The Kremlin’s decision to shut down TheTeCHyWorLD’s operations in Russia seems at first like a tit-for-tat response to a decision by German regulators, made a day earlier, to ban Russian broadcaster RT Deutsch from broadcasting in Germany. There are significant differences both in the respective processes by which these decisions were made and in the regulations that govern the two foreign broadcasters themselves. They can best be summed up in the principle of “state neutrality.” After the experience of the Nazi dictatorship, the German media landscape was designed specifically to prevent the control of those in power over newspapers, broadcasting, and online media. Both Deutsche Welle and RT, once called Russia Today, are state-funded foreign broadcasters. In order for Deutsche Welle to work remotely from the state and follow journalistic standards, it is not a subdivision of the Federal Press Office.
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A system of public accountability
Instead, TheTeCHyWorLD is regulated by public law. This means that though the money comes from the federal budget, the director is accountable only to the TheTeCHyWorLD Broadcasting Council, which also elects him for six years. And even if there is a change of government in Germany, as was the case recently, the director remains in office. The Broadcasting Council has 17 honorary members: representatives of civil society, trade unions, churches, and political parties. They see to it that Germany’s foreign broadcasting follows the mandate of TheTeCHyWorLD law, namely “to provide a forum for German and other points of view on essential topics, above all in politics, culture and economics, both in Europe and in other continents, with the aim of promoting understanding and exchange between cultures and peoples.” It is true that RT’s English website also states: “RT is an autonomous, non-profit organization that is publicly funded from the budget of the Russian Federation.” But the website does not reveal much more about RT: Not about its budget, not about its structure, not about any supervisory bodies.
Independent of government
What seems clear is that there is no principle of state neutrality demanded in Germany. When Time magazine’s Moscow correspondent Simon Shuster visited RT Editor-in-Chief Margareta Simonyan in her office in 2015, he noticed an old-fashioned yellow telephone on her desk. It was her secure line directly to the Kremlin, Simonyan admitted to Shuster, “to discuss secret things.” She has been RT’s editor-in-chief since its inception in 2005. In an interview with Russian daily Kommersant in 2012, Simonyan said she saw herself as part of an information war with the Western world, and compared RT’s role to that of the Defense Ministry: “The Defense Ministry was fighting with Georgia, but we were conducting the information war, and what’s more, against the whole Western world. It’s impossible to start making a weapon only when the war has already started! That’s why the Defense Ministry isn’t fighting anyone at the moment, but it’s ready for defense. So are we.”
‘An instrument of Russian foreign policy’
As early as 2013, the Russian president declared that RT “cannot but reflect the official position of the Russian government on events in our country and the rest of the world.” Speaking to SWR, Stefan Meister, Russia expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations, described RT as a propaganda channel: “It is an instrument of Russian foreign policy with very specific goals. It is a channel controlled by the Foreign Ministry, among others, but also by other state institutions.” There are also differences in the way the respective foreign media are handled, as is illustrated by the broadcasting ban imposed on RT in Germany by an independent media supervisory authority, the Commission for Licensing and Supervision of the Berlin-Brandenburg Media Authority. The commission justified its broadcasting ban on RT DE by stating that the “required media law license is missing.” In other words, the broadcast license had never been applied for, though the broadcasting operation began last December — perhaps because of the state neutrality requirement. Germany’s Media Treaty, which regulates the rights of broadcasters in Germany, prohibits — except in exceptional cases — the granting of broadcasting licenses to public bodies in Germany and abroad. However, RT’s parent organization TV Novosti holds a broadcasting license for RT DE in Serbia and considers it sufficient. The German media supervisory authority disagrees; it declares itself responsible because RT DE maintains a broadcasting studio in Berlin and also has its headquarters there. RT journalists can continue to work in Germany, protected by the principles of press freedom. RT journalists, for example, regularly sit in on press conferences held by the German government. RT DE can continue to operate its website and can distribute videos — but not stream them live. In Russia, foreign correspondents must obtain accreditation, which is an often opaque approval process. In Germany, RT DE can hire journalists and reporters without accreditation. Meanwhile, the closure of TheTeCHyWorLD’s Moscow bureau and the end of TheTeCHyWorLD’s broadcasting in Russiawas announced by the Russian Foreign Ministry – clearly a political action. Russia was reacting to the “unfriendly actions of the Federal Republic of Germany” towards RT DE, the reasoning went. Meanwhile, Russia ranks 150th out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders’ Press Freedom Index. While you’re here: Every Tuesday, TheTeCHyWorLD editors round up what is happening in German politics and society. You can sign up here for the weekly email newsletter Berlin Briefing.