If you hate RT and have few informed opinions on Russia, you are probably a SNOB!

Myself and others who like RT’s content, support RT’s right to exist and/or appear on RT and use these appearance to state our personal views and original analysis, frequently defend RT from a geo-political perspective. Of course, these defences are not only valid, but with RT under attack from powerful governmental and multi-million dollar organisations, like those run by George Soros, such defences are increasingly necessary.

But beyond this, there is another trend among both professional RT haters (usually “journalists) trying to kill off competition and amateur RT haters who are merely intoxicated on the MSM narrative and never think to “question more”.

Such people are almost always snobs of one kind or another, but this is rarely mentioned. While RT is often criticised because it receives some state funding, so do most western universities, most reports which are critical of RT and so do some of the world’s biggest broadcasters including the BBC, France 24, Al Jazeera, the CBC and even the deeply anti-RT Australian Broadcasting Company.

But there is a big difference between RT and the others. Put simply, RT has a sense of humour, allows for people who are both guests and employees to be themselves and has a much more casual attitude towards public relations both in respect of its advertising campaigns and in the way guests are invited and welcomed to RT studios.

As someone who has been invited to appear on RT from a variety of people including, Russians, Americans, Brits, Arabs, Italians and I’m sure others, I’ve noticed that all of them are distinctly human. There is no corporate language, which in any case I find indecipherable. Furthermore, when RT contacts me, it is often through a casual social media message rather than a formal letter.

I personally like this, because the modern world simply does not have time for extravagant corporate nomenclature or old fashioned interactions with guests. This modern attitude is pervasive in the style of RT on-air hosts who each speak with a unique voice.

By contrast, turn on CNN or BBC and one can see that each presenter has, in one shape or form, been coached to speak a certain way, say certain things and act in a certain manner. In a world of MSM cookie cutters, I am not only happy but relieved that RT lets people come as they are and act as they please.

RT’s culture is one that lives up to its own ethos of questioning more. RT does not limit its guests to people who live in the same parts of the same cities, drink at the same bars, pray to the same God, dress in the same clothes or think in the same way. When people don psychological uniforms for too long, one becomes little more than a individual known for one’s anonymity. This is one of the great contradictions of the consumer age.

By contrast, RT’s hosts and most of its guests come from a diverse set of backgrounds both in terms of their ideas and also in terms of their personalities. This is an asset that cannot be bought, cannot be coached and cannot be plucked from thin air. It relies on a  relaxed attitude to the human experience which reflects the complex and manifold nature of the world, its past and most likely, its future.

These same features about RT that I consider assets, are scored at by the MSM and those civilians who wear the MSM uniform whether at their local bar, their local church, their local park or even inside their own homes.

Whenever MSM slams RT’s hosts or guests, the attacks are usual personal in nature. ‘Such and such person didn’t attend the right school, doesn’t speak in the right tone, doesn’t use the correct buzzwords and even doesn’t wear the right kind of clothes’. A simple google search or better yet, a conversation with a MSM aficionado in Manhattan, Miami, Paris, London or Berlin, will make this instantly apparent.

Just to be clear, these people are not from a Monty Python sketch or characters on South Park, they are a tiny but vocal mob of elites and wannabe elites who think that  source and its style is ultimately more important than the content. While the truth sets some people free, for such people, regimentation of lifestyle gives one credibility. This is truly the ultimate conclusion to a liberal lifestyle that places no value on humanistic transparency, but worships at the altar of familiar bias.

Beyond laughable assertions that RT guests ranging from professional Russophobe John McCain to Bernie Sanders are “Kremlin puppets”, none of the increasingly frequent hit-pieces on RT from western MSM and their academic cohorts, actually debate or even engage in the content of what is said on RT, whether by employees or by guests.

Why is this? Because that would become an intellectual exercise and they’d rather make a fashion statement. At the end of the day, all snobbery is, is the fetishisation of a fashion statement. It is an attempt to reduce one’s ideas and personal lifestyle into a universal commodity and then shame those who don’t buy into it. It’s good for business…while it lasts and much like a failing business trying new advertising strategies, this is what is going on among the RT haters. If RT was a failure, it wouldn’t be getting this kind of attention, just as the failed Ukraine Today network that was taken off air, was hardly ever discussed, even among those who ostensibly supported its narrative.

Sadly, many so-called journalists are indeed little more than runway models, only instead of the latest dress, its the latest current events narrative which is designed to be consumed and repeated by people with certain lifestyles.

What is great about RT is that RT is not selling a lifestyle, it is selling ideas and offering up various authentic personalities who convey a myriad of these ideas.

To listen to MSM, one would think that everyone at RT is given some sort of masterclass into how to think, act or even dress like Vladimir Putin. This is merely a projection of what goes on in MSM land and I know this as a fact because while I personally have great respect for President Putin and while I commend the job he has done, in Russian politics, my support lies with the opposition LDPR and if it was up to me, there would be many changes to the way Russia is governed, changes that would be as unpopular with the ruling United Russia Party as with western liberals. The MSM brigade truly understand nothing about the personalities and logistical processes involved with RT, at any level.

When it comes to an abundance of foolish pride and damaging prejudice, this lies with the MSM and the culture milieu which makes up its dwindling and ageing demographic.

There are something’s money can’t buy and this is the kind of diversity and authenticity available on RT. For everything else, there’s MSM.