The News Minute| July 19, 2014| 12.30pm IST
Another reporter has quit from Russia Today, this time protesting the coverage of the latest Malaysian Airlines crash that took place in Ukraine. Sara Firth has been working with Russia Today for five years now and was posted in London.
Firth has described the channel’s Malaysia Airlines flight crash coverage as “the straw that broke the camel’s back for me”. She handed over her resignation on Friday. The channel, which is funded by the Russian government, has been widely criticized for blaming the Ukrainian government for the crash.
Other media outlets said that a more reasonable explanation is that pro-Russian separatists, who are fighting the Ukraine government forces, shot down the passenger jet killing around 298 people.
Firth said to Press Gazette - “ I walked into the newsroom and they were running an eye-witness account of God-knows who the person was blaming the Ukrainian government, and it is such a volatile situation.”
Firth says that she made her decision to quit with immediate effect, after she was asked to cover the story like the channel told her to on Thursday. She said – “…this morning woke up and I just knew that I can’t go back in anymore.”
Russia Today has responded to Firth’s resignation by saying that the channel and Firth have different definitions of truth. Firth has said that one rule that Russia Today follows is to blame Ukraine or any other country other than itself.
The firm has said that Sara informed them earlier of resigning, after she got an offer from another firm. Further on the crash, a spokesperson said - "The plane crash is an absolutely terrible tragedy, there are a lot of questions that surround it and everybody is looking for answers. More than 15 RT journalists are working on this story – from Moscow, from the Russian-Ukrainian border, London, Berlin, Washington. RT Spanish journalist Francisco Guaita was one of the first TV correspondents to get to the scene late last night; our reporters are in Netherlands and in Malaysia”.
Recently a Russia Today anchor Liz Wahl resigned live on air.