Russia Today reporter resigns in protest at MH17 coverage

Sara Firth criticises Kremlin-backed news channel’s ‘disrespect for facts’ in reports about Malaysia Airlines plane disaster

John Plunkett
theguardian.com, Friday 18 July 2014 09.31 EDT

Sara Firth has resigned as London correspondent for Russia Today over coverage of the MH17 plane disaster.

A London-based correspondent of Kremlin-funded news channel Russia Today has resigned in protest at its coverage of the shooting down of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.

Sara Firth, who worked at Russia Today for five years, described the channel’s reporting of the crash in which 298 people were killed, including a former BBC journalist, as the “straw that broke the camel’s back”.

Russia Today, which has been criticised as a propaganda mouthpiece for the Russian government, suggested Ukraine was to blame for the crash, while most media organisations have said it was shot down by a suspected Russian-made missile.

“It was the most shockingly obvious misinformation and it got to the point where I couldn’t defend it any more,” Firth told the Guardian.

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