TV viewers who like their Russian propaganda made in America will have to settle for “Tucker Carlson Tonight.”
RT America — a Russian state-funded news affiliate— is closing shop in the U.S., according to media industry publication Talkers. The network reportedly informed staffers Thursday that its Washington, D.C.-based operations “effective immediately due to the condemnation it is receiving in the United States as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.”
The announcement came during “an all-hands-on-deck staff meeting” in the nation’s capital at noon. Talkers contributor Holland Cooke, who hosted a show on RT, explained that programming was made unnecessary when platforms that carry RT distanced themselves from the outlet.
“We’ve been canceled, by cable/satellite/online distribution platforms,” he wrote Thursday.
DirecTV and Roku removed RT America from their respective platforms because of Russian aggression. The news sharing platform Reddit declared Wednesday that it would prohibit links to RT and Russian news outlet Sputnik globally. Social media giants Twitter and Meta have also worked to stop the spread of Russian propaganda following its attack on its neighboring nation. YouTube and Google nixed RT as well.
RT’s Twitter motto, “Freedom over censorship, truth over narrative,” echoes the rhetoric over U.S. outlets that have been targeted for spreading misinformation. The Daily Beast reports that Kremlin-backed media has aired excerpts from Fox News broadcasts in the U.S. as propaganda for its Russian audience.
Last week, Fox News host Carlson trivialized tensions between Russia and Ukraine as a “border dispute,” claimed he had no issues with Russia’s leader and groused that “Democrats in Washington have told you it’s your patriotic duty to hate Vladimir Putin.”
RT has referred to Putin’s attack on Ukraine as a “special operation.”
