Wednesday, March 05, 2014

Mystery Resignation at Russia Today

Fascinating to watch the media strategy of Russian external broadcaster, Russia Today. They do exactly the opposite to what you expect, which is a clever way of promoting the brand amongst the target group in the US. RT has always had clever marketing campaigns. It needs social media because the network always has to make do with being channel 133 or something well down an cable listing, if it is there at all.

Had a US anchor resigned on a major US network because they disagreed with the editorial policy of the station or political events in the country, you would expect the station to erase all trace of that person as soon as possible. It has also happened in Europe when presenters have been involved in some kind of controversy. Russia Today figured that they would be better off publishing the clip of presenter Liz Wahl's resignation. It's even the clip that's been added to Wikipedia, though anyone could have done that.



What I find very strange is that Wahl then goes on to do an interview with Anderson Cooper on CNN from the same RT studio set in Washington DC. If you'd just resigned in the stations I've managed, you would be escorted to the door after an outburst like that. Not left to broadcast your resume to your next employer to rival networks. Which makes me believe this is all theatre.



Update: By far the best analysis is on the media analysis show "No Agenda" with Adam Curry and John C Dvorak. March 6th edition, 20 minutes into the show.




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