On March 5, RT news anchor Liz Wahl resigned on air in protest of her network’s coverage of the Ukrainian crisis. Her resignation sent a shockwave throughout the media and revealed the subtle alliance that the corporate media has throughout our national discourse by catering to corporate America and shutting out alternative views.
RT is basically the BBC of Russia and is currently the second-most watched foreign news outlet after BBC World Service. Although RT does reflect the views of Russia, it doesn’t necessarily mean they are the 21st  century Pravda.
Students should be supportive of alternative voices in America regardless of their origins. RT brings up issues that affect Americans more often than Fox News or CNN. While MSNBC interrupts a former Congresswoman talking about the NSA PRISM program to bring in the “utter important news” of Justin Bieber’s DUI, RT aired half a dozen shows which talked about government corruption, corporate crimes and collusion with the state, the drug war and government surveillance.
Last week, RT was part of a media and viral blitz when “Breaking the Set” host Abby Martin closed her show with a clarification that just because she works for RT doesn’t mean she cannot criticize Russia, and she proved it by condemning Russia’s military intervention in the Crimea.
The fact that RT didn’t fire Abby Martin for criticizing Russian foreign policy is telling. When Martin was invited on CNN’s “Piers Morgan Live,” she criticized the corporate mainstream media and stated that RT’s bias for promoting Russian foreign policy isn’t unique compared to the corporate media bias in supporting the political and social establishment of the United States.
She made it clear that RT was the only major news organization in the U.S. in which she could be free to criticize corporate                                            America without repercussions.
Leading up to the Iraq War, criticism of the Bush Administration was minuscule at best. The only two journalists who spoke out, Peter Arnett of NBC and Phil Donahue of MSNBC, were fired. This was not a surprising outcome because both NBC and MSNBC were owned by General Electric, which is one of the largest defense contractors. War is profitable for General Electric, so criticism of the war was unacceptable.
Another dark example of corporate censorship that affected people’s health was when Fox News fired reporters Steve Wilson and Jane Akre because they were trying to air a story about cancer-causing milk. Monsanto was one of Fox News’ largest advertisers and sent a fax which stated “there would be dire consequences for Fox News” if the story aired.
This flies in the face of people who believe the media has a left- wing bias. If it did, then Arnett and Donahue wouldn’t have been alone or fired leading up to the Iraq War.
The sad truth is the corporate media in our nation censors stories and ideas that go against the elite narrative. The elite control the media, whether through direct ownership or through advertising.
Even though RT caters to a Russian worldview, it draws                      attention to the lack of diverse and critical news our country has. Criticism of the government surveillance programs and aggressive foreign policy is limited to critics on YouTube, alternative fringe outlets and student papers.
It is telling that the most critical news of U.S. government policy comes from foreign media instead of our own.  
Students should care about how the six media conglomerates are ganging up on RT. RT is one of the few well-funded alternative media outlets that gives voice to grassroots ideas from libertarians to anarchists.
It’s time to focus our criticism of RT on our own media conglomerates that  have polluted the American psyche to care only about consumerism, capitalism and terrorism and to ignore the wealth gap, government surveillance and endless wars.  
Joshua Hajiakbarifini is a 24-year-old political science and economics senior from Baton Rouge.