‘It’s Ruptly, I’m not tweeting it’: Yahoo WH correspondent ridiculed for not sharing LIVESTREAM from protest because it’s RUSSIAN

A Yahoo journalist refused to share a livestream from a Washington protest with his followers simply because it was from RT’s Ruptly video agency. When ridiculed over it, he implied that the criticism was paid for with rubles.

Hunter Walker, Yahoo’s White House correspondent, was looking for live coverage from the Washington protests on Thursday, so he asked his followers if there was a livestream. One was quickly suggested, but the journalist found it problematic.

“It’s Ruptly so I am not tweeting it,” he said. “Be careful with what you Tweet. Ruptly is state owned Russian media.”

The idea that his followers aren’t mature enough to judge for themselves events filmed by a Russian-owned camera was ridiculed by some commenters.

But Walker was not dissuaded. Singling out the Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal, he ‘outed’ him as a “Russian state media contributor” who popped up to defend them, presumably for money. “Rubles well spent!” he wrote.

Blumenthal is a vocal critic of US government policies and has regularly appeared as a guest on RT.

Another journalist who Walker accused of “defending RT” is Mark Ames, best known for his work for ‘The eXile’, a newspaper for expats living in Moscow. Replying to Ames’ accusation of bias, the Yahoo reporter said he is regularly critical of the US government and partisan media, noting that he has issues with “RT, Fox and OANN,” but for some reason not with, say, MSNBC or the New York Times.

This small exchange on Twitter seems emblematic of a larger culture of dismissive and even paranoid attitudes among Western journalists towards all things Russian.

The protests in the US capital were part of a nationwide wave of demonstrations against police brutality, triggered by the death of George Floyd, a black man. Four Minneapolis police officers have been fired and face charges including second-degree murder.

The cops were filmed arresting Floyd, with one of them pinning the man to the ground with his knee on his neck as he was groaning and telling the officer he could not breath.

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