RIA Novosti
In May 1998, the agency was renamed the Russian Information Agency Vesti. As a mass media body, it retained the name of RIA Novosti on April 1, 2004, after making changes in the founding documents. In 2005, RIA Novosti launched RT (originally Russia Today) a global multilingual television news network, which is a government-funded but autonomous, non-profit organization. RIA Novosti asserts that it "merely participated in establishing the channel" which retained "complete legal, editorial and operational independence."