RT (TV Network) - Organization

Organization

State-owned Ria Novosti news agency, which founded RT in 2005, is one of the largest in Russia. Its Chair is Svetlana Mironyuk who has modernized the agency since her appointment in 2003. RIA Novosti has stated it helped establish RT but is "neither a sponsor nor a backer of Russia Today." Mikhail Seslavinsky, in charge of the Federal Agency on Press and Mass Communications of the Russian Federation asserted in 2005 that "Russia Today will come as an independent company".

In 2007 RT offices were established in the same building as RIA-Novosti after the Russian Union of Journalists was forced to vacate them. In 2012 Anna Kachkayeva, Dean of Media Communications at Moscow's Higher School of Economics, stated that they “share the same roof” because they are located in the same building, but regarding "funding, editorial policy, management and staff, they are two independent organizations whose daily operations are not interconnected in any way."

In 2008 Simonyan noted that more than 50 young RT journalists had gone on to take positions in large Western media outlets. By 2010 RT had grown to a staff of 2000.

In June 2011 RT responded to the criticisms it is "state-run" by noting the official mission statements and funding of other well-known "state-run" television networks like the British Broadcasting Corporation ("BBC"), France 24, Germany's Deutsche Welle and the United States's Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Margarita Simonyan told a reporter that the Kremlin would not dictate content and "Censorship by government in this country is prohibited by the constitution." She explained her job was "to bring the western image of Russia closer to what Russia really is."

In 2012 when foreign media were commenting on RT sponsoring the Julian Assange program, RIA Novosti asserted that "It is the co-founder of the Autonomous Non-Profit Organization (ANO) TV Novosti, launched in December 2005 as Russia Today (RT). Under Russian law, as an autonomous non-profit organization, RT is fully independent of its founders. Its top management body is the Supervisory Council (Board of Directors). RIA Novosti does not have any representatives on the RT Supervisory Council or any other RT management bodies, and hence does not influence the network’s editorial policy, or its financial and economic operation, directly or indirectly".

RT cooperates with a number of media sources in Russia and abroad, including private media like Izvestia, Kommersant, Trud, Nezavisimaya Gazeta, Vedomosti, Argumenty i Fakty and the non-Russian Association for International Broadcasting, Huffington Post, News.com.au and WhatReallyHappened.com.