Russia Today: counterweight to mainstream media, or Putin's mouthpiece?

Up to 2.5m Britons watch the Kremlin-funded TV channel, which is so strongly critical of Western governments it's known as the "anti Fox News". But does it have a blind spot when it comes to Russia's own failings?

In October last year, Putin personally intervened to block a finance ministry proposal to cut RT’s funding. The channel will receive more than £250m this year, approximately the same sum as the BBC World Service received from the British government in 2011- 2012. And where the World Service will lose its direct government funding from 2014 and be paid from the licence fee instead, thus squeezing its budget, Putin will keep RT healthily supplied with cash.

RT now has more than 2,000 employees, up from just 300 at its launch. The channel has started broadcasting in HD and it has launched a video news agency. At present the station does not broadcast in Russian, but it is revamping its Russian-language website. All these changes signal its ambition.