that her station is not an outlet for government propaganda.
13
August, 2013
Russian
President Vladimir Putin has created an anti-CNN for Western
audiences with the international satellite news network Russia Today.
He commissioned the network in order to "break the monopoly of
the Anglo-Saxon mass media." The government seems to be
succeeding in its task, with the network gaining more viewers in
major cities in the United States that any other foreign broadcaster.
In
Washington, 13 times as many viewers tune in to Russia Today than
they do its German equivalent Deutsche Welle. A total of 2 million
Brits watch the program. On Youtube, the Moscow-based broadcaster
recently broke the one-billion-hit barrier, becoming the first
broadcaster in the world to do so. Editor-in-chief Margarita
Simonyan, 33, views the broadcaster as a sort of ministry of media
defense for Russia.
SPIEGEL
ONLINE: Your network sees itself as a counterweight to the major US
broadcasters. How did you manage to poach CNN legend Larry King, 79,
of all people?
Simonyan:
You'd have to ask him that question, but I do know that he is happy
to get back into the game.
SPIEGEL
ONLINE: What can Russia Today offer King that others can't?
Simonyan:
I can quote him from an interview he gave recently: "I thought I
could retire, but I love my job. I thought I wouldn't miss it, but I
do."
SPIEGEL
ONLINE: Your network is funded by the Russian government. What is its
mission statement?
Simonyan:
If you tune in to CNN or the BBC on a regular day, 80 or 90 percent
of the stories are identical. We want to show that there are more
stories out there than the 10-a-day that you usually encouter. I'm
not saying that you should watch only our program; I'm saying that
you should also watch it.
SPIEGEL
ONLINE: The Russian media have a slightly more dramatic take on your
objectives. Many are comparing the network to the Ministry of
Defense. You said it yourself, when Russia goes to war …
Simonyan:
… then we will join them in battle, yes. That goes for the
country's real, armed conflicts. Do you remember the August war of
2008? Back then, most Western media outlets acted as if they were
Georgia's ministry of defense.
SPIEGEL
ONLINE: In 2008, Russian troops invaded Georgian territory after
President Mikheil Saakashvili gave the order to attack South Ossetia,
a separatist republic with close ties to Russia.
Simonyan:
All of the Western broadcasters gave only the Georgian side of the
story. Saakashvili was featured on all the networks; his statements
were broadcast on all the programs. According to the reports, Russia
started the war when the country's troops bombed a busy market in the
provincial town of Gori. We immediately sent our correspondents out
there, who found no trace of either shootings or bombings.
Western
broadcasters focused their entire coverage on the suffering of
Georgian civilians. There was no mention of South Ossetians,
meanwhile, who were suffering nightly artillery attacks at the hands
of Saakashvili. It was pro-Georgian propaganda, pure and simple.
SPIEGEL
ONLINE: It wasn't that one-sided. SPIEGEL, for one, reported at an
early stage that it was Saakashvili who had fired the first shot. A
European Union committee came to the same conclusion.
Simonyan:
Sure, afterwards! But how many people actually ended up reading the
EU report? The majority of people to this day believe that Russia
started the war totally unprovoked. The evil Russia pounces on poor
little Georgia.
SPIEGEL
ONLINE: It is not uncommon to see Russia in the role of the
aggressor.
Simonyan:
Objection! Russia hadn't started a war with another country in 20
years. How many armed conflicts has America engaged in in the same
period of time? How many wars has Europe taken part in?
SPIEGEL
ONLINE: How do you explain Russia's negative image?
Simonyan:
The West never got over the Cold War stereotype. One thing that only
few journalists understand is that Russia started dissolving the
Soviet Union of its own accord. We were the ones to realize that
Communism was a failure. We understood that it was wrong to impose
our will on other nations. We released the Eastern bloc into freedom.
We are a different country today, one with a different mentality --
which is something that Western journalists sometimes find difficult
to comprehend. You, for example, stated earlier that Russia was
acting aggressively without backing it up with facts.
SPIEGEL
ONLINE: Is Russia Today's goal to provide objective reporting? Or is
it first and foremost just about offering a perspective different
from that of Western media?
Simonyan:
Have you already seen many examples of objective reporting in
general?
SPIEGEL
ONLINE: Efforts are made to be objective. But your network only
covers one side, offering Syrian dictator Bashar Assad a platform for
his political message.
Simonyan:
There are people who refer to Assad's political opponents as the
"democratic opposition." Even the rebels, however, have
raped women and murdered children. Take Saakashvili, for example. He
is held up as a hero by the BBC. For others, he represents an
oppressor of freedom. There is no objectivity -- only approximations
of the truth by as many different voices as possible.
SPIEGEL
ONLINE: The Russian opposition is rarely featured on your network,
except as a target of smear campaigns. You even accused Russian
blogger and dissident Rustem Adagamov of pedophilia without so much
as a scrap of evidence.
Simonyan:
Why did we report about Adagamov? Because he was publicly positioning
himself as a campaigner for justice.
SPIEGEL
ONLINE: The accusations leveled against him are based solely on
statements coming from his ex-wife, who says that he sexually abused
an underage girl in Norway many years ago. The authorities declined
to bring charges against him due to a lack of evidence.
Simonyan:
We didn't prosecute him; we merely broadcast a report. Would the
German media refrain from giving coverage to a political activist
accused of sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl? I spoke to the wife
myself, and I certainly didn't get the impression that she was crazy.
SPIEGEL
ONLINE: How did it come about that your network was the first to
broadcast images of the arrest of a CIA spy in Moscow in May? How
closely do you work with the authorities?
Simonyan:
We received those images from an agency in the same way that every
other Russian television network does. It wasn't exclusive material.
We were simpler quicker to publish it than others.
The
interview was conducted by Benjamin Bidder in Moscow .
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