CPJ Condemns the US Forcing of Russia Today To Register As ‘Foreign Agent’

The Kremlin-backed international news network RT America registered as a "foreign agent" in the United States at the request of the Department of Justice on Monday, the outlet’s editor-in-chief has announced later in the day.

"Between a criminal case and the registration we chose the latter. Congratulations to the US freedom of speech and all those who still believe in it," Margarita Simonyan said in a statement.

RT, a Russian international television network funded by the Russian government, got the communique from DOJ which demanded that RT America should register as a foreign agent by November 13 under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) enacted in 1938.  

The Act requires "persons acting as agents of foreign principals in a political or quasi-political capacity to make periodic public disclosure of their relationship with the foreign principal, as well as activities, receipts and disbursements in support of those activities".

After Simonyan's announcement, Acting Assistant Attorney General for National Security Dana J. Boente said: "Americans have a right to know who is acting in the US to influence the U.S. government or public on behalf of foreign principals.

"The Department of Justice is committed to enforcing FARA and expects compliance with the law by all entities engaged in specified activities on behalf of any foreign principal, regardless of its nationality."

This has also drawn a lot of flak from the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). “Compelling RT to register under FARA is a bad idea. This is a shift in how the law has been applied in recent decades, so we have little information about how its reporting requirements might affect individual journalists," said Alexandra Ellerbeck, the North America Program Coordinator for CPJ.

With its first international news channel launched in December 2005, RT is a global news network that includes seven TV channels, digital platforms in six languages and a video news agency Ruptly.

US seems to be worried about the increasing Russian media influence in creating international opinions, which once was scripted by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the West. International experts argue that RT has played an important role in debunking the US-led narratives portrayed in media about the Middle East and Latin America.

“Since the early 1950s the CIA “has secretly bankrolled numerous foreign press services, periodicals and newspapers—both English and foreign language—which provided excellent cover for CIA operatives,” said Carl Bernstein, an American investigative journalist and author.

One such large-scale program was the Operation Mockingbird, which began in the early 1950s and attempted to manipulate news media for propaganda purposes. According to writer Deborah Davis, Mockingbird recruited leading American journalists into a propaganda network and oversaw the operations of front groups.

Press manipulation was always a paramount concern of the CIA, as with the Pentagon. Joe Trento in his book The Secret History of the CIA, published in 2001,writes that:

“One of the most important journalists under the control of Operation Mockingbird was Joseph Alsop, whose articles appeared in over 300 different newspapers.” Other journalists willing to promote the views of the CIA, included Stewart Alsop (New York Herald Tribune), Ben Bradlee (Newsweek), James Reston (New York Times), Charles Douglas Jackson (Time Magazine), Walter Pincus (Washington Post), William C. Baggs (Miami News), Herb Gold (Miami News) and Charles Bartlett (Chattanooga Times).”

The US authorities had earlier accused the Russian media outlets of influencing public opinion, during the 2016 presidential election, by spreading ‘fake news’. In October, Social media giant Twitter announced that it would ban advertisements from Russia's RT and Sputnik news agencies.

On the other hand, Russian government officials, including President Vladimir Putin said they would take a "tit for tat" measure against American outlets in Russia in retaliation for the pressure on RT.

Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said that new action against American outlets would come this week.

With its first international news channel launched in December 2005, RT is a global news network that includes seven TV channels, digital platforms in six languages and a video news agency Ruptly.

(with inputs from IANS report)