Those Who Can’t Do: Russia’s RT Launches ‘Journalism Courses’ on ‘How to Detect Fakes’
By McKenzie Sadeghi and Eva Maitland
What happened: Russian state-run media outlet RT (Trust Score: 20/100) announced on April 8, 2025, that “300 media professionals from all over the world” have enrolled in its English-language international journalism training course.
A closer look: RT says the course will take place from April 7 to May 16 and will offer workshops on “how to develop and craft engaging news” and “how to detect fakes and ways to verify sources” from experts. RT said the workshops also enable participants to “join RT’s global news family” and receive an RT media certificate.
NewsGuard has found that the academy’s “experts” include sources who regularly spread disinformation.
One is Moscow-based Irish commentator and RT correspondent Chay Bowes who has advanced 23 provably false narratives about the Russia-Ukraine war identified by NewsGuard in our Misinformation Fingerprints database.
Another academy “expert” is RT’s managing director Alexey Nikolov, who was sanctioned by the U.K. for spreading Russian propaganda about the war.
Context: The academy was launched in February 2024 for journalists in Asia, expanded to cover Africa in September 2024, and is now targeting English-language speakers in the U.S. and Europe.
Disinformation specialists say that the course is aimed at promoting Russia’s interests abroad.
In an April 9, 2025, X post, Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation said, “RT’s courses — yet another tool in Russia's information warfare. The goal of such educational initiatives — to draw foreign professionals into the Russian media space. This will help build a network of journalists loyal to the Kremlin.”
Addressing Russia’s Africa-focused curriculum, Joseph Siegle, director of research at the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, an academic institute within the U.S. Department of Defense, told NewsGuard in a September 2024 email: “It is highly unlikely that this is an authentic journalism course. This sort of journalism training does resemble other Russian efforts to try and woo African voices to provide more favorable coverage of Moscow on the continent and to parrot Russian talking points.”
RT receives a 20/100 Trust Score from NewsGuard. The site has repeatedly published false or egregiously misleading information, including the false claim that Ukraine is developing bioweapons with the support of the U.S. and that the Red Cross is involved in children’s organ trafficking. NewsGuard has found that RT’s English, French, German and Spanish affiliates have advanced a total of 116 false claims.