RT's success reflects left's failings

Submitted by Matthew on 8 January, 2014 - 12:00

I welcome the sentiments of Eric Lee’s article “Why socialists should have nothing to do with Russia Today” (Solidarity 306, 4 December 2013).

However, to effectively call for complete boycott of watching RT seems to imply that the way for people to assess media outlets or information sources is by making a black or white decision about the entire station. Instead I think we should be encouraging that people critically assess the news, the source, and the interests behind it and do so in juxtaposition to a variety of media. 

More importantly, however, we need to recognise that Russia Today has achieved such prominence on the UK’s alternative media circuit because the independent left in the UK has utterly failed to come up with an answer of its own to the demand for well-produced, modern media that gives a voice to the labour movement and dissident opinion.

In the US there are daily independent online news programmes like “Democracy Now!” and “The Real News Network” that offer a diverse array of radical left opinions on global events in a high-quality newsroom format. There is nothing like that here.

If the left does not take this issue seriously, the vacuum for quality, independent media will be filled by cranks and reactionaries. A new online project called “The People’s Voice”, has just been launched through a crowd-funding effort, and is basically promising to be a well-produced blend of programmes that cover pseudoscience, conspiracy theory, and Middle East politics in a way that would make Russia Today look fair and balanced. This is unfortunately going to be a powerful draw to a new generation of potential activists who are looking for answers about how the world works. The left has nothing of its own to counterpose.

Online news programmes should be no replacement to newspapers, books, pamphlets, and the more engaging forms of debate, but the reality is they set the narratives in society with great efficiency.

It’s time for the left in the UK to get with the programme and bring their media into the 21st century.

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