Some thoughts about comparing/contrasting Russia’s RT to Venezuela’s Telesur.

There are three countries which have both international TV channels and U.S.-oppositional foreign policies: Russia’s RT, Venezuela’s Telesur and Iran’s Press TV.

But what I’ve noticed is that Venezuela’s government is not trying to play both sides of U.S. politics like Russia’s is doing. I’ve never seen any reports of right-wing reactionary activists collaborating with and holding conferences in Venezuela under the auspices of Venezuela’s government. I’ve never seen right-wing conspiracy theorists brought onto Telesur English as guests and correspondents like RT has done frequently.

While RT boasts an ideological grab-bag of American talent like Thom Hartmann, Ed Schultz, Larry King, Max Keiser, Peter Lavelle and Lee Camp, Telesur English boasts consistently American hard-left talent like Abby Martin (who left RT in disagreement with Russia’s annexation of Crimea), Bill Fletcher and Laura Flanders, the types who you’d encounter more often on Free Speech TV.

RT channels their content through live video, on-demand episodes and interviews, and “no-comment” raw footage, while Telesur (which had live video in English for a brief period of less than a year, but may have cut back due to loss of funding) primarily relies on on-demand episodes and “share this” video.

RT has a more economically-stable backing state than Telesur. RT’s politics are somewhat reflective of Putin’s hard-right United Russia Party, while Telesur’s politics are wedded deeply to Maduro’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).

RT combines the visual on-screen graphic sense of Fox News with journalism qualities which are below that of Al Jazeera English, while Telesur may as well be ran out of a basement in Miraflores Palace.

Telesur, like RT, was very critical of Hillary Clinton during the election and boosted Bernie Sanders as the better candidate, but diverged from RT on Trump. Telesur’s English-language posts are vehemently critical of Trump, and may as well have been written by writers from Truth-out or Alternet. RT, by comparison, has boosted Trump.

Telesur, finally, is unique among the power players in international broadcasting – both state-controlled and state-influenced – in that it is situated in the Americas in critical opposition to U.S. foreign and even domestic policy, and is perhaps the most representative international outlet of hard-left politics from the Americas. Telesur is state-controlled, partisan and ideological, which emanates unabashedly in their support for the Cuban regime, their critique of the politics of Israel and Turkey and their overt pro-government bent on Libya and Syria (which brought an end to Telesur’s collaboration agreement with Al-Jazeera). RT, meanwhile, speaks more for Russian interests against U.S. interests with more regard to United Russia’s nationalism and expansionism.

But Telesur also focuses greatly on events in Central and South America in ways that I’m more likely to find from, say, the BBC than from U.S. or other international outlets. I’m more likely to see coverage of Ecuadorian or Peruvian politics from Telesur than I am from U.S. outlets. I think Central and South American politics, especially as they affect Aboriginal and Afro-American interests, should be covered more extensively, and not just the bad, trainwreck stories like impeachments and plane crashes.

If one who is a U.S. citizen is hard-left and U.S.-critical in one’s politics but wants to reach for a more international audience than Free Speech TV or Link TV would allow, I would suggest the more consistent Telesur over the more opportunistic RT.