RT and Sputnik weren’t closed for getting it wrong.
They were closed for getting it right.
For the last 5 years, I hosted Fault Lines, the flagship show of radio Sputnik in Washington DC, 105.5FM. Monday through Friday, from 7am to 10am, as Americans drove to work, ate breakfast, got in their morning workout – my voice slid into their ears and infected their minds with strange and subversive words that painted a tapestry of ideas that were internalized by a vulnerable public creating waves of social discontent that challenged the activities and narratives of the state. According to the US government, I am a dangerous man. So dangerous and subversive that last month, the Biden administration passed sanctions to force the network, under penalty of fines or imprisonment, to finally turn off the mics and shutter the doors. That misfortune notwithstanding, I have said before and I will repeat it here; manning the helm of Fault Lines has been the honor of my life. And while undoubtedly some will be ticked pink and mock the firing of damn good people, it will not change, touch or in any way resolve the fundamental dilemma confronting the state that destroying Russia Today (RT) and Sputnik in the U.S. seeks to mitigate. Truth. The problem is the inconvenience of truth.
Far be it from me to impune the Washington Post, but democracy dies not in darkness, but in the light of day. Often with applause. These past two years have been bewildering. My job, contrary to what the current ruling order insinuates, was not to lie and “misinform” for the Russian government against U.S.interest. No. My job from the U.S. government’s point of view was an ever greater crime. My job was to get whatever story we were covering as truthfully as our powers of perception allowed from a world’s point of view. I’m sitting on the moon and relaying what I see to the world without friends or favor.
Mind you, we are an international station. Our mandate was to cover the news world wide. I was on location in Geneva, Switzerland to cover the Biden-Putin summit. I was in Brazil and Austria to cover the Brazilian presidential election and the European parliamentary elections. My previous co-host was on the ground in Ethiopia covering the war with the TPLF. We spoke to people across the political spectrum, domestic and internationally, and whether we agreed or disagreed (sometimes vigorously), we let them make their case. Not in 2 minute gotchas, but 15 or 30 minutes of discussion or debate. Our job wasn’t to create a narrative, it was simply to call a spade a spade. Not in a “rules based order” sort of way, but a consistent appraisal that did not provide a divine exclusion from analysis for the U.S.. This didn’t make us “propagandists;” this made us honest. And that honesty paid off with seeing things more clearly with analysis that was more accurate and shown to be more correct than mainstream corporate media.
It was a bewildering experience to work at a Russian radio station when news broke that the Nord Stream pipeline exploded. Western media immediately opined that Russia blew up its own pipeline. Despite having the power to just turn off the oil and despite Russia being ready to continue selling their oil, they were so incompetent they decided to just blow up their own pipeline. This is staggeringly stupid. I pointed out that Joe Biden gave a speech with German Chancellor Olof Scholz, where he said if the Russians go into Ukraine, the U.S. would stop the pipeline. Scholz stood there and said nothing as the US president predicted the German and Russian pipeline project would magically be stopped if the Russians invaded Ukraine. The Russians went in, the pipeline was blown up. I asked the most basic question that no one in the media asked. How did Joe Biden know? Does he have psychics on staff that predicted some force would bring about its destruction. Pointing out to Americans, what everyone everywhere else in the world already knew – Biden said he’d blow it up and he blew it up [1]. According to the official narrative this makes me a propagandist.
In 2014 the Victor Yanukovich government, the democratically elected government of Ukraine (elected by ethnic Russian UKRAINIANS in the east and Ukrainians in the west) was overthrown by a belligerent and deadly mob led by neo-nazis that were used as the tip of the spear. By any definition, this is a coup. The leader of the country was deposed through extra constitutional means. Weeks before this occurred, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland and Amb. Jeffery Pyat [2] had a phone call discussing the future overthrow of Yankovich and identifying the coup regime that was to be propped up after he was violently removed. The US media called this a “revolution of dignity”… not a coup…and insisted that Yankovich was Russian leaning and the new regime was western leaning, so it’s all okay. Sure. If the goons, as democrats see them, fighting cops and screaming “TRUMP TRUMP TRUMP” actually were able to capture the government on January 6, the same media will not be calling it a revolution of anything, they’d call it a coup! This accurate assessment gets me called a propagandist.
After Putin declared one of his objectives was to “de-NAZIfy” Ukraine. Immediately, contorted faces and frenzied typing fingers proclaimed Putin is clearly lying. “There are no NAZIs in Ukraine.” “How could there be NAZIs, Zelensky is half Jewish?” Considering the oceans of ink and clear history indicating there are clearly NAZIs in Ukraine, such as here [3], and here [4], and here [5] – this refusal to acknowledge basic facts because Putin also knows and has expounded the same fact is not just dishonest, it’s childish. Again propagandist.
“Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine” Really? A hostile military organization expands to the Russian border, violently deposes the democratically elected government of Ukraine and not only builds up a massive military near the Russian border, it kills 14,000 ethnic Russian Ukrainians in civil conflicts precipitated by the coup. When the Soviet Union put missiles in Cuba aimed at America, we did not say, Cuba is an independent country, it can do whatever it wants. These missiles were near our borders and we were willing to end the world to force the Soviets to move them. Why is it different when the U.S. does the same thing on the Russian border? This may be inconvenient to bring up, but it is true.
Generals appearing on CNN claiming the Kursk counter offensive operation was a genius move by Ukrainian president Volodomyr Zelensky. I pointed out that it’s true the Russians were caught with their pants down. But I also pointed out that the troops that invaded will be pushed out or killed. Considering no one is mentioning Kursk today due to the astonishing casualties Ukraine is suffering, I’ll consider myself proven correct. Propagandist! As an aside here, reporting came out that former general Valery Zaluzhny, now Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, was also against this plan, asking Zelensky, after you invade, what’s the second step? No answer was provided. I suppose Zaluzhny is also a Russian propagandist.
I picked Russia specific issues but I could do the same with the coverage of Israel or for that matter Iran and North Korea. From a world point of view, the US media, as a whole, functions as state media with an insidious and assumed American triumphalism and innate exceptionalism that excuses excesses of savagery while accentuating that of countries labeled as enemies. So Obama can get 500,000 people killed in a regime change war in Syria and the U.S. can continue to illegally occupy their territory and steal their oil. Bush and Cheney can kill one million Iraqis in another regime change war, spend $7 trillion and thousands of American lives to do it and yet still tour the country with Kamala Harris as a statesman because he believes in democracy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know. Propagandist.
Obviously, a deeply insecure government that is being humiliated in the war in Ukraine and that finds itself isolated across the world for funding and arming Israel’s genocidal attempt to murder its way to a “greater Israel” is not in the emotional place to accept opposition. Fair enough! We should be clear though. “Propagandist” in 2024 is the new term for “inconvenient truth”. Our sin wasn’t that we were getting wrong. Our sin is that we were getting it right.
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWUuhNd37WI
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JoW75J5bnnE
[3] https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/neo-nazis-far-right-ukraine/
[4] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2019/08/09/yes-its-still-ok-to-call-ukraines-c14-neo-nazi/
Jamarl L. Thomas is an analyst covering domestic and international politics on radio, tv and internet. He hosted Fault Lines on 105.5FM in Washington DC for the last several years but currently runs the Jamarl Thomas Morning Show from 7am to 10am, Monday through Friday on the Jamarl Thomas YouTube channel. You can also find him on Twitter at theProgSoapbox.