A Russia Today reporter based in London has resigned with immediate effect in protest at the station’s coverage of yesterday’s plane crash in Ukraine.

Sara Firth had worked at Russia Today for five years, joining the Russian government-funded station in Moscow straight after doing an MA in journalism at City University in London. She has since been posted in London.

Firth described the Malaysia Airlines flight crash coverage as “the straw that broke the camel’s back for me” and handed in her resignation this morning.

Russia Today has been criticised for suggesting the crash is the fault of Ukraine. Most other media outlets have suggested that a more likely explanation is that pro-Russian separatists were responsible for shooting down the passenger jet. So far it is estimated that around 300 people died in the crash.

“Yesterday when the story broke you get the kick in your stomach when you’re going to get the facts and it’s this huge story,” she told Press Gazette.

“And I walked into the newsroom and they were running an eye-witness account of God-knows who the person was blaming the Ukrainian government, and it is such a volatile situation.”

Firth, who told Press Gazette in an interview in 2012 that facts are her “religion”, said: “I said it then, if I was asked to burn the facts and not tell the truth I’d be a goner, and so I’m gone...

“And it’s the level of disrespect for the facts that really bugs me.

“And so I made my decision yesterday when we started covering the story and this morning woke up and I just knew that I can’t go back in any more.”

She added: “The thing is once I made the decision, you have to be honest with yourself and it’s so difficult.... Once you start telling the truth it’s brutal.”

Firth said that rule one of the Russia Today style guide is to blame Ukraine, or anything else, rather than Russia. “It’s scary that it’s genuine RT guidance on how to do a story, and you have to believe it to succeed there. You stop believing that what they say is the way it is and you stop being useful to them...

“It’s not a nice organisation either.”

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/russia-today-london-correspondent-resigns-protest-disrespect-facts-over-malaysian-plane-crash