Friday 29th of March 2024

taking the bullshit by the horns...

bullhorn

 

‘Provocative adverts for Kremlin-owned television channel’ is the familiar opening for the Times’ latest knickers in a twist article on RT, as the Murdoch-owned broadsheet joined the angry scrum to condemn a tongue-in-cheek advertising campaign on the London Underground.

A commenter under the Times article itself poses perhaps the most pertinent question: “What happened to our world-famous sense of humor?”


Gus note:  it should say here "humour". This is pommyland...

 

 

The thrust of the piece is that the Labour Party has asked broadcasting regulator OFCOM to look at the RT ads, which pose ironic (that is a key word here) questions such as ‘The CIA calls us a propaganda machine. Find out what we call the CIA,” or “Missed the train? Lost a vote? Blame it on us.”

 

 

 

Labour’s Tom Watson is quoted as saying the ads amounted to a “tacit admission that RT is the mouthpiece of the state.” He also admitted they have an ironic tone.

What he doesn’t admit – in fact what no one seems ready to admit – is that RT, not Russia, has been directly accused of being or doing those things. Responding to accusations is not really admitting anything, is it?

Perhaps we could put this in the language of the schoolyard. It might be easier to visualize exactly what is happening here...

Bully: “You’re a propaganda bullhorn.

Target: (Sarcasm) “Oh yeeeahhh, I’m such a propaganda bullhorn.

Bully: “Oh my god, they admitted to being a propaganda bullhorn!

The Times said RT declined to comment about the complaint. Why respond to a complaint to OFCOM via the Times?

 

RTdid respond to the paper, to fill in a few factual gaps, and the paper used them. Yep, it used the response that RT apparently “declined.

There was no opportunity given to respond to the ongoing campaign being waged by the paper against RT, though.

In case anyone’s interested, here’s what RT would officially like the chance to say:

The Times’ unhealthy obsession with RT, as evidenced by almost daily publications about our channel, appears to have reached truly troubling levels, when they are willing to blatantly lie about RT declining to comment, simply when they get a comment that doesn’t fit their hysterical spin. We wonder what the UK print regulator might have to say about that.

 

 

The outrage caused across Britain by these ads has clearly been off the scale. The Advertising Standards Authority has reportedly been inundated by an avalanche of a single complaint. One WHOLE complaint.

The Times has it in for RT. It’s a nice easy target, and in the last fortnight alone there have been upwards of five stories printed in its pages about the organization.

read more:

https://www.rt.com/uk/407191-underground-ofcom-times-adverts/

 

 

the times should spend its time to savage tony abbott...

But it won't... The Times like all the merde-och press LOVES Tony Abbott. Our other media is spending too much time trying to tell Abbott hat he is wrong — when all they should say is that Tony Abbott talks bullshit... But Tony Abbott gives them something to say about a nothing. Tony Is less than a nothing... Our general media should say that "Tony Abbott talks bullshit" — not a word more. End of editorialisation. (read: scriptures study lesson...)

twitter offer...

Twitter pushed RT for a large ad buy for the 2016 US election, but the channel declined the offer.

 

UPDATE: Twitter announces policy decision to off-board advertising from all accounts owned by RT

At the end of September [2017], Twitter published a report titled ‘Russian interference in 2016 US elections, bots, & misinformation’ which included confidential data on RT ad campaigns and implied that the channel was trying to influence Twitter users via advertising on the platform.

This absolutely groundless and greatly-misleading association compels us to reveal the details of the 2016 negotiations during which Twitter representatives pitched to RT a large-sum advertising proposal. It was developed around promoting RT’s US election coverage on the micro-blogging platform. This proposal was eventually declined by RT.

We want to emphasize that, unlike our partners at Twitter, at this time we are not releasing any financial details from that proposal, nor the names of people involved in these negotiations, as we value and respect our partnerships and the confidentiality of contracts.

The goal of this disclosure is to provide the facts: that RT has never been involved in any illegal activity online, and that it never pursued an agenda of influencing the US election through any platforms, including Twitter.

Here are the facts:

  • RT never violated any rules while advertising on Twitter.
  • RT has never dealt with, and will never deal with, bots or any other compromised tools on any social media platform.
  • RT has never spread any sort of deliberate misinformation. If we had, RT would have been banned by any social media platform in question, as all of them have strict rules regarding policy violations.
  • RT always has been, is, and will be a reliable partner and publisher on global social media networks which provide opportunities for all media to reach new and diverse audiences.
Twitter to RT: ‘Spend big to take a stand’

The RT and Twitter teams held a number of direct negotiations, during which we brainstormed potential media strategy ahead of American elections in 2016. The first meeting dates back to as early as April 2016, and involved senior marketing and news partnerships managers from Twitter.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/op-edge/407858-rt-twitter-us-election/


 

fermenting grapes...

Six months after one of Britain’s worst post-war disasters in which dozens died and hundreds lost their homes, the Times newspaper has attacked activists seeking justice for victims, and chucked in another swipe at RT for good measure. Because why not?

The Times gets off to a strong start in its RT story with the line “A Kremlin-controlled TV station seized on the Grenfell Tower fire to try to foment ‘class war’ in Britain.” It’s a scary accusation, albeit an inaccurate one. RT only aims to foment class war in the early spring. A quick glance around the office shows you’re more likely to find staff fermenting grapes than fomenting class war.

But RT has become so helpful for The Times in filling its pages it should be sending over a cheque for advertising revenue. Make it out to a Mr V. V. Putin.

When a story goes in this strong, it’s hardly surprising that reality and facts cower in the burning glow of feigned indignation. The use of the word ‘seized’ is interesting. You could replace it with, for example ‘reported on.’ Hard to say what RT UK as a news organization was supposed to report in the wake of such a massive story. Perhaps The Times’ newsdesk can check RT’s stories before they go out, to make sure none of Rupert Murdoch’s minions are offended.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/uk/412754-times-newspaper-grenfell-tower/

 

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