"When the media turns into the voice of the people, especially in the voice of revolutionaries, there are those people and the media, who will judge them and falsify the truth," Morales told RT. "This media is the voice of the developing countries, the voice of the peoples of the world, and it deserves our admiration."
Despite smear campaigns, misrepresentation of facts, and outright lies, such media should continue their work to give the microphone to the peoples of the world, added the Bolivian head of state.
His comments follow statements made last week by the CEO of the US Broadcasting Board of Governors (BBG), Andrew Lack, who labelled RT as one of the main challenges to his agency, along with radical militant groups such as the Islamic State (IS) and Boko Haram.
The statements have already prompted a backlash, with the vice chair of the Society of Professional Journalists' Ethics Committee, Fred Brown, saying that RT's broadcasting should not have been assessed by the US BBG based on uninformed assumptions, and asserting that in the US, such reporting is a Constitutionally-protected form of free speech.
Fred Brown stressed that alternative reporting is an important element of the open exchange of views protected in the United Stated by the First Amendment.
Fwd: @GovJVentura: Comparing RT to ISIS? Big Brother should NOT be telling us what to watch: http://t.co/UEMY5z9hQl/s/bVDP #NewsIsNotTerror
— Robert W. Birdsall (@RWBirdsall) 30 января 2015
The statements triggered an online campaign under the hashtag #NewsIsNotTerror, which supports the channel and has spoken out against the ridiculous claims.
RT's leadership has already announced that it would send letters to the BBG, the US State Department and the US Embassy in Russia demanding an explanation why the channel was compared to IS extremists.emists.
