An ad featuring Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's image superimposed over an image of U.S. President Barack Obama and asking "Who poses the greater nuclear threat?" has been rejected by U.S. airports, including those in the D.C. area.
According to Russia Today, U.S. airports also rejected a version with the presidents' eyes and mouths blacked out and including the text, "To see the uncensored version, go to RT.com."
An even more censored ad displayed in New York, Newark, Baltimore and Washington scraps the image of the presidents and the image of the presidents and simply reads, "Our ad. Politically correct. For original version please visit www.rt.com," under the Russia Today logo.
The ad is part of a series by Russia Today, a channel established by the Russian government in 2005 that generally lauds Russian leaders and derides Americanism -- for those of you who miss the Cold War.
RT advertisements juxtapose provocative images which show different sides of a story. We ask questions and encourage viewers to question more, since you can only reach a balanced judgment by being better informed. By challenging the accepted view, we reveal a side of the news that you wouldn't normally see. After all, the more you question, the more you know.
Russia's trying "to create a new post-Soviet global propaganda empire," the Guardian suggests.
"What we see as black and white might not be black and white. It's making people question their own stereotypes," Margarita Simonyan, RT's 29-year-old editor-in-chief, explains. "We offer an alternative to the mainstream view."
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The campaign also includes a gun over video camera ("Which is the more powerful weapon?"), an alien over a polar bear ("Climate change: Science fact or science fiction?"), a Muslim soldier over a Western soldier ("Is terror only inflicted by terrorists?") and a policeman over a demonstrator ("Who is more dangerous?").
