‘Every Single Day We’re Lying’: RT Reporter Resigns Over Coverage of MH17 Crash

For the NY Daily News, Meg Wagner reports:  A Russia Today reporter quit Friday, furious over the way the network covered the Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 crash.

Sara Firth, who was born in the U.K. and has worked for the state-backed TV station since 2009, said Russia Today suggested the Ukrainian government took down the Boeing 777 flying over the country.

Firth, a London-based correspondent for Russia Today, resigned Friday: ‘ tired of lying and telling ‘sexier’ stories’.

“I didn’t want to watch a story like that, where people have lost loved ones and we’re handling it like that.”

London-based reporter is not the first journalist to call the network’s bias into questions — another reporter quit in March over the way Russian management covered riots in neighboring Ukraine.

“It’s great team, so talented. But at the heart of that organization it’s rotten.”

“I couldn’t do it anymore,” she told Buzzfeed. “Every single day we’re lying and finding sexier ways to do it.”

Firth, who first reported Russian government-backed station from Moscow before transferring to the London office, said management put witnesses into the story who specifically blamed Ukraine for the crash.

“The second you start to question or report honestly then you’re a problem.”

One correspondent said a previous plane crash that Ukraine had been involved with was “worth mentioning,” she claimed.

“I didn’t want to watch a story like that, where people have lost loved ones and we’re handling it like that,” she said.

The Thursday disaster killed all 298 people on board. U.S. satellites determined a missile took down the plane, but it’s unclear who fired it.

Firth claimed the news organization has prompted Russian propaganda for years. The network uses young, obedient reporters for big, controversial stories — the less-experienced journalists are more likely to stay on message, she said…(read more)

NY Daily News