Alexey Nikolov published his first article aged
13, gathered experience in sports journalism
and as news anchor and reporter covered some
of the most important events of the '90s for
Russia’s first independent radio station, Echo of
Moscow. Now a seasoned TV journalist, winner
of industry awards and professor at Moscow
University, he is Managing Director of
international news network RT. On the day the
channel reached 1bn views on YouTube we asked
him whether the broadcast mission has changed
nitially when we launched
in 2005 – I joined in the same
year ‐ the basic idea was to
bring more news about
Russia, give the viewers a
Russian perspective. Now
we are talking more about
an alternative perspective of global
events and the most pressing social
and political issues. In line with
that visible shift in our mission we
have changed our name from
Russia Today to RT.
Over the last eight years we have
had to earn our place among the
well respected broadcasters that
had been considered majors for
decades. Now Iʹd like to believe
that we are one of the "new majors".
How can RT compete with
increasing competition?
Competition is healthy for the
consumer. There was already tough
competition from lots of channels
when we entered the market. Every
time you are reporting a story you
are trying to be different – either by
being the first, or the most
comprehensive, or by trying to be
more versatile, covering story
angles that the audience is not
getting on other channels.
I
Our advantage is having one of
the youngest teams of journalists in
the entire world of global news TV.
Social networking and blogging
and micro blogging is an integral
part of their lives and they relate
much better to the younger
audience. And the younger
audience is a growing audience. We
all have to face that.
I donʹt think we would be as
successful as we are had we not
had a multinational newsroom. We
are a small model of todayʹs world,
and Iʹd like to think that we
represent the new face of Russia
which is multinational, open,
creative, looking towards the
future.
We live in a world where the
person who wants information can
get all sorts of information
everywhere. News is incorporeal
and we expect it to be present at
any given moment of time, in any
place. That is pretty much the
definition of God in “The City of
God” by St. Augustine. We have
reached the stage where we treat
information as the new god. You
cannot compete with a god but you
can interpret a god. Thatʹs what we
are trying to do.
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