14 DAY TRIAL // Until the other day, Liz Wahl worked on state-funded Russia Today, the Washington DC bureau, as an anchor. Above is the video of her resignation, which she announced on-air, during a live broadcast.
Wahl is the second reporter to take a stand against Russian President Vladimir Putin’s occupation of Crimea, in Ukraine, and she explains that she could no longer stand to work for a network whose main goal was to “whitewash” everything that Putin did.
By the way, in what can only be deemed the most ironical of scenarios, Putin is nominated for Nobel Peace Prize.
“As a reporter on this network, I face many ethical and moral challenges,” Wahl says as she begins her daily coverage. If you’re thinking “aren’t we all on a day-to-day basis,” just hold on to your horses for one more second: Wahl actually is from Ukraine, so Putin’s military campaign strikes very close to home for her.
“That is why personally I cannot be part of a network funded by the Russian government that whitewashes the actions of Putin. I’m proud to be an American and believe in disseminating the truth and that is why, after this newscast, I’m resigning,” she says.
In a statement to the press, Russia Today calls Wahl a very unprofessional stunt queen who opted to make a spectacle to promote herself, instead of taking her problems to her superiors to see if they could be solved.
Faced with the backlash, Wahl is fighting back saying that, while she knew the network was property of the Russian state, she never imagined she would be witness to such deceit and lies. She’s “ashamed” at having worked there.